Messages

1

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: The option to order library filters in groups/folders.

« on: April 05, 2024, 02:00:20 AM »

+1

I would add, not just ordering them, but organizing them into folders.

For instance, I have several filters related to "Library Maintenance" or "Tag Maintenance" and a number that aid with "Playlist Management" and still others that are intended to filter particular songs for various other reasons.

2

Questions / Re: Artists with the same name

« on: November 02, 2023, 02:38:05 AM »

When I have more than one artist with the same name, I use a virtual tag consisting of <Album Artist> (<Country>), which covers most cases, but something other than <Country> could be used and the principle would remain the same.

As my Artist tag includes featured/guest artists, searching using this tag doesn't typically bring up an entire album - provided you use the Album Artist tag properly, e.g. consistently for a whole album, I've found this a better way to search.

Sorting using <Album Artist> (<Other Tag>), then by Year also gives a nice, clean, ordering of each same-named Album Artists' discography, chronologically.  So all "Budge" would list first, and then "Budgie (Peter Clarke) would follow.

3

MusicBee Wishlist / Reset Play Count / Skip Count - in Toolbar/Context Menu & Undo Capability

« on: October 27, 2023, 05:53:24 AM »

I think that these are relatively recent features, and I especially value Reset Play Count.  Not sure when they were added, but nice to have 'em!

2 things:

It would be fantastic if these could be made available as items that could be configured in the Toolbar and/or added to the Context Menu, so i don't have to work through 2 submenus.

I noticed that, when I try to undo (ctrl-z) a Reset Play Count, it seeks to undo the last item before the Reset Play Count action.  The warning in the modal window provides protection against an inadvertent Reset Play Count, but being able to undo this as is the case with other tag edits would be welcome.

4

Questions / Re: Disable tag inference from filename

« on: October 24, 2023, 03:02:56 AM »

Search for Artist, Has No Value

Assuming all filenames have the same pattern, select Infer Tags from Filename.

At the bottom of this screen, change the filename template to match your pattern, e.g. <Artist>-<Title>.

Re: your larger question, I think that you might be mixing up Infer Tags from Filename with Autonaming that pulls from 3rd party databases, but I may be mistaken.

5

Bug Reports / Re: Original Artists and Separator Handling Error

« on: October 17, 2023, 05:26:59 AM »

Thank you, that fixed the second issue very nicely!  And thanks for the note of explanation on the first issue.  Much appreciated!

6

Bug Reports / Re: Original Artists and Separator Handling Error

« on: October 15, 2023, 07:04:38 PM »

Thanks! Two things I noted on its behavior with this patch:

In the tag inspector, it does not break a multi-value Original Artist into separate values on separate lines (as is the case with the Artist multi-value tag, for instance).

When I do a search for all cover songs using the search criteria Original Artist Has a Value (or Original Artist Is Not Null as a filter), any multi-value original artist does not appear at all.

7

Bug Reports / Re: Original Artists and Separator Handling Error

« on: October 15, 2023, 06:21:26 AM »

original artist should already be multi-value. The error looks like it might be when saving to a WMA file - is that right?

edit:
i can reproduce this for WMA files - it seems like a WMA bug but i have changed the handling for the next patch update

Correct, I am saving to WMA files.  Many thanks for addressing it w. next patch.

8

Bug Reports / Re: Original Artists and Separator Handling Error

« on: October 14, 2023, 05:22:55 PM »

Without trying this myself, it sounds like the <Original Artist> tag is not a multi-value tag and is possibly erroring because of that?
Are you using the semi-colon to delimit the multiple artists?

Yes, I am using the semi-colon.  And I believe that you are correct in your diagnosis.

9

Bug Reports / Original Artists and Separator Handling Error

« on: October 14, 2023, 04:30:12 PM »

Occasionally, I may want to list more than one artist in the Original Artist field (could be a cover song medley or a song originally performed by two artists).

When I insert the separator between artists in this field, using the main panel, it gives the following error when I try to save:

[[filename]]  --  [[path]]
     Exception from HRESULT: 0xC00D002B

When I add an Original Artist field using the Tag Inspector, it saves without throwing an error, and shows as a value under the appropriate tag in the Tag Inspector, but it does not display in virtual tags or appear in the main panel's Tags (2).

I'm using Musicbee v 3.5.8620.

10

Bug Reports / Re: Search Field Shortcut / Set Specific Fields and empty Album Artist tag

« on: August 09, 2023, 01:46:28 AM »

Wow - thanks so much!!

