Topic: NEW: Artist and Genre as list fields (Read 25957 times)

vagskal · « **Reply #50 on:** January 27, 2012, 11:18:01 am »

Off topic: Is it possible to have two different builds of v. 17 installed on the same PC and how is this done? I am concerned about these changes and would like to test more (how relational fields act etc), but I have several new albums that I want to import and tag with build .75 during the weekend.

glynor · « **Reply #51 on:** January 27, 2012, 11:21:47 am »

You could probably pull it off with 0.75 as a portable install.

Alex B · « **Reply #52 on:** January 27, 2012, 11:36:01 am »

A portable install should be fine for testing this. I don't think the few known problems or differences in the portable install can affect the tagging and view behavior.

After creating a portable install you could start by restoring my test library and importing (or relinking) the small test samples:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=138CA589C542AEEE&id=138CA589C542AEEE%21219#

Alex B · « **Reply #53 on:** January 27, 2012, 12:01:45 pm »

Quote from: Alex B on January 27, 2012, 11:10:28 am

Perhaps MC should ignore & preserve a "YEAR" file tag by default and write it only if a user defined custom YEAR library field exists and contains a value (actually this seems to be how it has worked until now). I.e. MC should handle it like any foreign tag.

I was wrong. I tested the build 75. It can read a YEAR tag to a Year library field, but when it writes tags a YEAR tag is removed (at least a date change, which I tested, causes this to happen.)

So my suggestion would be:

YEAR > no special treatment - use it as any custom field if defined by the user.
DATE > four digit year
JR_DATE > if more than year (so day / time), store, otherwise remove (i.e. use the internal precise date code in this field)

vagskal · « **Reply #54 on:** January 27, 2012, 12:08:03 pm »

Thanks guys!

I can see now that it seems to be the ISO-8859-1 char encoding in mp3 files that is having an issue with converting / to ; in the genre field (Pop/Rock => Pop; Rock and AC/DC => AC; DC). (Being able to see the char encoding in MC would help.)

PS. I made a .77 portable install, but I could not figure out how to restore my .75 library in the .77 portable install. When the restore in .77 was completed and MC needed to restart, the .75 build would start.

Alex B · « **Reply #55 on:** January 27, 2012, 12:37:46 pm »

Quote from: vagskal on January 27, 2012, 12:08:03 pm

I made a .77 portable install, but I could not figure out how to restore my .75 library in the .77 portable install. When the restore in .77 was completed and MC needed to restart, the .75 build would start.

This is one of the (more or less) known issues with the portable install. The settings restore part does not work. The restored settings go to Windows registry and will be used by the regular install. The library is restored correctly and a restart is not needed when just the library is restored.

Currently the only way to back up and restore only the settings of a portable install is to copy the two ini files from [portable install location]\Application Data\J River\Media Center 17\Settings\. This is probably a good thing because at least various file paths in a backup file from a regular install would be incorrect for a portable install.

An easy way to back up a portable install is to simply copy the complete "portable install location" folder structure.

This would be less confusing if the "restore settings" checkbox would be unchecked and greyed out when the install is portable.

vagskal · « **Reply #56 on:** January 27, 2012, 12:44:27 pm »

Thanks, Alex, for the explanation! I just noticed what a restart of the primary .75 build did to my library. I will use the portable .77 install with your test library settings and just manually copy the views, expressions, smartlists and custom fields I need for testing to the .77 portable install.

darichman · « **Reply #57 on:** January 27, 2012, 05:28:17 pm »

This change excites me greatly - thank you JRiver!!

I'm not sure I can help much with the tag side of things, as I don't use any other programs for audio and have little knowledge of the internal tag structure. I'm happy with any system which works transparently within MC and that seems to be the case at the moment.

- Artist images is working perfectly for me as far as I can tell.
- Relations are only for the first Artist listed, but I think this is probably the best way to handle it.

Again, thanks for the change. I'm now going to go ahead and delete some of my custom list fields

JimH · « **Reply #58 on:** January 27, 2012, 05:36:30 pm »

Quote from: darichman on January 27, 2012, 05:28:17 pm

... I'm now going to go ahead and delete some of my custom list fields

You might want to wait a few builds until things settle down. The fields could turn out to be good backups of your data.

MrC · « **Reply #59 on:** January 27, 2012, 06:53:15 pm »

I'm starting to dabble here, changing artists to lists.

