A few questions about the Disc Number/Disc Total columns

General Discussion
#1

Hello there! I'd like to ask some things about Disc Number and Disc Total columns.

I was wondering if there is a purpose so that fields in Disc Number and Disc Total columns are not able to be clicked like other fields, such as Track or Total Tracks. This means that you can't use a left click on a field in these columns and start typing a value, then confirm it with the enter key. I often edit single files from an album and going through the Extended Tags dialog for each track takes much more time. I only use Track and Disc Number fields for my mp3 files, but I use Track, Total Tracks, Disc Number and Disc Total for my flac files. It would be really convenient if we could edit the fields directly without the need to go to the Extended Tags for each song individually. Here is a screenshot of a clickable Track field: http://i.imgur.com/QOlSBZR.png. It would be great if the fields in Disc Number and Disc Total would be clickable as well :slight_smile:

On another note, it looks like the Track Number and Disc Number fields are not sorted the way I was hoping for. I would expect the value 1 to be at the top, following with 1/1, then 1/2, 1/3 and so on. However this is not the case, it seems like the stuff after the forward slash is simply ignored. Here is a screenshot with some of my files sorted by the Disc Number column: http://i.imgur.com/Fu4Nopr.png and here by the Track Number column: http://i.imgur.com/cqowzHK.png.

Thanks for any feedback, much appreciated!

#2

Please check your column definitions.
For numeric fields it should be "numeric" - then the sorting should work.
If you want to have a column where you can see and modify data, you should have entries in both "Field" and "Value" - both with the same variable name e.g. %totaldiscs%.

#3

In general you should avoid to store values into a tagfield, which has been combined from other distinct values.

The column for "Disc" or "Discnumber" should be defined as ...
Name: Disc
Value: %DISCNUMBER%
Field: %DISCNUMBER%

The column for "Totaldiscs" should be defined as ...
Name: Totaldiscs
Value: %TOTALDISCS%
Field: %TOTALDISCS%

The column for "Track" should be defined as ...
Name: Track
Value: %TRACK%
Field: %TRACK%

The column for "Totaltracks" should be defined as ...
Name: Totaltracks
Value: %TOTALTRACKS%
Field: %TOTALTRACKS%

If you need to combine different values into one single column, ...
e. g. %TRACK% and %TOTALTRACKS, ...
you can do it, but there may be also the need to define a fitting sort criterium in the "Sort by" column definition dialog.

For example ... sometimes I have the need for a column "Track" ...
Value: %TRACK%
Field: %TRACK%
Sort by: %ALBUM%$char(65535)$num(%DISCNUMBER%,2)$num(%TRACK%,3)
Numeric : off

DD.20170211.1704.CET

#4

Thank you both very much for your responses!

The "field" values have been blank for both of the columns, so setting them to the same string as the "value" fields now lets me edit the fields, which is exactly what I needed. And now I know that I can do this with other fields if I needed, which is excellent!

As for why I have been used the combined values, my other software (foobar2000 and MusicBrainz Picard) were showing an additional tag called DISCTOTAL and the empty "Total Discs" tag when I used the two separate fields. When I modified the "Total Discs" value in these programs, it would make the "Disc Number" field combined again, so I guessed that this is the correct way to do it. I combined the "Track" field as well so it would look alike. However, thanks to you guys, I found out that I have been using %disctotal% instead of %totaldiscs% and when I use the latter, everything works fine for both mp3 and flac files (no additional fields are shown in other programs). I'll write an action to split the two fields, it should not be too hard to do (or even find here on forums, because I imagine it is used very often).

I might have posted in the Support section if I knew that the first issue (editable fields) was not the program limitation but a setting instead. Thanks again both of you very much for helping me resolve this!

#5

Sorry for double posting, but after some time of searching I found out that the standard for ID3 tags is to use combined TRACK/TOTALTRACKS (TRCK tag field) and DISCNUMBER/TOTALDISCS (TPOS tag field) and separate TRACK, TRACKTOTAL, DISCNUMBER and DISCTOTAL tag fields for Vorbis tags. I had my files tagged exactly like this before, but because I haven't encountered any issues for a long time, I forgot why I tagged them this way.

However, instead of trying to figure out the sorting, I decided I'd rather re-map the tags and format the fields in Mp3tag so they would be displayed separately in the same four fields. I already added VorbisComment in User-defined field mappings so FLAC files would have TRACKTOTAL and DISCTOTAL re-mapped to TOTALTRACKS and TOTALDISCS respectively.

The last remaining bit is to adjust the combined ID3 tags, so they would be displayed separately. Since it's not possible to use scripting in tag mapping, the only way is to format the two fields (without interfering with the Vorbis tags). Does anyone know which scripts would be the best to use for these 4 fields? I tried to search for the forward slash character with scripting, so it would pick only the combined fields from ID3 tags for evaluation and leave FLAC tags alone. Alternatively, it could check if the file has a specific tag type, something like "$if(tag=id3,execute function)"

This is what I have tried with Total Discs field so far: "$if($strchr(%discnumber%,'/'),$right(%discnumber%,1),%totaldiscs%)". Not only this doesn't work for some reason, it would also break if I was ever gonna tag a song with 10 or more discs. I was also trying the $mid function for the Total Track field: "$mid(%track%,/,2)", but it doesn't work as well and it has the same problem as the script for Total Discs that it would break on tracks of over 100 unless I increment the number. Ideally I would like to specify the script to use start of the string up to the "/" character for first fields (Track, Disc Number), then everything from the "/" character to the end of the string for second fields (Total Tracks, Total Discs). Does anyone know if there is a way to achieve this?