11

Bug Reports / Search Field Shortcut / Set Specific Fields and empty Album Artist tag

« on: August 08, 2023, 05:38:05 AM »

Musicbee automatically sets the album artist tag based on the artist tag, if the former is empty.  When I do a Custom Search by "album artist," it pulls all albums by that album artist, including when that tag is empty and essentially set to the artist - that is the expected behavior.

However, when I use the Search Field Shortcuts or Set Specific Fields (to Album Artist), those albums where the album artist tag is empty *don't* turn up in the results, even though the artist field matches (and thus the album artist field).  This is not what I would expect, given how Musicbee handles the album artist tag, whether it be for handling displayed fields or custom searching.

Apologies if this isn't a bug but instead a feature request.

Thanks again for this great program.

12

MusicBee Wishlist / Custom Search window and Local Node Only / Entire Library toggle

« on: July 01, 2023, 02:55:08 AM »

I use the Custom Search window more frequently than the Search bar.  The Search bar has the ability to choose between Local Node Only (LNO) and Entire Library (EL) searches.  Musicbee's selects LNO or EL based on the active or last tab, and whether it is in a local node or showing all or part of the library (as far as I can tell).

This can create some inconvenience when using the Custom Search window, as a reversion to LNO creates different search results than anticipated, especially if I'm active across multiple tabs.  When that occurs, I  have to close the Custom Search window, go to the drop down menu on the Search bar, and select EL, then Custom Search again.

It would be nice if there was a toggle on the Custom Search window for LNO / EL, akin to what is available in the drop down under the Search bar itself.  Preferably one that would remember the last-used setting rather than switching based on the active or last tab.

13

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Library View - More Grouping and Sorting Options

« on: June 24, 2023, 06:52:36 PM »

i will add Original Year as an album sorting option and also in the thumbnail browser, but as to the artwork grouping i would like to see some plus ones as it seems quite niche to me

confirming i have added Original Year for sorting in v3.6

Thank you!

14

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Library View - More Grouping and Sorting Options

« on: June 23, 2023, 07:03:49 AM »

For example, if I have two artists with the same name...

Wait...As it stands, how are you differentiating them in other areas...

For the first question, I use a custom tag for grouping and as a preset for the file organizer, both of which reference a country tag when it exists.
This is what my file organizer preset is: $IsNull(<Country>,<Album Artist>,<Album Artist>" ("<Country>")")\<Album>\<Disc-Track#> <Title>. 

Alright, I think I get it now. What caught me out at first was that I thought you meant two different artists had the same literal <artist> value.
But I now see that you mean one could have an artist value like <Mike Jackson> for one artist and <Michael Jackson> for another totally different artist.
And to make things easier, you'd wanna group them as <Mike Jackson (Country 1)> and <Michael Jackson (Country 2)> ?

Do I have that right?

Yes, 100% correct.

For instance, there are two Skid Rows, one Irish and one American.

I would use a conditional "country" tag to get "Skid Row (USA)" and "Skid Row (Ireland)", for instance.  If the "country" tag were blank, the album artist would just be "Skid Row."

What this enables is avoiding the "Album Artist" field getting mangled with a bunch of (Country) qualifiers that impacts searching, for instance.  It also works well with various sorting orders when using Album Artist, which I prefer as my Artist tag is where featured or guest artists are listed.  I use the country tag when and where I need to through custom tags/sorting/display columns/file naming conventions.

However, the Library limits the group options, so I cannot use the custom tag - as a result, all of my "Skid Row" albums are grouped together even though they are distinct artists.

I've been contemplating a few other ways to achieve the same or similar effect, one of which being the ability to use custom tags in the custom sorting field, but this is also not possible.  I don't know enough yet to figure out if there is a way to use a custom tag in the Display Artist field, if that is even possible...but that was my next angle to explore.

15

Questions / Re: Font Color

« on: June 23, 2023, 06:39:36 AM »

Is the anyway to change the font color for SELECTED songs only PERMANENTLY so that they could stand out?  It would be useful during browsing.

I created a "test" virtual tag called TitleColor, and used BPM as the test field (as I never use it):
$IsNull(<BPM>,<Title>,{color: 155,255,64}<Title>{color: default})

I then changed the Set Displayed Fields for "Title" to the name of this virtual tag, in this case, TitleColor.

When BPM has a value, it turns the title green.  When BPM has no value, it leaves it with the default color.

You could substitute "BPM" for a custom tag of your own creation, then simply enter any value into the tag to permanently change the colour of the title.  You could get a bit more creative and customize colors for specific values by using the conditional $If and nesting the formulas rather than $IsNull, as the latter only evaluates for an empty field.