If I select "Brian Eno & J. Peter Schwalm" in a panes view, and then change artist to "Brian Eno; J. Peter Schwalm", the focus is lost in the pane. Would it be possible to set the focus to/select ~~the first item from the just updated artist list (i.e. Brian Eno) whenever the previously entry (i.e. Brian Eno & J. Peter Schwalm) disappears? I can see that this might be too esoteric.~~

... the previous item in the pane? I can see the above won't work much of the time.

darichman · « **Reply #60 on:** January 27, 2012, 10:04:40 pm »

Quote from: JimH on January 27, 2012, 05:36:30 pm

You might want to wait a few builds until things settle down. The fields could turn out to be good backups of your data.

True, however a lot of them are calculated fields based on the existing fields anyway.

I will hold off. But am liking how it's all working so far (and how quickly Matt seems to have pulled it off)

vagskal · « **Reply #61 on:** January 28, 2012, 06:29:22 am »

I tried the .78 build out (as a portable install). As a side note: The portable install of .77 did not find the .78 build. It reported that the .77 build was the latest. - I noticed that the thumbnail text for the stock Artists view was set to [Date (year)][New Line][Name]. The year bit did not look nice.

1. The flac YEAR issue is fixed.

2. With mp3 files with ID3v2.3 and ISO-8859-1 char encoding MC still replaces / with ;, Pop/Rock => Pop; Rock.

3. Search is not working well at the moment.
a) Clicking on the small arrow next to a list finds nothing. Ideally all files that contain all the items, irrespective of the order of items, should be found. Maybe it is just a matter of stripping the ;s from the search box.
b) It is no longer possible to search for ; in list fields ([Genre]=";"). It should be possible to search for files with more than one item in a list field.

4. I found a workaround for creating a custom calculated data list type field with list edit type. Create the custom field first as a user data field and close the Manage Library Fields window and reopen it. Then make the field a calculated data field.

5. Relational fields seems to work fine. Well done!
a) The only issue I found was this strange one: Set a relational value for a primary artist. Add another artist with / in his name, like AC/DC, that has no relational value and reorder so that artist becomes the primary artist and he inherits the relational value from the former primary artist.
b) I would prefer an option to not set a value in a relational field if the target field contains a list. The reason for this is that Logitech Media Server is not respecting the order of items in a tag, or the order of multiple tags. The relational field could then be misleading in LMS if there is more than one item.

6. With the .78 build the Country field is written to ID3v2.3 mp3 files as a ;, not NULL, delimited list.

7. The [Album Artist (auto)] logic seems to need some fine tuning.
a) Even though the primary artist is the same for all tracks in an album there are multiple [Album Artist (auto)] entries, one for each different secondary artist, i.e. they are treated as separate albums.
b) Reversing the order of artist items for just one track makes the album a multiple artists album.

Perhaps Mood and Style also should be made into list type fields, and why not support Theme as well.

EpF · « **Reply #62 on:** January 31, 2012, 11:29:04 am »

Quote from: Matt on January 25, 2012, 12:41:24 pm

I think for editing (in-place or panes), artist and genre should work like they've always worked. The pane will be single-select, and you would use 'New value' and type with semicolons to enter a list.

Slightly off topic - I would love to see this added in some way to all list-type fields. Before MC shipped with a 'Country' field, I made one myself. Now I have no control over what type of field it is, but I do *not* want it to be a list-type field - but only for tagging reasons. I never had to de-tag one country in order to change a photograph's country before and I don't like having to do it now.

Would it be possible to add a check-box within the field-setup dialogue box that would turn on or off this type of tagging behaviour for list-type fields?

vagskal · « **Reply #63 on:** February 04, 2012, 10:48:09 am »

These issues are still there in the .82 build.

Quote from: vagskal on January 28, 2012, 06:29:22 am

2. With mp3 files with ID3v2.3 and ISO-8859-1 char encoding MC still replaces / with ;, Pop/Rock => Pop; Rock.

3. Search is not working well at the moment.
a) Clicking on the small arrow next to a list finds nothing. Ideally all files that contain all the items, irrespective of the order of items, should be found. Maybe it is just a matter of stripping the ;s from the search box.
b) It is no longer possible to search for ; in list fields ([Genre]=";"). It should be possible to search for files with more than one item in a list field.

