I would like the metadata views to accurately show the field names and values in their actual case and letter spacing. It is cumbersome to have to use another application such as a hex editor app to actually "see" the real tag information in a flac file.
I would also like to be able to have the option to dictate the case and letter spacing (all upper, mixed, etc.) for field names, especially when using vorbis comments. Yes, I know that software is not supposed to care about letter case, but managing a huge library of flac files would be less cumbersome and less error-prone if the field values were uppercase, one-word names.
I've been suggesting this for a couple of years - having the ability to view 'raw' tags, exactly as they appear. It sure would make troubleshooting easier. This and a couple of other shortcomings make Mp3tag a poor tool for much troubleshooting of tagging problems and fixing or removing improper tags (not tag fields). It's a great tagging tool, but it can't always be used to fix real world problems.
Instead of a hex editor, you can use metaflac.exe to list the raw tags. Try the following:
You can put this into a little batch file to make it easier to use:
@echo off
"C:\Program Files\FLAC\metaflac.exe" --list --block-type=VORBIS_COMMENT %1
Output looks like:
METADATA block #2
type: 4 (VORBIS_COMMENT)
is last: false
length: 445
vendor string: reference libFLAC 1.1.4 20070213
comments: 14
comment[0]: Album=18 Blues Masterpieces
comment[1]: Genre=Blues
comment[2]: Artist=Elmore James
comment[3]: Title=Dust My Broom
comment[4]: Albumsort=18 Blues Masterpieces
comment[5]: Replaygain_Track_Gain=-0.66 dB
comment[6]: Replaygain_Track_Peak=0.74969482
comment[7]: Replaygain_Album_Gain=-0.77 dB
comment[8]: Replaygain_Album_Peak=0.82339478
comment[9]: Replaygain_Reference_Loudness=89.0 dB
comment[10]: Artistsort=James, Elmore
comment[11]: Compilation=1
comment[12]: Date=1994
comment[13]: Tracknumber=6
This is already possible. You can change the case of all field names by using a standard 'Case conversion' action.
Action type:Case conversion Field:FIELDNAME Case conversion:Mixed Case Words begin from/after any of: -
I have a small action group that runs the above action, then it capitalizes any field names that I want in all caps (e.g. ISRC). Doing the capitalization of select fields is awkward, as it involves four steps: copy the value to a temp field, delete the old field, copy the temp value to the new field named in all caps, and then delete the temp field. If you want everything in all caps then it's just a single Case conversion action.
I always make sure that this action group is executed last whenever I make any tagging changes to a file.
I'm not certain what you mean by 'letter spacing', unless it's to see that something like 'ALBUM ARTIST' is rewritten as 'ALBUMARTIST'. That's not really a letter spacing issue, as these can only be viewed as two distinct field names. You might be able to do something using user-defined field mappings. If not, it will have to be addressed in an action group by copying from one field to another.
