Ok, here you go. Start here:
Installation and Setup
1. Download and install ActivePerl 5.16 (not 5.18) for your version of Windows:
http://www.activestate.com/activeperl/downloads
2. Download the attached file and unzip it. Place the folder's contents somewhere convenient, like your Desktop. Later you can move it once you become familiar with how to use it. Inside is the script, a configuration file, and a Change log.
3. After ActivePerl is installed, open a Windows command shell (Start and type cmd in the Search box hit Enter) to install a couple of required Perl package modules. Enter the commands below, one at a time after each has completed:
ppm install Win32-Clipboard
ppm install XML-LibXML
ppm install Text-CSV
Keep this command shell open for later use.
4. Edit the file pscriptor-config.txt. Read the comments under the MCWS section, and configure the MCWS_server, MCWS_username and MCWS_password values. You don't need to use MCWS, but the steps below will be different.
Usage
1. In Media Center, add columns for the field(s) you want modified to the file list of a view. The Filename field must also be shown.
2. Select the files you want modified. To test, just select a couple.
3. Since there is no UNDO after you run the script, you might want to save an MPL now of the selected files (File > Export Playlist, select Format MPL Playlist, and choose the Output Range: Selection). You can use this to restore values should something go wrong (via File > Import Playlist). Alternatively, you could backup your library. Note: in the future, I'll have the script automatically generate a previous.mpl file, so you can undo the last operation by importing this file.
4. In your still-open Command Shell window, type:
cd Desktop
and hit Enter.
5. Now enter the command below. It would be best if you copied and pasted it into the command window (after copying the text line, right-click onto the command window to paste):
perl pscriptor.pl -c pscriptor-config.txt -f "INVOLVED PEOPLE" -e "s/([a-z \/]+):(.+?)(; ?|$)/$2:$1$3/g" -v -t
Hit Enter once you've typed the command. If all worked correctly, you should see your INVOLVED PEOPLE values changed on the command line's output for the selected files. If things did not work, you'll see some error message, and we'll go from there.
The command line above runs the perl interpreter on the script pscriptor.pl. It is supplied with the -c argument to specify the config file to use, the -f option specifies the field you want changed in MC, the -e option specifies the perl code to be executed against the field values supplied with -f, and the -v option turns on verbose output, and -t says to run in test-only mode (no MCWS writes are done, so no values in MC are changed).
If the values look correct on the command line output, remove the -t option above and run it again to actually make the changes. You can recall the previous Windows command line with the up arrow, and left or right arrows, delete and keystrokes edit the command line currently shown.
While Step 5 uses a specific field and perl script, pscriptor.pl was written so that any MC field(s) can be affected by any arbitrary perl script supplied. I'll explain later how this works in another thread.