6. With the .78 build the Country field is written to ID3v2.3 mp3 files as a ;, not NULL, delimited list.

Issue no. 2 for the Genre field prevents me from letting this build loose on my regular library. MC displays upon import "Pop; Rock" instead of "Pop/Rock" and if the tags are written back from MC to the file, the "/" in the file tag is replaced by NULL.

I have not re-checked the [Album Artist (auto)] logic.

Matt · « **Reply #64 on:** February 04, 2012, 11:01:02 am »

In ID3v2.3, / is the delimiter.

So according to the spec, Pop/Rock is two genres in a list.

You could use Pop\Rock or Pop Rock instead.

vagskal · « **Reply #65 on:** February 04, 2012, 11:28:42 am »

Quote from: Matt on February 04, 2012, 11:01:02 am

In ID3v2.3, / is the delimiter.

So according to the spec, Pop/Rock is two genres in a list.

You could use Pop\Rock or Pop Rock instead.

Hmm. As far as I can tell "/" in the mp3 file tag is treated by MC as a delimiter only when importing into the Genre tag/field, not in the new stock list fields or in a custom list field. I am not advocating that "/" in those tags/fields should be treated as a delimiter, but rather that the Genre field should work as the other fields. Or could " / ", not "/", be used as a delimiter?

Matt · « **Reply #66 on:** February 04, 2012, 11:35:44 am »

Quote from: vagskal on February 04, 2012, 11:28:42 am

Hmm. As far as I can tell "/" in the mp3 file tag is treated by MC as a delimiter only when importing into the Genre tag/field, not in the new stock list fields or in a custom list field. I am not advocating that "/" in those tags/fields should be treated as a delimiter, but rather that the Genre field should work as the other fields. Or could " / ", not "/", be used as a delimiter?

Currently in ID3v2.3, we import / as a delimiter, except for artist.

I'm fine switching this so that only NULL is imported as the delimiter, for ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4. That's how we're writing it, so I guess it makes sense.

vagskal · « **Reply #67 on:** February 04, 2012, 11:38:08 am »

Quote from: Matt on February 04, 2012, 11:35:44 am

I'm fine switching this so that only NULL is imported as the delimiter, for ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4. That's how we're writing it, so I guess it makes sense.

Yes, please! Provided that ; in the file tag is also interpreted as a delimiter, just as before.

MusicHawk · « **Reply #68 on:** February 05, 2012, 01:09:55 pm »

As perspective on this topic, I had the same need years ago in my MC music library, so I created an workaround using Keywords for multiple Genres, and using custom field Artists to list all the notable performers on a recording. Comparing this "perfect" (for me) solution to the new changes...

Allowing a list for Genre is nice, lots of music fits into multiple genres. I'll likely adopt it for the main genres, but still use Keywords for many other ways I categorize tracks.

But using a list for Artist seems like a can of worms, for several reasons, starting with the potential for semi-colons. (I'll search for semi-colons in this field, just in case...)

I don't think the use of a list of artists is as "special case" as it might seem. In my library of 80K tracks spanning every type of music, more than half are appropriately tagged with multiple artists.

My solution, devised years ago, is to use a custom Artists field to list all performers. I get the same result but with complete control and precision. And, I still have an important use for the default Artist field, which I hope the new change won't mess up.

I use Artist as the field that contains the exact artist name as stated on the original recording. This is then displayed when the track is playing. I don't use it to group, sort, select or whatever, just to show the listener the correct and complete name of the performer/group. For instance, across a few years of recording the same singer and band might be listed on record labels in multiple ways; my use of Artist lets me show the correct name for each recording. (Example: Benny Goodman & His Orchestra, Peggy Lee Vocal; Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee; Peggy Lee with Benny Goodman & His Orchestra.)

I then use custom field Artists to list all the performer names in a standard format (the same for every track the artist is on, regardless of the artist/group as originally written), so I can directly select all the recordings by this artist. (For example, tracks with any of the different Artist names above would all be tagged as "Goodman, Benny; Lee, Peggy". Another example: Paul McCartney, Wings, and The Beatles when Paul is lead singer are all Artists tagged with his name, "McCartney, Paul", but also tagged "Wings" or "Beatles" as appropriate.)

My Artists field has all names as Last, First (group names are also standardized to always be the same, and omit articles), mainly accessed in a custom Artists view that top-level groups by first letter. As a list-type field it's easy to tag, selecting multiple artists as desired. For example, The Sound Of Silence is tagged as "Garfunkle, Art;Simon, Paul;Simon & Garfunkle" -- so the same song appears in my Artists view under all three names. This is enormously useful in every music genre, because artists often performed in a variety of groups and even with a variety of names.

