Adding image art-work must be the last edit

Mac
1

Maybe this is an edge case (what I am about to show) but this is a typical example of what I do:

  • I select all files in the list
  • I make multiple edits (with all files selected) within the left side pane (Album, Year, Genre, Artist)
  • I then do a Convert, Tag - Tag operation to fix up the titles (with all files selected still) - I use %title% in this operation
  • I then run one or more of my Actions to do some case conversions, etc

At this point I now click on any one of the files (all were previously selected and now I click on one).

The popup window shows with the status bar going across and then ALL of my edits are saved.

My assumption is that multiple edits can be done to the entire file set and then they will all be saved in one “save operation”. At least that is how I have been doing it (successfully - this always works for me).

Now (working on a new file set) if I change one thing, add album art-work:

  • I select all files in the list
  • I make multiple edits (with all files selected) with the left side pane (Album, Year, Genre, Artist)
  • Drag an image file to the Disc box in left pane (new operation from above)
  • I then do a Convert, Tag - Tag operation to fix up the titles (with all files selected still) - I use %title% in this operation
  • I then run one or more of my Actions to do some case conversions, etc

At this point I now click on any of the files (all were previously selected and now I click on one).

The popup window shows with the status bar going across and then all of my edits are saved EXCEPT that the art work was not saved.

But if I had done the same as above but moved the step of:

  • Drag an image file to the Disc box in left pane

to the last step then the image will save.

Maybe it’s supposed to work this way, it’s not a big deal, I can move adding the art-work to the last step. I am just bringing this up because this application is damn near perfect! (for me).

2

AFAI have gathered, the Mac version saves all modification as soon as the tag panel looses focus.
This happens when you select the image to be dragged&dropped as that probably resides in a different window.
Saving the modification up to importing the picture in the first workflow probably goes so quickly, that no progress bar appears.
When you drag&drop the picture in the first workflow, the tag panel looses focus to get the picture, gets the focus back when the picture is dropped and looses the focus again, when you click elsewhere e.g. in the file list and the progress bar appears as saving a big picture usually exceeds the padding and the files have to be rewritten.

In the second workflow, the first set of modifications up to the incident of getting the picture are saved quickly without a progress bar.
The picture is taken - but it does not explain to me why the loss of focus is not recognized right now.
To avoid lost modifications, I would suggest to force MP3tag to save the modification with ⌘ S prior to any further steps with Convert or other actions and press ⌘ S again after the cover has been added.

Basically, I think it is a problem of detecting the loss of focus.

3

It's not that the changes are already automatically saved when Convert → Tag - Tag is triggered. Instead, the modified values are carried along and used as values for converters and extended tags.

Those changes were added with v1.9.0:

  • Unsaved changes in the Tag Panel are preserved when renaming files via Convert → Tag - Filename.
  • Unsaved changes from Tag Panel are used for Convert → Tag - Tag and Convert → Assign Track Numbers.
  • Unsaved changes from Tag Panel are used when displaying Extended Tags.

The process is currently not picking up any modifications for images and I meant to inspect that further before replying here.