Messages

1

Portable Devices / Re: Converting File Path from two drives for Android phone?

« on: February 26, 2021, 03:23:23 AM »

Hm, well I guess I'll just stick with my current method

I already got a good system goin' with syncing everything periodically with the software I currently use and don't really want to convolute things with multiple programs if I can help it. The bulk editing with text editor isn't the end of the world, but just hoped the system in MB was a bit more robust with file path changing. (

2

Portable Devices / Re: Converting File Path from two drives for Android phone?

« on: February 25, 2021, 07:39:25 PM »

Is there a reason why you're exporting to your device(s) rather than synching?  This path work is done automatically during a sync.

https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Devices#Sync_Settings

Have a wonderful day!

I sync my music using another program: Synthing. I synchronize my music to a few different PCs and devices, some not on my network.

I'm wanting the ability to pick and choose playlists to export for my phone device specifically. I already have a folder to sync playlists I export over, but I need to have the fold path structure match for it to work.

3

Portable Devices / Converting File Path from two drives for Android phone?

« on: February 25, 2021, 02:14:15 PM »

Hello! I know you can convert file paths but I need to be able to convert the file paths from two separate drives to the format used by my phone. To better explain, here's what I need to convert:

D:\Emulation\Launchbox\Music\...
E:\Music\...

both of those need to be converted to

/storage/emulated/0/Music/...

I already tried relative paths and a UNIX path convention to see if I could get the E:\Music one to work when it is just ..\Music\, but it doesn't seem like my phone likes relative paths. Besides, this approach still wouldn't work for the D:\ path.

I was hoping there was a way to use the "map base paths in exported playlists" feature, and just use a relative path for that, but it doesn't seem to work that way.
Here's what I tried:
from: ..\Music\ to: /storage/emulated/0/Music/

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! I can always manually change the paths over with an advanced text editor, but having it automated would be awesome since I could bulk export playlists to my mobile device!

4

Developers' Area / Anybody here experienced with using the Webhook variant of Musicbee Remote?

« on: February 20, 2021, 02:27:32 PM »

I'm wanting to try and experiment with it but I can't seem to find good documentation on usage. I'm very new to this type of programming but was wanting to try my hand at it.

I'm hoping to be able to utilize it so that I can have a music stream chatbot that will let users type commands (within) limits, that will do things like skip tracks or queue tracks based on text entered. However, I don't know what sort of limits there are with the remote program to begin with and I want to check on that before I invest too much time in learning how to program chatbots.  

5

MusicBee Wishlist / Global Tags (And the ability to save to them with a function)

« on: February 19, 2021, 12:37:14 AM »

So, we have Virtual Tags, which are great! But what about Global Tags?

Essentially, a tag that will be the same across all songs (similar to Virtual Tags) BUT with the feature that you can save values to them through the use of a dedicated function.

Here's how this could look:
"Global Tag 1" is set to be a number.
The function $Save(parameter,<Global Tag>) can then be used in template editor to save a value to a global tag.

This would allow a large number of currently impossible feats. Like for example, you could have an incrementing value each time something is played?

Initial value set in the tag menu
<Global Tag 1> = 0  Type set to Number

Template editor function (Uses functions from Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools):
$If(<Artist>=X,$Save($Add(<Global Tag 1>,<Global Tag 1>),<Global Tag 1>)
This would effectively be a integer++ function in MusicBee! This would tick up the count every time artist X is played. This could of course have a whole host of other potential uses if implemented correctly.

However, main problem I see currently would be how to deal with if you have multiple locations writing to the same tag, like if you made the mistake of having the main player template editor AND the track information pane, or even two locations on track information writing to the tag at the same time. I'm not sure how to deal with this. Also, ensuring the function is only ran once per track would be tricky.

That being said, I think the benefits would far outweigh the troubles!

6

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Expansion to Shuffle Settings with more options

« on: February 18, 2021, 08:04:18 PM »

Just extra food for thought about this.

So a good example of this being handy is like in my case. I want to have around 30 minutes of playtime per album when I shuffle by album, so I broke my albums up into equal segments by disc, just messed with disc tag to have it in segments and set MB to use disc as an album denotation.

Now, if I am playing a whole album this works fine, but if I were to play the album from a playlist then you run into problems.

For example, let's say I have a 20 track album with 3 minutes per track and let's hypothetically say I split it into two 30 minute segments in the middle by using the aforementioned technique.
Now let's say just 7 out of those are favorites, rated 5 stars. I play a favorites playlist of only 5-star tracks but 4 of those are in 'disc 1' and 3 are in 'disc 2'.
So in this case MB would only play either the 4 disc1 or 3 disc2 tracks, when it could easily just play all 7 tracks using the setup in my last post by using either the "10 tracks per Album" or a case of "30 minutes per Album".

Indeed this very problem is one that's currently giving me some headache, as I divided up whole albums and have the very same problem, where some "play by album" tracks may only have 1 track in a given disc with the rest stacked on the other 'disc'.