Please note that I am reliant on custom list-type fields (I use several) and efficient keyboard tagging (my library will be growing by many thousands of tracks, ripped from vinyl, all added and tagged manually). Manual adding and tagging of this magnitude requires very efficient keyboard work, so I do all my music tagging with MC 15.0.122, in my opinion the last keyboard-efficient tagging version of MC. (The next version added forced-search to tagging, which drives me crazy; I can't find any way to be fast and efficient with it. My tags don't have anything I need to search for; I just want to directly jump through the complete list by typing, then select. Pane-tagging is not practical for me with more than 30 fields per track, and also not keyboard friendly.) I use MC17 for music playback, for photos (but would prefer MC 15.0.122 tagging behavior), and for video.

syndromeofadown · « **Reply #69 on:** February 05, 2012, 10:29:13 pm »

This change is great.

I, and many others, have been waiting for this since the artist images feature was added.
Until now i have been using an Artists list field but it doesn't work with artist images.
I just switched my views to use artist and everything works perfect.

I don't think using a list for artist is a can of worms, because its a default setting in most audio software.
It will make the move from other software much easier for the average user.
I imagine default views will be more compatible with peoples music libraries now too.

It would be interesting to know how many people actually use expressions and custom fields.
No one i know does, so this makes things a lot easier for them.

Thanks JRiver

StFeder · « **Reply #70 on:** February 06, 2012, 02:48:34 am »

Sorry, I don't get it... ?

Where can I switch between List-Typ edit and normal edit for Artist/Genre field? And what will be the visible change using list type?! I don't see any difference for me?!

wig · « **Reply #71 on:** February 06, 2012, 08:14:45 am »

I think this is a positive step forward, especially from the Genre side of things.

One question: My understanding is that when last.fm tracks that are included in Play Doctor, Genre tag info is used in the selection process. Will this now include all Genre tag info, or just the primary entry?

winniew · « **Reply #72 on:** February 06, 2012, 11:29:20 am »

I just tried it:
Last.fm uses the new artist-field tagged as "Joshua Redman Quartet; Brad Mehldau" as one artist which is rather senseless for me.
I would like to scrobble only the primary artist i.e. "Joshua Redman Quartet".

My file-rename-rule for the directories with [album artist (auto)]\[album]\ also doesn't work as expected.

So for me this is no step forward, I will use my user library field "Artists" as List and use the new artist-field tagged as before.

Matt · « **Reply #73 on:** February 06, 2012, 11:34:59 am »

Quote from: winniew on February 06, 2012, 11:29:20 am

My file-rename-rule for the directories with [album artist (auto)]\[album]\ also doesn't work as expected.

I think it's reasonable to store stuff under the primary's artist folder. So next build:
Changed: When building a filename from file information, only the primary / first artist or genre will be used from a list.

Matt · « **Reply #74 on:** February 06, 2012, 11:35:22 am »

Quote from: vagskal on February 04, 2012, 11:38:08 am

Yes, please! Provided that ; in the file tag is also interpreted as a delimiter, just as before.

Next build:
Changed: ID3v2 tag reading doesn't treat / as a delimiter in ID3v2.3, but instead uses NULL as the delimiter for reading and writing in ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4.

vagskal · « **Reply #75 on:** February 06, 2012, 01:19:51 pm »

Quote from: Matt on February 06, 2012, 11:35:22 am

Next build:
Changed: ID3v2 tag reading doesn't treat / as a delimiter in ID3v2.3, but instead uses NULL as the delimiter for reading and writing in ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4.

Thanks! And I do hope that ; in the file tag is still read as a delimiter (how else would I get my existing lists in the file tags into the new stock list fields).

Are you considering introducing a way to search for list fields with more than one item, i.e. search for ; as displayed by MC?

For the stock fields that are now list fields and can have relationships I think we could use new stock fields like [Artist (Primary Artist)].

Matt · « **Reply #76 on:** February 06, 2012, 01:24:09 pm »

Quote from: vagskal on February 06, 2012, 01:19:51 pm

Are you considering introducing a way to search for list fields with more than one item, i.e. search for ; as displayed by MC?

