Artist & featuring formatting

ni.va · December 15, 2011, 7:31pm

Hi

I recently discovered how Win7 windows explorer uses Artist field to show Contributing Artists separately. so I formatted the Artist field to Artist separated by "/". Like:

ARTIST: Benny Benassi/Kelis/APL/Jean-Baptiste

& now I want to use this field in file names formatted like: (in tags - filenames Dialog)

Benny Benassi Ft. Kelis, APL & Jean-Baptiste

in my collection there are tracks that have from 1 to 4 contributing artists & I want this to work with all of them as follow:

Artist: A
Output: A

Artist: A/B
Output: A Ft. B

Artist: A/B/C
Output: A Ft. B & C

Artist: A/B/C/D
Output A Ft. B, C & D

Artist: A/B/C/D/E
Output: A Ft. B, C, D & E

Would it be possible Guys??

Thanks

stevehero · December 17, 2011, 1:27am

I'm only on my fone atm but I will try and help.

Try this (You have to put these in one single action group for this to work:)

If you want the FILENAME format:
%artist% - %title%

Action #1 (MUST BE TOP ACTION)
Format field: _FILENAME
Format : %artist%

For: Benny Benassi NO ACTION NEEDED

Action #2
For: Benny Benassi/Kelis
Exp: ^(.+)/(.+)$
Replace: $1 Ft. $2

Action #3
For: Benny Benassi/Kelis/APL
Exp: ^(.+)/(.+)/(.+)$
Replace: $1 Ft. $2 & $3

Action #4
For: Benny Benassi/Kelis/APL/Jean-Baptiste
Exp: ^(.+)/(.+)/(.+)/(.+)$
Replace: $1 Ft. $2, $3 & $4

Action #5
For: Benny Benassi/Kelis/APL/Jean-Baptiste
Exp: ^(.+)/(.+)/(.+)/(.+)/(.+)$
Replace: $1 Ft. $2, $3, $4 & $5

Action #6 (MUST BE BOTTOM ACTION)
Format field: _FILENAME
Format : %_filename% - %title%

Test on a small amount of files first.

ni.va · December 17, 2011, 7:55pm

Thanks It worked but with some small changes (figured out by looking through Help file)

EDIT: Sep 8 2013:
I Actually figured out the better solution.
I edited this post to avoid pumping up an old thread.

So my new solution is:

If you want the FILENAME format:
%artist% - %title%

Action #1 (MUST BE TOP ACTION)
Format field: _FILENAME (I used a costum field ("NEW"))
Format : %artist%

Action #2
Exp: ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)
Replace: $1 Ft. $2

Action #3
Exp: ([^/]+)/([^/]+)$
Replace: $1 & $2

Action #4
Replace:
Original:"/" (Without quotes)
With:", " (Without quotes)

Action #5 (MUST BE BOTTOM ACTION)
Format field: _FILENAME
Format : %_filename% - %title%

And if you used a custom field like me:

Action #6
Remove fields:"new" (Without quotes)

or if you want to have the featuring part after title the Actions 5 & 6 replace with:

Action #5/1
Guess Values:
Source format: %new%
Guessing pattern: %new% Ft. %ft%

Action #5/2
Format field: _FILENAME
Format : %new% - %title% (Ft. %ft%)

Action #6
Remove fields:"new;ft" (Without quotes)

Also you can summarize the whole actions into one format string to use in the "tags - filenames" Dialog:

Format String:
$replace($regexp($regexp(%artist%,'^([^/]+)/([^/]+)','$1 Ft. $2'),'([^/]+)/([^/]+)$','$1 & $2'),/,', ') - %title%

Hope this would help somebody...

stevehero · December 17, 2011, 9:57pm

good to see your getting a grasp of reg exp.

The e.g (.+)/(.+) is basically the same outcome because (.+) searches everything UNTIL it meets '/' so saying find everything exept '/' until '/' reads basically the same.

ni.va · December 18, 2011, 7:17am

from what I tried with my files, the e.g (.+)/(.+) matches "A/B/C" taking "A/B" for the first part & "C" for the second.

dano · December 18, 2011, 8:04am

It's not the same. (.+)/ searches until the last / char

Here's a good explanation:
Watch Out for The Greediness

stevehero · December 18, 2011, 9:52am

As ive said im on me fone so didnt have a chance to test the action first. My bad.