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[locust]

Hi I would like to suggest that column expressions get updated to have the same flow as view expressions.

i.e. Expression to group by (Maybe not group by in this instance as it's a file per file basis, some other name though) & Expression to display

I have a few columns such as
if(isempty([Number Plays]),,⩥[Number Plays]) (The square being a little arrow type symbol making it easier to see that the column is playcount)
if(isequal([Album Artist],[Artist], 8),,replace([Artist],;,/ &))

By having the same flow as view expressions these columns could be tagged by hitting F2 but still display something a little more complex than the standard field. It would make it much better since now we can edit play count and use <font> in columns

Right now we all loose tagging functionality when using these features.

Here is hoping
Thanks

[MrC]

When you have an expression column with multiple fields, which field should get edited?

[locust]

I suppose in those instance where more than one field resides in the expression to group by, then tagging would be impossible unless you can think of a nice solution.

But in this instance, I have an album artist column and an artist column, this expression outputs nothing if the artist is the same as the album artist making the screen look a little less cluttered.
It would only be one field
expression to groupby (or whatever word)
[Artist]

Expression to display.
if(isequal([Album Artist],[Artist], 8),,replace([Artist],;,/ &))

I can think of a few instances where this might be useful but I haven't tinkered with multiple fields in a column, so admittedly I missed that.

[MrC]

I've wished there was a keen way to do a similar thing, but I can believe it would be complex and perhaps not often used.

I have a Disc # / Track # expression field and column, which I label as D-T.  This allows me to show Disc # and Track # in the shortest amount of space, while still seeing a full, meaningful header.  But in this column, cells cannot be edited, so I just use the Tag Action Window instead.  I suppose what I really want is a way to merge two headers for two individual library field columns (that would be the best of both worlds).

[locust]

I think I may have thought of a solution, it might be fraught with some unforeseen circumstances though.

If a expression column did have expression to group by & expression to display, I'm assuming that for whatever reason multiple fields would always be in the same order i.e.

	expression to group	expression to display
Like this	[field 1] [Field 2]	[Field 1] [Field 2]
But never like this	[Field 1] [Field 2]	[Field 2] [Field 1]

I can't think of any reason atm why someone would want the order to change otherwise. If this woudn't negate too much from the core programming of mc, then I don't see why not. Could we then use as special delimiter to switch tag fields when tagging in a column? I'm not sure what is possible for MC to pick up but something along the lines of Some stuff Field 1~;Some stuff Field 2 Possible? Edit Or maybe it would be better for such an instance, that the cell could subdivide temporarily for you to enter your values I may be clutching straws here but just my thoughts

[MrC]

I think you're using your own case or two as representative.  There are many expression columns that are too complex for such a scheme, and they don't follow your presumed ordering.  I have some expressions which use many fields, and the order of the used fields throughout them varies to best suit the logic flow.

Here's one column:

Code: [Select]

If([AllSameSeries], <font alpha="50">Delimit(TVInfo(SeasonEpisode))<//font>[Name]Delimit(Watched(2), , / ), TVInfo(NameDisplay)Delimit(Watched(2), , / )) <font alpha="50">TVInfo(DateNoTime)</font>
Should only Name be editable?  It doesn't really make sense here, since Episode, Season, Series, Number of Plays and Last Played are all indirectly related and used too.

Or this one:

Code: [Select]

[artist] \ [album] if (! isequal (firstnotempty ([conductor, 0], [orchestra, 0], [album artist, 0], empty), empty), / (firstnotempty ([conductor, 0], [orchestra , 0], [album artist, 0]) /))
Should artist, album, conductor, orchestra, and album artist all be editable from within this single column?  Seems peculiar to me.

I can't think of a general purpose scheme that can be devised to make the program more useful, especially given that you can add columns to the file list, or use the Tag Action Window.

Anyway, just my thoughts.