You could create a column or calculated field like:
ListCount([Artist])

vagskal · « **Reply #77 on:** February 06, 2012, 01:51:22 pm »

Quote from: Matt on February 06, 2012, 01:24:09 pm

You could create a column or calculated field like:
ListCount([Artist])

Thanks for the reply and listening/reading!

Yes, I know but you told me in another thread, as I interpreted it, not to create too many calculated fields as this could decrease performance...

And I thought you had to fix the "little arrow search" with the new list stock fields any way... (An underline marked hyperlink appearing when hoovering over each individual item in the grid would be cool/useful.)

Osho · « **Reply #78 on:** February 06, 2012, 07:12:13 pm »

Quote from: Matt on February 06, 2012, 11:34:59 am

I think it's reasonable to store stuff under the primary's artist folder. So next build:
Changed: When building a filename from file information, only the primary / first artist or genre will be used from a list.

Great - thanks. Now, can we please please get similar feature for syncing to handheld? I would like the primary artist to be listed in the artist field when exporting to Handheld.

Thanks,
Osho

vagskal · « **Reply #79 on:** February 12, 2012, 01:51:38 pm »

A couple of reflections after having used the new version for a bit on my "production" library.

The ability to use the constellation of multiple items is lost. Prior to the change I could just write "lenn mcc" in the composer field in the tag action window to quickly tag a Beatles song. Could there be a way to reintroduce this handy functionality?

I used the little arrow artist search function a lot before when I wanted to search for precisely the current constellation of artists; if I wanted to search for just one artist the panes worked well. The ability to easily search for the constellation of items as well as each item would be useful, but if I have to choose the ability to quickly search for the constellation is more useful than the ability to search for just the primary artist: It is harder to manually search for the constellation, and I think it is a bit unintuitive to have a search arrow in a field that is not searching for the contents of that filed but just a part of the contents.

Since the TYER ID3v2.3 tag is not supported by MC I must use MP3Tag in addition to MC (support that tag and introduce stock fields for charset and ID3 version, and I think I can skip MP3Tag altogether). The new NULL list delimiter in MP3 ID3v2.3 tags means that I cannot use the grid in MP3Tag to see all items and edit them. Fine (well actually it is not, but I can live with that). I am used to that since this is how flac files with multiple tags always have worked in MP3Tag. What is worse is that if I by accident happen to just enter a tag in the grid that has multiple items, only the first item will be written back to the file tag, i.e. I have lost the other items without having a chance to notice what has happened. With flac files nothing is lost in this situation, since flac files have no delimiter but multiple tags. Consider this my last plea for ; (or something else visible in MP3Tag) as a delimiter in MP3 file tags.

If I in a categories artist view use a field relational to artist, I get strange results in the thumbnail text/details list style since the artist is not always the primary artist. Could fields relational to artist show values in thumbnail text/details list style only when the artist (the "[name]") is the primary artist?

On the positive side: Artist images work better. Having fields relational to only the primary artist is useful. The ability to read and write multiple flac Vorbis comments is also welcome since it adheres to standard (I had to combine my flac tags to use them when switching to MC and now I have to separate them again...).

vagskal · « **Reply #80 on:** February 13, 2012, 02:33:25 am »

Quote from: vagskal on February 12, 2012, 01:51:38 pm

Consider this my last plea for ; (or something else visible in MP3Tag) as a delimiter in MP3 file tags.

I just noticed this: I use the Lyrics Grabber Foobar2000 plugin to add lyrics. It seems that Foobar2000 is converting MC's NULL delimiter to " / " when saving lyrics to a file tag, so now I have to clean up the tags in MC after adding lyrics.

; as a delimiter worked better with all supplementary software I have to use. Has anyone noticed any benefit with the new NULL file tag item delimiter?

HTPC4ME · « **Reply #81 on:** March 05, 2012, 04:03:52 pm »

Has this been implemented already?

I'm on newest version of 17, and when i click on genre/artistS it only allows me to chose one genre.

MrHaugen · « **Reply #82 on:** March 05, 2012, 04:19:26 pm »

Yes. It's implemented. Problem is that you have to write it. Not selecting. Selecting values from the drop down list will overwrite the previous tag. I would say that it would be highly logical with some check boxes next to each item in this drop down list, to allow multiple selections. First item selected to be given the first position for weighting?

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Author Topic: NEW: Artist and Genre as list fields (Read 25957 times)