Messages

1

Questions / Re: Change display name for an album.

« on: February 12, 2023, 03:03:08 PM »

You could use a custom tag in the file to state your preferred title, then change the header in artwork view to use a virtual tag that will only use that if it is not empty.

So if you write the "The Mountain" in <Custom10> for example, then make a virtual tag with something like $IsNull(<Custom10>,<Album>,<Custom10>), then go to
preferences -> layout 1 -> main panel -> files: customise layout -> the 'show settings' box halfway down -> then under 'header' the first dropdown box should probably say Album by default, change that to your new virtual tag and you should be sorted.

You could of course change Custom10 to something like Display Name in the tag preferences, then use $IsNull(<Display Name>,<Album>,<Display Name>) which would look neater perhaps.

2

Questions / Re: Forward button behaviour when editing track number

« on: November 13, 2022, 11:00:12 AM »

To solve your situation without quite being able to explain it, if you go to the main Musicbee dropdown in the top left, Tools, Tagging Tools, Renumber Tracks, you can number the whole lot in one hit, including with multiple discs or albums. You can also set up a hotkey for that to speed things up.

At a guess, if you think of unnumbered tracks as being 0, when you do number one of them the order would become 0001 and send it to them bottom, now being the largest. And at an even wilder guess, does the tag editor think you're 'forwarding' from position 1 to position 2, then 2 to 3, with no regard for actual tags? When I have edited some tracks manually, I find working backwards is a bit more reliable, as you're moving backwards into the 'static' order you have before. It does seem a bit bizarre sometimes I agree, but it should only have to be done once.

3

Questions / Re: 2 Different Albums Under The Same Album

« on: November 01, 2022, 04:24:32 PM »

If you open the tag editor and look under the Sorting tab, I would change the 'sort as' album tag to the same thing for both discs, so they will group together while keeping separate original tags. Then you might need to change your library's 'Sort By' order to use <Sort Album> instead of simply <Album>.

4

Questions / Re: How can I have it sorted Alphabetically and then Numbers and then specials?

« on: November 01, 2022, 04:00:59 PM »

This one seems to work like you asked:

$If($IsMatch($Left(<Sort Album>,1),"A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z"),<Sort Album>,
$If($IsMatch($Left(<Sort Album>,1),"1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|0"),"zzz"<Sort Album>,"zzzzz"<Sort Album>))

You should still be able to type "zzz20" on the keyboard to jump to "20 Jazz Funk Greats", or you can of course adjust the amount of zzzs for all your ZZ Top needs.

5

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Allow to remove line gap between discs

« on: November 01, 2022, 03:43:53 PM »

I was going to write there is sort of an option for this in the 'Artwork' view (I take it this is in the 'Album and Tracks' layout?), there's a dropdown box called 'sub-grouping header:' where you can choose which tag to use instead of only Disc#.  For instance, I have a virtual tag set up so that if the Grouping tag is "Podcast" or "Mix",  the header will display the year instead of the disc (I have hundreds in some albums, don't ask ). But actually I've just checked and if you remove any header at all, it still splits by discs with an empty line, and my podcast-year thing only works when there is no disc number.  So ultimately it would simply be nice to not have <Disc#> override all.

6

Questions / Re: How can I have it sorted Alphabetically and then Numbers and then specials?

« on: November 01, 2022, 02:06:44 PM »

You could make a virtual tag and use this, add extra symbols to your liking where the "1|2|3..." bit is:
$If($IsMatch($Left(<Album>,1),"#|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|0"),"zzz"<Album>,<Album>)

Or I could probably make an A-Z, numbers, #!? order, when I've had some more coffee  

Or it should be possible to make a tag that would list "5" as "Five", so "3 Feet High and Rising" would become "Three Feet...", if that would be useful? There's always the <Sort Album> tag as well, for when you want to turn bands like !!! into Chk Chk Chk.

