Defined values for 'Period' field

General Discussion
1

I nave created a field for 'Period' as I have a classical music collection. It has fixed values of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical ... etc
I would really like to be able to be able to utilise a periods.ini file similar to that used with genre. Any chance of this being enabled? This would prevent creating fields such Renaisance as a result of mis-typing!
Any help on this greatly appreciated.

2

I would really like to be able to be able to utilise a periods.ini file similar to that used with genre. Any chance of this being enabled?

The usage of an ini file is not yet implemented in Mp3tag.
But there may be different proposals to get such behaviour within Mp3tag.

  • See dialog "Mp3tag/Options/Genres", there you can define your own genre values, which you can apply within the Tag Panel's Genre dialog field.

  • Define one or more action groups, each one to set one specific value:
    Set My &Periods#&Medieval
    Format value "PERIOD": 'Medieval'
    Set My &Periods#&Baroque
    Format value "PERIOD": 'Baroque'
    Set My &Periods#&Classical
    Format value "PERIOD": 'Classical'
    This way the values are available within the main dialog "Actions", ...
    following within a sub menu "Set My Periods".

DD.20180304.1342.CET

3

And those are the way to go

But you can also combine both of them: just replace in that second one the PERIOD with GENRE so that you will put in the GENRE tag field your desired descriptions [which can be important later on, when you will be trying to see those descriptions in some player, that will be able to read the legit GENRE tag field but not some made up field like PERIOD]


I personally have been using such combination [although with different descriptions] for something like 4 years now- and it still holds in spite of changing a lot of other things in my naming system and in Mp3tag configuration

5

I too would love to set predefined values for custom fields using drop downs.

For Example, I have custom genre fields I use (%genre2%, %genre3% etc) and I would love for them all to be drop downs with predefined sets of values.

This helps with spelling errors and also speeds things up because it will suggest the value as I begin typing it. I have read many threads on this, mostly requesting this feature, many pointing to each other, but have not found a solution that is digestible to actually get this to work.

If someone could explain how to accomplish this in a more set-by-step fashion, or point me to a thread with the solution, I would appreciate it.

1 Like
6

You do not get dropdown lists.
The only way is to create a number of Actions of the type "Format value" and name them as has been outlined here:

7

Thanks ohrenkino!

I tired to figure this out and could not.
I set up the action. What do I put in the title or name of the action?

What do I put in the "Field" and what do I put in "Format String"?

I tried creating an action named test and put %genre2% which already set up in the columns and Tag Panel, for "Field".

I put 'Classical' in "Format string:"

When I run the action, nothing happens. I know I must be doing something wrong.

8

Create an action group (not an action (quick)).
Menu Actions>Actions>New
Enter as name: Genre#Classical
Add an action of the type: "Format value"
Enter as field: GENRE2
(no percent characters, as it refers to the field name)
Enter as
Format string: Classical
Click OK until all changes are saved.
You will now find a menu entry in the mene Actions called "Genre" which opens a submenu called "Classical".
This sets the string "Classical" into the field GENRE2.
You may now add further action groups with the same naming scheme
Genre#....
The "#" is the indicator to create a submenu.

9

Sweet, ohrenkino! Thanks again. You really are kind providing all this help for everyone.

I will give it a spin. I don't know if it will be that useful, but it might be a game changer. I assume I can open the resulting script in a .txt editor and replace GENRE2 with GENRE3 to create one for each genre. Maybe I could make a main Action called Genre Name with sub-menus for each genre.

So the entered Name would be: Genre Name#Genre2#Classical
Enter as field: GENRE2
Format string: Classical

I would then have to keep adding actions for each genre
Field:GENRE2
Format string: Rock

and so on.

Then I assume I could do the same with Genre3
Field:Genre3
Format String: Classical

Field:GENRE3
Format string: Rock

and so on.

Would that work? Can you have more than one nested sub menus?

10

Yes.
see also the release note:
[2019-03-26] NEW: added support for nested action menus via # menu delimiter in action name. (#44859)