Create configuration to share with other users

Mac
#1

Under the " Exporting and importing preferences settings" section, I am looking to create an even more generic configuration after importing the plist from another user. Wouldn't you also want to delete the following settings?

  • ActionFormatTagFieldHistory
  • ActionImportTagFieldsFormatHistory
  • ActionReplaceOriginalHistory
  • ActionReplaceReplaceHistory
  • LastOpenDirectory
  • LastOpenURLs
    others???
Preferences and Configuration
#2

It depends in what you'd like to preserve from the original configuration. Which areas of Mp3tag do you want to share?

#3

Our radio station uses Mp3tag to prepare files for incorporation into our music library. We expect all of the files to be tagged with data gathered from liner notes. Our volunteers rip a CD and then manually fill in the requisite info which include custom fields: composer, producer, copyright, etc. I have setup my Mp3tag to include all of these tags and configured my tag panel to display them all.

I want to give a volunteer DJ my configuration to import into an out-of-the box Mp3tag install on their personal machine. There is no need to include historical data from my plist.

#4

I'd then create a minimal configuration plist file from your configuration to be shared with your colleagues.

  1. Export your current settings to Mp3tagSettings-Backup.plist which is your backup

defaults export app.mp3tag.Mp3tag ~/Desktop/Mp3tagSettings-Backup.plist

  1. Export a second copy Mp3tagSettings-Share.plist that will become the configuration to be shared with your colleagues

defaults export app.mp3tag.Mp3tag ~/Desktop/Mp3tagSettings-Share.plist

  1. Remove all unwanted settings from Mp3tagSettings-Share.plist. For this, I'd recommend using BBEdit, which allows for editing binary plist files.

In your case, I'd just keep:

  • Columns
  • FieldMappings
  • TagPanelFields

If you'd also work with MP3 files (from previous conversations I know that you use FLAC only), I'd also include

  • TagID3v2Type
  • TagTypeMP3Remove
  • TagTypeMP3Write

You can test it by deleting your configuration (because you have a backup) and import using

defaults delete app.mp3tag.Mp3tag
defaults import app.mp3tag.Mp3tag ~/Desktop/Mp3tagSettings-Share.plist

Please make sure to definitely not include License for obvious reasons.

#5

Thank you Florian. I appreciate the suggestions. I use the Mac utility PlistBuddy to view and modify a plist. It looks like the macOS designers don't store the License in the plist - at least not using that word.

defaults export app.mp3tag.Mp3tag Mp3tag.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c Print Mp3tag.plist
#6

You're probably using a version from the Mac App Store, which doesn't have the license in the settings and uses the store receipt machinery to validate the install.

Thanks for the pointer to PlistBuddy, it's quite versatile!

#7

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