7

Plugins / Re: Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools

« on: February 18, 2021, 06:51:12 PM »

Got the softlock fixed. For some reason, now if I tell any to update at startup it will freeze when the counter says 100% until I right click the taskbar process and press "close" then wait a few seconds and press "no". For some reason it never finishes updating otherwise and softlocks. The same is true if it tries to automatically update all the tags while the process has been open (by using the "update every x tracks" tick box).

For now I just unticked both presets I had and will just go from there. At least the preset that displays the number of sections an album has (counting every 'disc' value) still works..

Aaaaand great.... somehow I softlocked MusicBee.... :|

I unchecked the tick next to the preset at the top and also checked "Save only if tag" AlbumDisc IS AlbumDisc. (wasn't sure but thought that would maybe cause it to write every time I changed songs since it would always be equal).

Also added a second preset to display the number of unique disc values for a given album (the default disc count function wasn't displaying appropriately for all cases).
I did it with:
Album, Count(Disc#) linked with a virtual function id. Confirmed that one worked perfectly, at least.

The problem started when I restarted MusicBee. It freezes while generating previews with the text "Generating preview (reading): 100%" perpetually at the bottom.

I tried deleting the folder for the plugin, but to no avail... is there a way I can fix this without a total reinstall?

8

Plugins / Re: Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools

« on: February 18, 2021, 03:45:38 PM »

Okay so I can get the actual ALR preview box to work with the following setup, now it's just a matter of figuring out how to grab the info with the $ALR function real-time!

Used a pair of Virtual tags:
AlbumDisc = <Album><Disc>  (I am using disc to denote albums in my library, so this gives a unique ID for each disc individually)
TimeIFPlayed = $If(<Play Count>>0,<Time>,)  (Displays track time if it has been played)

I then set it up in the ALR menu as so:
"AlbumDisc, Sum(TimeIFPlayed)"
I set it to save Sum(TimeIFPlayed) to <NULL> and assigned virtual tag function ID "test"

When I update and preview it does what I expect in the preview window, but I have not figured out how to grab this info in the "Track Information" panel.
I tried the following:
$ALR(<URL>,test)   -   which is NULL for all but a few random albums? Maybe 6 out of the hundreds of albums
and
$ALR(<AlbumDisc>,test)  - which throws an exception for about half of the results and nothing at all for the other half.

Exception text: "$ALR Failed: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation."


Am I missing something here? I feel like I'm soooo close!


Edit: I have confirmed for the 1% that displays correctly using <URL> for that it does update after each track is played, however I'm getting an exception with Sub/AddDuration when I try to use it. Going to try to see if I can work around it.

Edit Edit: Trying to see if I can define a Custom Tag for it to save to (that isn't saved to any files so I don't change the modified dates on them), so I can then use the Custom tag in my formulas and hopefully get around the issue with it throwing exceptions when I try to use the value. It seems to throw an exception when I use the ALR function with any of AT&RT's math functions, even if I go and only use a numerical bit (no :'s) with a standard add or subtract function. :\

However, I can't seem to get it to save to the tag. I set it to save "Sum(TimeIFPlayed)" to custom tag "PlayedTime", but it doesn't seem to be saving. idk if I am missing something.. Here's a screencap:

 

9

Plugins / Re: Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools

« on: February 18, 2021, 01:46:38 AM »

Hey I have a question for everyone with more experience with this tool. I'm trying to figure out if there's a way I can use the Automatic Library Reports feature to do the following:

Make a report that will work with the $ALR(<URL>,preset_id) function and, for any given track, check to see what tracks have been played, and sum up the duration for every track in the same album that has been played at least once (ideally using whatever criteria MusicBee does to group the tracks). My hope is that I can take this value, and use $SubDuration with the <Album Duration> to give me a track-by-track display of the time remaining before the album is finished for when I am shuffling by album.


virtual function id: timeplayed (is sum of TIME for all played tracks in a given track URL's album)

Track information field entry:
$SubDuration(<Album Duration>,$ALR(<URL>,timeplayed))

So if an album is 5 tracks and 14:30 total, and the play data looks like this:
Track 1: PLAYED         1:53
Track 2: PLAYED         4:20
Track 3: PLAYED         0:52
Track 4: PLAYING       4:25
Track 5: UNPLAYED   3:00

While playing Track 4
$ALR(<URL>,timeplayed) = 7:05

and therefore
$SubDuration(<Album Duration>,$ALR(<URL>,timeplayed)) = 7:25


Is such a thing possible?

10

Questions / Display remaining time in an album?

« on: February 17, 2021, 05:19:06 PM »

Hey! I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to do this with various tools but to no avail.

I was wanting to figure out if there's a way to display the amount of time remaining in an album when playing one in a queue while using "shuffle by album". I don't mind if it is not 100% using tools internal to MB, or even extra plugins.

Currently, I've been trying to look into if there was a way to utilize the "Additional Tagging and Reporting Tools" along with the "Now Playing to External Files" plugins to output the duration and length of each track to a txt file, and then have a script that subtracts time off to show an updated remaining time for each track, resetting and updating to a new album duration each time album changes.
Obviously, this is very convoluted and I haven't even begun working on the script for it.. (Can't seem to find Album Duration on the list of available vars for "Now Playing to External Files"...)

