Tag Panel suggestion

[vilsen]

I've been tagging my flac's with mp3tag for some years now, and it is the best tagger I have tried by far! The only thing I've been missing is a practical way to save the values for e.g. style, mood, theme, location, label etc in lists. Also lists for artist, composer, conductor, producer etc would be practical, to keep spelling consistent.

I've tried to use sample files and to use Actions, but those solutions weren't well suited for this purpose.

There are several requests here on the forum for customizable drop-down lists in the Tag Panel - while this would also suit my needs, the solution seems to displease those who want to keep the current functionality of the drop-downs.

So, to be able to have value lists while keeping the drop-down feature untouched, I have the following suggestion:

In addition to the drop-downs in the Tag Panel, there could also be buttons for pop-up windows. These pop-ups would contain customized lists with values for the tag in question. For example, when you click the button next to Style, a window with the values for Style pops up. In this window list, you would select one or multiple values to be added to the tag.

I think this solution would satisfy those of us who have been wishing for value lists, without touching the current functionality of the drop-downs.

I've photoshoped a picture to illustrate my suggestion (note the extra buttons in the Tag Panel).

[incifinci]

Yessss --- I was searching exactly for this one. (I thought as a feature in extended tag panel, what we can switch on/off, for saving resources, saving speed -- but this one is a better implementation of the idea.) The only difference: I would like more not

...customized lists with values for the tag...

...but a "simple" drop-down of existing tags for that field (as above, with a new buttons, keeping the current functionality of the existing drop-downs). It is less difficult to implement (I think), and easier to manage for users -- as it simply must not be managed.

Yes, this is a big modification, but really would be a very big help for users. Foobar already has something like this (in panel, opening for "Properties" from a context menu), but it is not mature. First, it mixes data of several fields: when I look for a composer, it shows me in drop-down list the performers, genres too, and so on. This makes it all meaningless. Second: foobar is a brilliant program, too, but not for tagging in the first place -- Mp3tag is for this purposes.

Now, as Florian implemented the valuable feature of tags database: half way is done...

And I think, for saving resurces/speed, it is enough for some fields only: composer, artist, albumartist, contentgroup, album, title, and so on -- encodersettings, unsyncedlyrics will be meaningless. The better implementation, if the user can regulate, what fields to use for this feature.
And it is very important to implement the "search" feature in the top of the drop-down list of the field: there must be some delay, about 2-3 seconds, after typing the first letter. Without the delay the result is terrific, as we can see now in Foobar's Facets plugin: brilliant plugin, but hard to use, because has no delay.

[incifinci]

@vilsen

...customized lists with values...

You can consider, as a workaround, Ditto clipboard manager: create a group, for example "Composers"; write a list, sort it, copy them one by one, mark all in Ditto as "do not clear automatically", and move them in the newly created group. Do a comfortable general hotkey (I use Ctrl + the most downleft key on my keyboard), so you can use it any time quickly. I use it many years and think, not a wrong helper.

But, to be correct: as the surest one I use the workaround: a continusly opened txt file with a lists of composers, artist, conductors, arrangers (all only for classical music), and time to time compare/refresh it from the foobar (album list). It is very comfortable to use for this purpose EditPad (Pro or Light), as it can fold blocks of lines. Plus, it has strong regex ability, what is a good help too, many time, in editing tags; and code color syntax, for scripting. (Plus sorting, blank/repeated lines deleting, case changing, macros, and so on -- one of the best app in the net.)

[ohrenkino]

title, and so on -- encodersettings, unsyncedlyrics will be meaningless

Esp. if you have a title in several incarnations like remixes, best of etc. but you have added the unsyncedlyrics only for one of the files with the same title, it would be meaningful.
But as it is now possible to load even large collections, it should be possible to filter for similar data and then use one of the already existing tracks as template for the others.
This would save you the bother of maintaining several lists as some kind of configuration file but instead retrive the up-to-date data ad hoc from the existing tracks.

[incifinci]

filter for similar data and then use one of the already existing tracks as template

Yes, some time I use this method, but it is not the best solution -- in fact, slow, time consuming. Much quicker to switch to foobar album list and copy the needed. But will be quicker to do the same in Mp3tag -- now it already has the same database, as foobar.

In general (and this is important, I think), there is some fundamental difference between Mp3tag's and foobar's method of using/managing their database: searches in foobar are much quicker. In fact, solving this will be the first todo on the way to the above suggestions.

[incifinci]

Foobar already has something like this (in panel, opening for "Properties" from a context menu), but it is not mature. First, it mixes data of several fields: when I look for a composer, it shows me in drop-down list the performers, genres too, and so on. This makes it all meaningless.

I found a solution on a foobar forum:

The plus sign actually does denote something special. Fields joined by + all draw from the same list of autocomplete values. Fields set apart by ; draw from unique lists of autocomplete values. ALBUM ARTIST+ARTIST;ALBUM will let you select ALBUM ARTIST and ARTIST from the same pool of autocomplete values, while ALBUM will be selected from a different pool.

What I can not understand so long: why so much info are hidden in foobar.

[incifinci]

I found a solution...

No -- I did not find it. It only searches for the first letter, not the match within the text.

[Zerow]

[...]
In addition to the drop-downs in the Tag Panel, there could also be buttons for pop-up windows. These pop-ups would contain customized lists with values for the tag in question. For example, when you click the button next to Style, a window with the values for Style pops up. In this window list, you would select one or multiple values to be added to the tag
[...]

This would save so much time, would reduce most of my clicks and on top of that it would make work more correct / precise


I use GENRE tag field for tagging my files with names / codes that I myself have created. For example some number for "good for falling asleep", other for "good for uplifting reading" and so on- and have all of them in my actions. Over a 100 of them, divided [in menu] into few groups. And some files can have something like 30 o them applied. So it means I have to navigate 30 times through my menu and make 60 clicks

And so if I could see all of them in one window and see precisely which I am selecting, I would work faster and eliminate most of mistakes

Because you know, its hard to read something like

##22 ##23 ##45 ##58 ##66 ##67 ##88 ##90 ##91 #95

and spot that in such "equation" some code is missing while some other should not be removed from there. But if saw them "on a board" in groups created by me that very first time when I was initially picking them up for a given file, I could a that moment kind of visualize some connections / rules that I follow doing this