Sometimes I wish Prefer values from tags in list at Tags Panel was enabled for my GENRE and/or STYLE fields, but other times not. Instead of having to dig through the options to toggle the setting for a given panel, I think it would be cool if there was a way to experience the best of both worlds. My thinking is this:
Firstly, is the option even necessary? It's nice, but I think how it behaves could be changed slightly: With the option enabled, always show the values from the tags at the top of the drop-down list before all custom values, and when typing "E" for example, suggest "Electronic" first, even though the user's custom list contains "Easy Listening". Scrolling / down arrowing would go through all current "E" tag values before suggesting the first custom list "E" value.
With the option disabled, the drop-down list would always be ordered alphabetically but still contain both the current tag values and the custom list values for selection / auto-completion.
With this flexibility, we wouldn't have to choose whether we can browse only the current tags, or only our custom tags. The reason I like this approach is that I use my custom values to auto-complete values to avoid human error, but then other times when multiple files have different values for a field but I know one file's field is correct, I can just select the one value (in my case this "one" value is usually multiple\\values).
The other upside to the feature working this way is that the UX stays the same regardless if the field has no value, or some value: Currently, with Prefer values from tags in list at Tags Panel enabled and the field has a value, we see that value in the list. If we backspace the value, the list still only shows this value. If we now save the file and we open the list, now we see all our custom values.
With the suggestion I've made, there wouldn't be a need to delete the value and save just to gain access to auto-completion of custom values. I think I'd work faster with visibility of all the field's current and possible values at all times.
Thank you for your consideration!
Mp3tag 3.20