Is there an easier way to do this that I might be missing? I don't really care what format the displayed number takes or even care about where on the player it would be located, just that the number is listed somewhere!

I'm working on using MusicBee for a music stream and I currently just print the total time for the whole album on it but it would be great to have some form of countdown!

11

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Expansion to Shuffle Settings with more options

« on: February 17, 2021, 03:03:32 PM »

Another thing I was thinking about shuffle settings. What about the option to set some settings for the playback of album/artist/etc. that you set?

Like for example if you set it to shuffle by album, being able to do like you can with playlists and set a field limiting the amount from that album in a drop-down?

So for example (Items in bold are the options you would select):

Shuffle by <select>:
☐ Shuffle <select> tracks:
     ☐ Limit to <number> <tracks/minutes/etc.> per <select>
              Restrictions: Gap before same <select> can repeat: <number>

When filled out it could look like this:

Shuffle by Album:
☒Shuffle Album Tracks
      ☒ Limit to 10 tracks per Album
              Restrictions: Gap before same Album can repeat: 10

Shuffle by Genre:
☒ Shuffle Genre tracks:
     ☒ Limit to 30 minutes per Genre
              Restrictions: Gap before same Genre can repeat: 1

Shuffle by Virtual1:
☒ Shuffle Virtual1 tracks:
     ☐ Limit to 5 tracks per Virtual1
              Restrictions: Gap before same Virtual1 can repeat: 3
(greyed because checkbox is unselected)

Shuffle by Artist:
☒ Shuffle Artist tracks:
     ☒ Limit to 2 Albums per Artist
              Restrictions: Gap before same Artist can repeat: 2

Thoughts on this?

12

Plugins / Re: MusicBee Remote (Remote Control for Android)

« on: February 16, 2021, 08:04:27 PM »

Hey I'm having some trouble figuring out how to get this set up. Downloaded the latest build and installed it but not sure how to link it up with MusicBee.

Also, is this only for the android app or can this be used with other programs? I'm looking for something I can implement in a chatbot for a music stream I'm doing to allow viewers to use commands to skip/request music, though I have a feeling this isn't what I'm looking for.

Is the plugin installed?

Someone created a fork with websockets https://github.com/musicbeeremote/plugin/issues/16#issuecomment-739565017 you could use it for building a chatbot on top

Yeah I installed it, I just wasn't looking in the right place haha!

I have two versions of MB - Portable and installed, and didn't realize it installed to the installed version since the portable version is where I usually test all this stuff first. Managed to get it showing up now. I'll try to take a look at that other websocket version at some point maybe!

I have so much to do right now but I'll put it on the backlog, thanks!

13

Plugins / Re: MusicBee Remote (Remote Control for Android)

« on: February 16, 2021, 06:16:48 PM »

Hey I'm having some trouble figuring out how to get this set up. Downloaded the latest build and installed it but not sure how to link it up with MusicBee.

Also, is this only for the android app or can this be used with other programs? I'm looking for something I can implement in a chatbot for a music stream I'm doing to allow viewers to use commands to skip/request music, though I have a feeling this isn't what I'm looking for.

14

Bug Reports / Re: Problems with > & < If/Then on numerical tags

« on: February 16, 2021, 03:28:34 PM »

Yes, performing numerical operations with MusicBee is quite challenging, though I don't remember having problems with single or same digit numbers. The first thing you'll have to do is to get things semi-consistent is make sure you're using $Pad() to compare numbers with.

I was able to isolate the specific problem with the $Random function, it's a function error where it is refreshing every time it is called even if you have an external virtual tag for its output. It's refreshing so frequently that even the preview is misleading. The value it says it is outputting on the preview window is not the same value that is giving you the outputted value, for example. So I think that the logic is at least working with smaller values like it should on the MB side of things though I do still have all the other aforementioned issues with < or > that I have experienced before. I'll go ahead and edit the bit out about Random, though.

15

Plugins / Re: Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools

« on: February 16, 2021, 02:42:40 PM »

Followup question about "Random"

Anybody here actually try using it for anything? It has a major flaw in that it refreshes every single time it is called, which wouldn't be a big deal except that that even extends into if you have an external virtual tag for it. I was hoping to use it for some logic but there's no way to call it and have it retain it's same value throughout an instance which would be required for using it with logic.

For example, if I have a virtual tag <Random10> that's a random between 0 and 9, and I try to have it do something different for each number response with a long series of If, else statements (or even discrete if/then statements for each case), like below:
$If(<Random10>=0,???,)
$If(<Random10>=1,???,)
...
etc.

It will sometimes output multiple values. Conversely, if I did one really large if/else that counts down I have majority of cases having it completely going to the bottom of the loop, since the function is being updated every time it is called because it might get updated with a value that matches one of the cases that was already failed...

Does anybody know a way to utilize this function for logic like this effectively? Am I just missing something? I hope so!