Is there an Action %ask% capability?

Support
1

I have an action to trim a number of characters from the front of a Title

(My) Problem is the number of characters varies and I have to edit the action statement

For ex -- this will delete 4 char:

$right(%title%,$sub($len(%title%),4))

and if I need to delete 2 then I have to edit it to

$right(%title%,$sub($len(%title%),2))

Sometime I forget and run it with the old/wrong number

If the action 'language' would allow (if it already does, I did't find it) a 'run time' input, possibly with a prompt, it'd be helpful

$right(%title%,$sub($len(%title%),%ask:NumberOfChars%))

2

For this there is the $trim() function.
Use an action of the type "Format value" for e.g. TITLE and use as
format string: $trim(%title%)
This should do the trick.

3

Beside the interactive converters, there is no user interaction dialog available for actions.
But you can prepare a number of actions, to diminish the problem.
You can create a bunch of prepared actions ...
... with formatstrings like ...
$cutLeft(%TITLE%,1)
$cutLeft(%TITLE%,2)
$cutLeft(%TITLE%,6)
$cutLeft(%TITLE%,17)
$cutLeft(%TITLE%,49)
... and name those actions like ...
Title &cut left#&1
Title &cut left#&2
Title &cut left#&6
Title &cut left#1&7
Title &cut left#4&9

Also check out the function $trimLeft(), which probably could replace all the special designed $cutLeft functions.

DD.20150213.0957.CET

4

Thanks, but somehow it just 'doesn't feel right' to create a bunch of actions just to Trim1, Trim2, Trim3, ....

If I get Titles like '01 Sing Along With Me' I want to delete the left 3 chars

Sometimes I have an audio book with titles like 'Split01 Introduction', 'Split02 The Beginning', ... or 'Split01-Introduction', 'Split02-The Beginning',

In the second case I'd want to remove the left 8 char

I recall the record Title cleanup required removing 17 characters (ugly)

If there is not way to 'ask' then I suppose I could create Actions to Trim1, Trim5, Trim10, etc. and run the different ones the right number of times

Ex. For the 17, run Trim10, Trim5, and Trim1 two times

Just thinking the might be a better way but I will check out %cutLeft and $trimLeft() -- thanks for the tip

5

If you want 1 action for all you have to find out in what way the examples are identical and use a different approach with the action type "Guess Values". This action type needs a unique delimiter, which is a white space or a hyphen in your example. Only you can know whether you have unique delimters between the characters to cut off and the rest of the title.

Type: Guess Values
Source Format: %title%
Guessing Pattern: %dummy% %title%

or

Type: Guess Values
Source Format: %title%
Guessing Pattern: %dummy%-%title%

6

This is a good example to apply the function $trimLeft.

From : '01 Sing Along With Me' To : 'Sing Along With Me' Action: Format value Field : TITLE Formatstring: $trimLeft(%TITLE%,'0123456789. ') ... or ... Formatstring: $regexp(%TITLE%,'^[0-9.\s]+',)

See also ... Action "Guess values"
... for example ...

TITLE='Split01 Introduction'
Sourceformat: %TITLE%
Formatstring: %PART% %SUBTITLE%
==> PART='Split01'
==> SUBTITLE='Introduction'

... or ...
TITLE='Split01-Introduction'
Sourceformat: %TITLE%
Formatstring: %PART%-%SUBTITLE%
==> PART='Split01'
==> SUBTITLE='Introduction'

... or ...
TITLE='Split01-Introduction'
Sourceformat: %TITLE%
Formatstring: Split%TRACK%-%SUBTITLE%
==> TRACK='01'
==> SUBTITLE='Introduction'

... or ...
TITLE='Split01-Introduction'
Sourceformat: %TITLE%
Formatstring: %DUMMY%-%SUBTITLE%
==> SUBTITLE='Introduction'

DD.20150214.1008.CET

7

Ahh, I did not realize that $trimLeft could take multiple characters

I read the help and to me it read like only a single character would be trimmed:

That really helps

I'll have to experiment with the Guess Values

Thanks to both of you for the tips

8

Added a 2 step action using Guess values to strip prefixes from Titles with the most common combinations of dash and space

So starting with this ...

Split01 - Sing Along With Me
Split01-Sing Along With Me

Using these in sa single action

%dummy% - %title%
%dummy%-%title%

I end up with

Sing Along With Me

Works great