Features you should definitely consider...

General Discussion
1

I've been using Mp3tag for quite a while now, and in that time I've thought of several things which could enhance productivity.

1.) Spacing Options. When renaming files, or acquiring data from a file name, you should include an advanced section which has radio buttons for the type of spacing the file name should have or already has.

For instance, in the file name 03 - Universe we see a hyphen. Instead of making us have to manually specify that this should be the type of spacing by typing it out, we should easily be able to click a button to select this.

If we have a song that has the metadata, but has yet to have the proper file name of our liking, again we should be able to easily click a radio button with our choice of spacing.

(quick note --if the advanced section is used, it should remain visible, similar to how naming is saved in Mp3tag. This would prevent us from having to show it all the time.)

2.) File Naming Conventions. This feature request is similar to the first one, but deals strictly with naming files. When naming files, it is often tedious to specify a new type of convention, like %artist% - %track% - %title% versus %track% %title%.

You could write down your conventions in notepad and copy/paste them when needed (which is what I do), but why make users have to do this? You should integrate naming templates which could resolve this and bring sanity to my mind.

3.) Auto Image Resizing. Do I really have to explain this? I'm sure many have experienced this... when their OCD tendencies kick in, because album artwork does not PERFECTLY fit into the equilateral square. I really dislike having to bust open Irfanview to resize images all the time when it can easily be automated with the quick click of a button in Mp3tag. If something is 520x500, just make it 500x500, or perhaps increase the size and allow the user to drag the image around until it looks good, then crop it (kind of like what Facebook does with profile pictures).

4.) Guided Album Artwork Acquisition. Instead of busting open a browser and doing a google search, why not just integrate a search option in Mp3tag?

Allow the user to specify the query text, as well as the resolution of the images they desire. Then show one-by-one each image it finds. If it cannot find the exact resolution the user desires, present them with the closest and ask them if they would like it re-sized and/or cropped.

(You should also allow them to choose to download the image into the album folder, and to specify the file name --e.g. Cover.jpg, Folder.jpg, etc. Integrated .jpg-to-.png and vice versa would be a HUGE plus).

I figure you could make the process quicker by only loading the text of a Google image query, and loading only the images of relevance. I know this can be done, because I am a programmer :wink:

I have more features I would like to throw at you, but this will have to do for now. Any critique or comments are recommended. :slight_smile:

Thanks for reading.

2

Hm, I am totally sure, that we see a string of three characters ' - ' as the delimiter sequence between the two words.

A reduced or prepared set of "File Naming Conventions" (what conventions?) has a definitive limit of usage.
The open concept of Mp3tag, to let the user define what is useful, is more flexible and powerful as you may think of today.
Additionally Mp3tag provide history lists for edit field entries.

Never I had the need to do any resizing of images inside of Mp3tag.
I did it outside using the perfect graphic tools.

You can use "Album Art Downloader", it does it perfectly.
Call it by a tool item from within Mp3tag.

DD.20120606.0915.CEST

3

Good point :stuck_out_tongue: So just include ' - ' as a radio button, or '-', or ' ', etc

4

Oke suppose you have the following examples:

03-Universe
03+Universe
03<>Universe
03<->Universe
03...Universe
etc, etc

Do you want for all of these type of spacing a separate button or a Drop Down List?

In my opinion it's easier just to type it in, as there are just too many "types of spacing" to create buttons for.

5

I don't think it would be practical for all them, but perhaps maybe include the most popular naming conventions. We could have an open thread for this, and maybe eventually create a poll with the most popular methods. I don't know, maybe even allow people to make their own radio buttons with the delimiters they would like.

6

Aren't they (cq Format String) already saved in for example the drop down list under for Example

Filename - Tag
Tag - Filename

??

7

A lot of them are. But it's not quick to see. This is handy in some cases, but for instances where something may be named:

%artist%. %album% - %title%

or

%artist%- %album% %title%

It can be difficult to see the difference. I just think a quick delimiter option could save A LOT of time.

