Is there a way I can have MP3TAG advance to next dir?

Support
1

Bottom line, I'm trying to see if there is a way to go to the Next Directory Sequentially, and load the files

Here's my situation.

In my classical albums they are in this format: \music\artist\album

There are time I may need to correct all artist names for "Bela Bartok", for example. In this case I have about 18 album directories under Bartok, Bela.

I may have albums with artist in varying values: Bela Bartok, Bella Bartok, Bartok, B. Bartok, etc.
I will be changing all to Bela Bartok.

In this case I cannot do my typical right click at the artist directory level, select all, and change the name because, (in the case of many classical albums), there are many of them that are compilations with other artists on albums. So I really need to change them one album at a time.

For now, I have to go into each album. If all tracks are Bartok, then select all and fix name.
If Bartok is only a few tracks, then select them and make the change.

Then go to the next directory and start over. In this example there is only 18. I have at least 2000 classical CDs, So when I have to go fix the Mahler's.....well in my case I have almost 150.

Enough background, you get the picture. This would be nice in this case if I could do this:

I'd start my work by: 1) going to the albums sub-directories under artist and 2) right click on the first album, make my changes and save.

then while still in MP3tag - and this is what my whole goal is here!!!!,

have a button, or action pull down, MP3Tag script - whatever to do this:

  • Go to the next album directory and load only those files

(ideally, it would be great if not only it would load the next album, but also auto "select-all" files, asked around here a long time - don't worry, I'm not starting on that right here and now)

I think this would be a great feature for anyone who wants to sequentially work down a directory level individually loading the next album to work on.

Right now you either close and right click on the next directory and select all again or do the Control-D or browse thing. This really could be an improvement in workflow.

I would not be totally surprised if this has already be requested, addressed and explained. If that is the case - very sorry for the trouble, I couldn't find it.

Thanks in advance to all (I love this place)
Steve

2

I think that your request is closely related to your workflow.
What I would like to mention is that a) no, MP3tag does not know, what a "next folder" is and B) it is not clear what the "next folder" would be.
let me explain: if you edit files in such a fashion that actually the files get moved to another folder - what would be the "next" one? The one in the former collection of folders or in the current?

What you could do instead:
Open the explorer and select the folder you want to editand copy&paste the folder name to the directory input box in MP3tag and press enter. The folder gets loaded.
Do your modifications.
Then, in the explorer, select the next folder and copy&paste the folder name to the directory input box in MP3tag and press enter. The new folder gets loaded.

This workflow gets rid of the doubts what might be the next folder as you decide.
So perhaps you use this way until your function request gets implemented (if ever).

3

Answer to your question: No.

I agree, this would be a nice feature, preferably through a button in the button bar. The "next" folder would be defined to mean the next one alphabetically based on, say, the first (or last) file in the current file list.

One very important thing to point out: There's no need to close Mp3tag between the loading of different albums from the Windows Explorer context menu. Just keep both Mp3tag and an Explorer window open and right-click successive album folders. I've done this a million times.

However, if much of the work I was doing could be applied to multiple albums, I'd generally load all albums from the artist. Even if some of the work then had to be done with individual albums. In the end, you can save yourself a lot of work if there are edits that can be applied to multiple albums at once. Choosing individual albums is fairly easy in Mp3tag if you've sorted files by artist/album/disc/track (I sort by the folder path, which gives the same thing).

4

Thanks for the quick reply Ohrenkino, appreciated.

I understand the consideration on the possibility of an action that would "move" the files to another directory, such as a rename with _Directory. I do use this for a number of things.

However; in the case of this workflow, I would never be modifying the files directory name. For example, simplified, if I double click on the Bartok directory I'd see:

Bartok Album 1
Bartok Album 2
Bartok Album 2
...(and so on)

I start with Bartok Album 1 and finish, my special button would go to Bartok Album 2 (like the directories are shown and listed when I fist go in to the Albums directory in the first place) I guess I would hope to expect this feature could follow the directories sequentially like they are listed from the OS level. But EVEN if it could not, it really doesn't matter the order, as long as the next dir command would sequentially go through them all one at a time.

Maybe it's something that can be done in MP3Tag Tools area?

I'll look at and consider your suggested workflow, thanks.

5

... In that case: what about loading all folders at once and then applying a filter (if that is necessary at all).
I agree with JJ Johnson that usually it is enough to have a column with the path in it and sort by it. By that you get each folder grouped together.
Pressing F5 then rereads the directory as shown in the directory-input-box in the tag panel so that moved files would be reflected.
Edit: just one more thought ....
I doubt that the OS supplies that information. It only "knows" what the folder "one up" is - it does not tell which folders are on the same level. (Which you can see as there is a button for "go up one folder level").
So you would have to parse the folder structure to determine what the "next" or the "previous" folder might be. And this information is available (more easily) in the Explorer. But I have said that already.

6

Okay, I see what you guys are talking about and how about expanding on that with a possible proposal that is feasible with existing MP3Tag technology.

  1. I right click at the artist directory (loads all 18 of my album sub-directories)
  2. I sort by Album, grouping all the album files together
  3. Now the question: Is there something we can do to - Select Next Album? This would ONLY select files in single album. We just sorted by album, so all files in the first album value are selected.
    When I pick "Select Next Album", then it selects all the files for the next album and so forth

What do you think?

7

That idea has been proposed quite a few times.

8

In a way, yes, nice.
Only: MP3tag does not know anything about a "next album". it only looks at one file at the time. Numerous requests meander around the comparison of files and tags. Has not yet been implemented ...
No, the comparison, what might belong to one file and what might not has to be done by you.
You mentioned yourself that you have some tracks in compilations but actually you wanted to deal with the various spellings of Bela Bartok (which is one of the invalid versions, I admit). So the grouping criterion would not be the album but the artist.
This can be achieved with a filter.
Or, as JJ Johnson pointed out: if you want to get the spelling of the artist right then this would be nice for all the albums in one go. So select all those tracks, enter the correct name in the tag-panel and save. Much quicker than to repeat that for each album.
As I said: the album approach is very closely linked to your workflow.
And MP3tag offers so many, flexible features that it is almost always possible to find a suitable workaround.

9

Okay here we go again with the selection thing. There has been many of us that have simply asked for the "select all" files as an option when opening MP3Tag, still would be great.

What about this -

Create a NEW Action, like Format Values, but the new one called "Select Files".

Then we could create many different VERY USEFUL personal defined custom Selections!

  1. create new action
  2. pick "select files" - new action type
  3. the first field is tag, or extended types, so I'd pick _Album
  4. the second field is value where you could have "_Next" and "_All", to name a few

Up front you would sort by whatever tag you were going to run the action on, in this case Album.
(If you build the sort first, on whatever tag name, then highlight the first album, then clicking next would only re-sort and highlight the first album again)

With _Album and _Next, then when I pick that custom action it would 1) select all files that match that the first album - I could make all my changes and then click the action again. it would highlight all the files in the "next" album. This would continue to the end, and then start at the first album again.

If the Select Files action item had a second value of "_All", the clicking that item would select all files, like we've been wanting anyway. (but this would not really be any different than clicking the EDIT menu and then clicking "Select-All.

Just some thoughts....