7

Questions / Re: How to? Different folders in 2 tabs

« on: October 10, 2022, 09:50:31 PM »

You could try making an auto-playlist for each folder, with the rule "Path" "starts with" C:\Music\All Bands... (for example), and another playlist leading to the other folder. I find keeping playlists open in different tabs a bit more stable than separate parts of the main library, when using different sort orders at least.

8

MusicBee Wishlist / Sort-order hotkeys

« on: April 04, 2020, 03:19:34 PM »

Loving MB as always, so much so I spend a fair bit of time creating new sorting methods (with varying degrees of success in my code writing). Instead of right click then scroll down 2 separate menus, would it be possible to implement a few hotkeys to flick between orders, or maybe an action button next to the tabs?

I currently use ctrl+1, ctrl+2 etc. to switch between album views which is really useful, perhaps similar could be done with the 8 custom orders? I see the 'send to external application' keys go this method, but I'd be happy with a top 5, 3 podium spots, even if a few became recreations of the simpler default orders. Or do both of course  



I did have a dig through old posts, this one from 2012 suggests there was something added, and another user asked if there could be an on/off toggle for a default order, but for the life of me I can't find anything related to it in the program options.

9

Questions / Re: Deleted 2 entire tags, is recovery possible?

« on: September 24, 2019, 10:33:30 PM »

Thanks for the quick reply and the test, thought that might be the case. I suppose I was expecting the location of the tag to be the only change, not the information contained as well.  The 'swap tag' tool is so useful normally, I must have got a bit complacent. I'll look into backups asap.

That really could do with a warning or suggestion to set it up before adding content! Hope this stops someone else doing the same at least, learn by other's mistakes as they say.

10

Questions / Re: Deleted 2 entire tags, is recovery possible?

« on: September 24, 2019, 09:51:57 PM »

No, I've checked a few tracks and nothing. There are actually none of the other custom tags that I haven't messed with either.. Does this mean they're saved remotely somewhere?

I've found a folder called 'Tag Backups' in the AppData folder, but that's empty too. I've never made any changes to the backup process, if that is even possible.

11

Questions / Deleted 2 entire tags, is recovery possible?

« on: September 24, 2019, 09:38:03 PM »

Hi, I'm having a mild panic,

I was having a play around in the options earlier (as all good stories start) and managed to delete the entire contents of 2 of my custom tags. I've had all of them set to the default "save to musicbee database only" but thought it might be useful to save them to the file. I changed the two to something else, it rescanned my library and now those are completely wiped. I think one of them I set to 'file owner', but most of those tags are hidden so it's hard to investigate. Not found anything in MP3tag yet, and the 'tag history' option under Additional tools gives me an error.
And then because I'm a genius I set them both back to 'musicbee database only'. As if.

So, are these really gone? I have no idea what I'm reading with BAK files in programs... It's not quite the end of the world if so, I can put this down to my own stupidity, but it would be nice to restore them and/or prevent doing this in future.

12

Questions / Re: All Genre in one folder

« on: February 23, 2019, 11:07:02 PM »

I use the Organise Files function for moving about folders, under Tools or I set up a hotkey for ease.


So I assume at the moment instead of   
music\genre artist\album\filename

You'd want to set the naming template to something like
\Music\<Genre>\<Album Artist>\<Album>\<Filename>


Useful for cleaning up filenames too, i exchange the last bit for \<Disc-Track#> <Title>

13

General Discussions / Re: Official MB appreciation thread

« on: December 01, 2018, 04:04:11 PM »

I've been using Musicbee for a month or two now, and it's an absolute dream. Really seems like it's been made by someone who's used other music players and thought hmm, that would be useful, and added it. Every time I think 'it would be cool if I could do that', after a quick search and some playing around it becomes reality! Incredibly intuitive.

Adding all the random folders I have has become a lot less tedious as it's fun finding out all the info about an artist to put in custom tags now. It's made me relisten to a lot of world music compilations i've got as I've begun adding locations alongside all the usual tags, so I can filter by continent/country/state/town. That might take some dedication, but it brings alive another angle to a musician. Or removing all browsers and columns for a screen solely made of album covers looks quite classy.

Lots to discover, many thanks!!