getmusicbee.com

Support => Questions => Topic started by: icrhodes1 on April 13, 2016, 12:45:35 PM

Title: Set Displayed Column
Post by: icrhodes1 on April 13, 2016, 12:45:35 PM
I am new to MB and have previously used MM, I am trying to set column display to be able to filer on title, the same way as I do in MM. The reason being I have many of the same songs by different artists and want to choose my preference. Title does not seem to be an option with right clicking and set displayed columns. I am just missing it or is it not an option or is there a work round?

TIA
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: Alumni on April 13, 2016, 12:51:13 PM
The title column should be there by default, or otherwise it would appear under set displayed fields.
If you still can't find it, a screenshot might help us understand what layout you're using.
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: icrhodes1 on April 13, 2016, 02:32:29 PM
The title column is there in the listing, it is the set column displayed at the top were you have up to six options that allow filtering - i.e. I want to filter on titles. Not sure how to submit a screen shot in this forum pasting does not appear to work or I am using the wrong method. I am using the windows classic skin

TIA
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: phred on April 13, 2016, 03:27:00 PM
Screenshots:  http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Posting_Screenshots
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: icrhodes1 on April 13, 2016, 03:41:17 PM
Hope this works

(http://i.imgur.com/k1LP6g6.png?1)
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: hiccup on April 13, 2016, 03:55:52 PM
The title column is there in the listing

Do you mean you have an entry for 'title' in the 'Set Displayed Columns' settings panel for the column browser?
That would surprise me. I am pretty sure it is not available there.

If you want 'title' to be available in the column browser, you could create a virtual tag for it, and select that one to display in the column browser.
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: icrhodes1 on April 14, 2016, 11:36:01 AM
Hi

That is exactly what I was saying, In media monkey this is available and i can see a list of titles and spot where there may have been a typing or punctuation error as I see a list of songs in alphabetical order and can see titles beginning with the same words or letters, which helps if I have created duplicates. I can then select those multiple songs and choose the best conversion and edit the group of songs, which may be by different artists to standardize the title. I collect a lot of recordings from the 20/30/40/50's which in a lot of cases have been converted from discs.

I liked MB as it is faster than MM, but this facility has helped me a lot in sorting my collection. Will probably carry on doing that function in MM and use MB for other things. I have done a screen shot from MM as an example (http://i.imgur.com/32rbIPR.png)
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: hiccup on April 14, 2016, 12:30:33 PM
That is exactly what I was saying

Your posting was a bit confusing to me to be honest, you said "The title column is there in the listing,".
But I suppose you meant to say that it is not.

Anyway, I also presented you a solution for this in my reply.
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: icrhodes1 on April 14, 2016, 01:51:13 PM
Hi

thanks for that I am just going to have to accept that MB is more configurable but not as intuitive as MM, which I have used for the last 6 months without referring to an help sheet.  I tried as best I could to explain from what i could see in front of me from my little knowledge of MB, sorry if it was not clear and I appreciate the time users on the forum give in helping and the amount of work the developer as put in to this program

Even things like doing what you say with virtual tags is not easy to follow from the wiki pages as I had to search virtual tags and when I got the article I had to search where preferences>tags(1) was located. when edit>preferences>Tags(1) would have taken me to it without the second search. I realize that most of the wiki pages are written by enthusiasts who like to try out and push programs to their ultimate, but my interest is getting my music collection sorted in the quickest way.

Right having said that I have now got the virtual tag showing the titles, but unlike the display in the fields it does not ignore the word "The" like the fields does, is there anything I can put in to the virtual tag that would perform like the title field.

Thank once again
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: hiccup on April 14, 2016, 03:22:57 PM
Right having said that I have now got the virtual tag showing the titles, but unlike the display in the fields it does not ignore the word "The" like the fields does, is there anything I can put in to the virtual tag that would perform like the title field.

I can understand that some people want to have 'The' ignored for band names, but I find it a bit strange to have it stripped from song titles.
I can't help you with that, so perhaps somebody else might chip in how that could be accomplished.
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: icrhodes1 on April 14, 2016, 03:36:08 PM
Agree that it should be present, just that when reviewing my collection of old songs I am finding some of the same song titles have the prefix and some do not. I spent quite a time working through my collection in MM eliminating duplicates created by spelling errors and punctuation marks in different places, I then found that some had the prefix and I had to start over again, but because most were at the opposite end of the alphabet it was time consuming to jump back and forth to highlight all the titles using the control + click method.
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: hiccup on April 14, 2016, 03:52:48 PM
For that, you might try Boroda74's "additional tagging tools" plugin.
I can't give you a step-by-step tutorial, but I am pretty sure you should be able to achieve something like that with it.
Either by using some formula, or by perhaps (temporarily) copying the titles to the artist field (of which you can remove 'The' from displaying)
(And before doing that of course storing/backing-up the actual artist field in a custom tag, so you can always put it back.)

If you are going to experiment with this, be sure to try it out on some copied files first, before using it on your actual music library.
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: psychoadept on April 14, 2016, 04:02:37 PM
Right having said that I have now got the virtual tag showing the titles, but unlike the display in the fields it does not ignore the word "The" like the fields does, is there anything I can put in to the virtual tag that would perform like the title field.

Just use $Sort(<Title>)
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: hiccup on April 14, 2016, 04:23:13 PM
Just use $Sort(<Title>)

I must admit I have never used or looked into the 'sort' feature for anything, but I just read your article about it on the wiki.
Well done, and interesting stuff. Perhaps I will try to make use of it myself sometime soon (perhaps for classical composers)
Amazing new discoveries ;-)

http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Using_Sort_Order
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: psychoadept on April 14, 2016, 05:16:25 PM
Thanks!  My first MB article...  looks like I need to update some things.  :)
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: Steven on April 14, 2016, 06:38:30 PM
is there any reason you dont just sort the main panel by Track Title while you perform this check?
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: icrhodes1 on April 16, 2016, 11:39:56 AM
As pointed out I am new to MB and just getting in to ways of working. The reason for highlighting then in the Set Display column area is then I just have the titles I am dealing with. If I put then together in the title field I could have many songs in between where the spelling was wrong or a punctuation put in the wrong place. Control and clicking them in the Set Display area means I have a clear view of the titles I am dealing with in the titles field, I can further control And click for the ones I want to edit or remove.

MB appealed to me as it ignore "the" prefix in title as well as in the artist name, invaluable for groups, plus it's speed. I am going to give the the sort formula a go and see what the results are

Do not mind putting work in to something if you can get it to do what I want. I use Calibre for my e-book collection and that again allows so much customization and I want to be able to do the same in MB
Title: Re: Set Displayed Column
Post by: icrhodes1 on April 16, 2016, 01:23:05 PM
Hi it's me again

Used the formula as recommended by pyscoadept and that works and I have also been able to eliminate brackets at the front of titles, but the program behave strangely after I have deleted or edited an entry in the Title field.

Sometimes it will duplicate lines in the virtual tag listing i.e. 2 of the same song title when there is only one song and sometimes it shows the entry previous to the one I have highlighted as per screen shot (http://i.imgur.com/xPWe0Sn.png?1)

Any thoughts?