Edit: Found out how to check if the file has any ID3 tags. The only thing left to figure out is how to get all the values to the left and to the right of the forward slash. This is my latest script for the Total Discs field (without the splitting part of the %discnumber%): "$if($stricmp($left(%_tag_read%,3),ID3),%discnumber%,%totaldiscs%)". So now I just need to replace the %discnumber% text with the value from this field which is to the right of the forward slash.

#6
Split combined TRACK content into TRACK and TOTALTRACKS fields, ... e. g. TRACK=1/14 TRACK=Track 001 out of 014 tracks Action: Guess values Source format: $regexp(%TRACK%,'^\D*0*(\d+)\D*0*(\d+)\D*$','$1===$2') Guessing pattern: %TRACK%===%TOTALTRACKS% ... or ... Action: Format value TOTALTRACKS <== $if($eql('ID3',$left(%_tag_read%,3)),$regexp(%TRACK%,'^\D*0*(\d+)\D*0*(\d+)\D*$','$2'),%TOTALTRACKS%) Action: Format value TRACK <== $if($eql('ID3',$left(%_tag_read%,3)),$regexp(%TRACK%,'^\D*0*(\d+)\D*0*(\d+)\D*$','$1'),%TRACK%)

DD.20170213.1151.CET

#7

I didn't want to perform an action to split the value into two fields. I want to store the combined value in one field, but display it separately in two columns. I tried to format the columns with your script which works, but when I tried to add a value manually, it added a new field. I had to change the "Field" value to %totaltracks% because it was adding the whole script but it still adds a new TOTALTRACKS tag to the ID3 files. So I assume this approach won't work.

Is there any other way to achieve this? Basically I'd like Mp3tag to show tags like foobar2000 and MusicBrainz Picard do. They are always displaying the tags in the same four columns for both ID3 and Vorbis tags (Track, Total Tracks, Disc Number, Total Discs) and you are also able to edit them this way and they will be written to their respective tags according to the tag standards. So for example if I change the "Total Tracks" field in the ID3 tag, it will be written to the second part of the TRCK tag field and if I change the "Total Tracks" field in the Vorbis tag, it will be written to the TRACKTOTAL tag field.

So is there a similar way to do this in Mp3tag? I do most of my tagging in Mp3tag so I would really appreciate this. I can re-map the Vorbis tags but can't figure out how to display the ID3 tags separately.

#8

Your description sounds as if you need three separate columns in Mp3tag column view:

  • column1 where you can enter manually the combined values about track and totaltracks into one tag field TRACK, e. g. '1/17'.
  • column2 where you display only the first part of TRACK, without writing to any tagfield.
  • column3 where you display only the second part of TRACK, without writing to any tagfield.

DD.20170213.1748.CET

#9

I wrote poorly that "I want to store the combined value in one field, but display it separately in two columns." I don't need to see the combined field, I just want to store the values in the combined TRCK tag field (for files with ID3 tags). I'd like to have just two fields (Track and Total Tracks) where I can both write and read the tag values from ID3 and Vorbis tags.

Perhaps it would be better if I listed all of the tags for both ID3 and Vorbis files. I'd like the columns (and preferably the Extended tag view as well) to show me these fields:

Track: which would show the first part of the TRCK tag field for ID3 tags; TRACKNUMBER tag field for Vorbis tags
Total Tracks: which would show the second part of the TRCK tag field for ID3 tags; TRACKTOTAL tag field for Vorbis tags
Disc Number: which would show the first part of the TPOS tag fied for ID3 tags; DISCNUMBER tag field for Vorbis tags
Total Discs: which would show the second part of the TPOS tag field for ID3 tags; DISCTOTAL tag field for Vorbis tags

After re-mapping Vorbis tags (e.g. TRACKNUMBER->TRACK) it is shown correctly in the Track field for Vorbis tags, but not for ID3 tags. For ID3 tags it will show the whole TRCK tag (the combined value) in the Track field, but I would like to see only the first part of the TRCK field. As I mentioned in my previous post, foobar2000 and MusicBrainz Picard already do this by default, without changing any advanced settings, so I was wondering if this can be possible to achieve in Mp3tag, so the tagging workflow could be uniform across all of the software I use.

#10

I found another post asking the same thing: [X] Track number incorrectly shown with Track Count

@Florian: Assuming this is not possible to do at the moment, could I request it as a new feature? Either a checkbox in options with "ID3: show TRCK and TPOS tags in separate fields" or an ability to remap "TRCK1, TRCK2, etc." would be sufficient. The goal is to make ID3 and Vorbis editing identical (including the Extended tag view) and to be displayed like other software does. The current "combined" display could still remain the default one. Thanks a lot for the consideration, much appreciated!