8

...And I say this because it seems like there are only a few types of naming conventions we often run across. Sometimes there are some obscure methods, but for the most part, things follow:

%artist% %title%
%artist%  %title%
%artist% - %title%
%artist%-%title%
%artist%- %title%

...give or take an %album% or %year%

Sorry if I seem picky, but I have friends who agree with me on this.. so I'm not the only one :stuck_out_tongue:

9

I can agree to the concept of being open, so maybe don't include a prepared set of FNCs. Obviously users can already apply their own personal schemes, I just think it would be quicker to provide them with quicker options in the edit field entries.

As for image resizing, if it's happened to me, it's happening to others... sometimes it's just quicker to resize the image than to look for an image that is equilateral.

I have used AAD, but it's quite cumbersome, as of now at least. I've already integrated it as a tool and it's still not as quick as things could be if Mp3tag had these features integrated. AAD is still very much a manual process and takes time. I'm all about saving time, as I'm sure others are too.

Not saying some of my ideas are perfect... maybe with a bit of collaboration they can turn out useful.

10

Note that the field name for the title is %title%, not %track%!

However, you are somehow right about frequent nameing conventions. But your proposal about buttons for those character sequences isn't really practiable. The small differences would be still there and you will still need to look for the right buttons.

However, I would like to share my own sollution for this problem. It's an action group wich works with most nameing patterns with hypens. It doesn't work when there are no hypens, and it produces mistakes when there are hypens in the artist or title name:

Action #1
Actiontype 7: Import tag fields (guess values)
Source format __: $if($eql($regexp($left(%_filename%,2),(\d.|\w\d|\w\W),@@@),@@@),$regexp(%_filename%,^(\d+|\w\d|\w\W)\W*(.?)(-|)(.),$1@@@$2@@@$4),$regexp(%_filename%,(.?)(-|)(.),%track%@@@$1@@@$3))
Guessing pattern: %track%@@@%artist temp%@@@%title%

Action #2
Actiontype 5: Format value
Field _____: ARTIST
Formatstring: $trim($caps($replace($if2(%artist temp%,%artist%),, ), '('))

Action #3
Actiontype 5: Format value
Field __: TITLE
Formatstring: $caps($replace($regexp($trim($regexp($replace($regexp($regexp($regexp(%title%,^-+,),(.)www'.'.,$1),')'.,')'),, ),(||-| )(||-| )(||-| )$,)),(.+)-(.+ (?:mix|remix|version|edit|rmx|dub)),$1 ($2),1), , ,'(' ,'('), '(')

Action #4
Actiontype 5: Format value
Field ______: TRACK
Formatstring: $trim(%track%)

Action #5
Actiontype 9: Remove fields
Fields to remove (semicolon separated): ARTIST TEMP

11

Thanks for the help, I will certainly try this out tomorrow. As for the mistake with %track% and %title%, wow, big error on my part... I know this! I'm just exhausted, it's 4 A.M. here. Not an excuse :wink:

12

Yes, I can think of a pick list ordered by ...

  • Alphabet (character sequence)
  • History (creation date time)
  • Frequency (how many times used)

You put on an assumption that is impractical. The duration of the work, here or there, should be the same.
Do have a closer look to AAD, probably it has some abilities to be adjusted to what you need.
Check the AAD commandline options.

DD.20120606.1024.CEST

13

I doubt that.
If you enter a mask then you have your fingers on the keyboard. So why should searching the mouse, moving the mouse, clicking with the mouse button be faster than just the three keystrokes?

What do you do in cases where there are different separators?
What do you do if there are word parts that may serve as separators to e.g. extract the discnumber
(e.g. %year% - %album% - CD%discnumber%).
Also, the separator selection would make it much more difficult to extract information from the filename and the directory structure. While the filename may have hyphens as separators, the directories use the backslash ... So it would have to be multiple choice.

How would you terminate the mask that is tell Mp3tag that a field was the last one so that mp3tag does not have to add any more separators? Or do you have to repeat the selection of the separator again and again?

If this is the case then frequent typists will soon resort to the keyboard input instead of the mouse gymnastics.

So I have to agree with DetlevD to praise the "open approach" and follow pone with his warning that a hyphen inside a field will spoil the import.
You probably have guessed: I am fine with the current solution and cannot see any real benefit except a very little one for first time users - but they usually have completely different problems with this function.