1
Bug Reports / $Sum function ignoring decimal numbers
« on: September 25, 2023, 09:16:34 PM »
It looks like the $Sum function only works on whole numbers and ignores decimal numbers.
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2
Beyond MusicBee / wondering about redwing
« on: September 24, 2023, 04:17:04 PM »
Stumbling upon some older forum posts, redwing has been one of the valuable old-school forum members that has done a lot of good regarding improving MusicBee and helping other users.
It came to a (somewhat ugly) abrupt end with him leaving the forum for reasons I still don't fully understand.
(to be clear and honest: I myself had some issues and confrontations with him regarding how he voiced his opinions more than once)
But I'm still curious if he has indeed abandoned MusicBee completely.
Hard to imagine considering the shared appreciation of, and dedication to MusicBee, seeing no valid alternative anywhere on the horizon.
It came to a (somewhat ugly) abrupt end with him leaving the forum for reasons I still don't fully understand.
(to be clear and honest: I myself had some issues and confrontations with him regarding how he voiced his opinions more than once)
But I'm still curious if he has indeed abandoned MusicBee completely.
Hard to imagine considering the shared appreciation of, and dedication to MusicBee, seeing no valid alternative anywhere on the horizon.
3
Tips and Tricks / Have playlists and library filters return whole albums instead of tracks only.
« on: September 24, 2023, 02:24:33 PM »This Tip & Trick makes it possible to set a filter for a playlist or a library filter that will return the whole album if even only one track matches the filter rule.
This can be useful if you e.g. want to filter:
- albums that have one or more tracks that don't have a track gain value
- albums that have one or more tracks encoded in a low quality
- albums that have one or more tracks missing
etc.
This needs two virtual tags.
The first one is to define what tag is to be used as criterion for the filter, the second one will be used in the filter/playlist rule.
virtual tag 1 will be something like this:
$IsNull(<original tag>,,1)
virtual tag 2 will be something like this:
$If($Sum(<virtual tag 1>,<Album>)>0,yes,no)
Examples for the three above mentioned cases:
1. Does an album contain a track that has no ReplayGain value?
virtual tag 1:
- label:
trackgainmissing
- formula:
$IsNull(<Track Gain>,1,)
virtual tag 2:
- label:
albumtrackgainmissing
- formula:
$If($Sum(<trackgainmissing>,<Album>)>0,"RG missing",)
filtering/playlist rule:
albumtrackgainmissing has a value
2. Does an album contain a track that was encoded in a lower quality lossy format?
(in this example below 160Kbps)
virtual tag 1:
- label:
bitratelow
- formula:
$If($Split(<Bitrate>,k,1)<160,1,)
virtual tag 2:
- label:
bitratealbumlow
- formula:
$If($Sum(<bitratelow>,<Album>)>0,bitratealbumlow,)
filtering/playlist rule:
bitratealbumlow has a value
3. Filter incomplete albums (1)
This one needs only one virtual tag:
- label:
albumincomplete
- formula:
$If($Sub($Sum(<Tr.#>,<Album>),$Div($Mul(<Album Track Count>,$Add(<Album Track Count>,1)),2))=0,,mismatch) (2)
filtering/playlist rule:
albumincomplete has a value
(1) you could also use MusicBee's <Album Complete?> tag for filtering, but that one will only work if all your tracks have their tracknumbers written as 'track/total tracks"
(2) shout-out to Carl Friedrich Gauss for helping me with this
4
MusicBee Wishlist / We want more! ;-) (custom tags)
« on: September 22, 2023, 10:15:58 PM »
While having 16 custom tags available is something I believe no other music manager than MusicBee has, it still has been a restrictive limit for me for quite a long time.
One of the solutions I resorted to is having two different MusicBee (portable) installs for my classical music and my non-classical music.
I just couldn't get optimal results for both using a single MusicBee install. The most important reason being the limitation of custom and virtual tags.
But, the limitation of virtual tags will soon be completely solved, since 3.6 will have 50 of them available, which is fantastic.
But the remaining limitation of having (needing) 16 custom tags is still a problem for me.
So my request would be to increase the amount of custom tags to e.g. 20, or 24.
Which would completely solve my problems regarding this.
And/Or:
There are a couple of tags that I believe have proven their worth over time to be available by default, and shouldn't require to be made available only when linking them to a custom tag.
Tags such as:
Subtitle
Set subtitle
Involved people list
Location
Media type
Initial key
in my opinion should be available by default without the need to set up (and sacrificing) a custom tag.
Personally, if only one of the two above suggestions gets rewarded, my 'problems' are resolved completely and I will be grateful.
But for the greater good, maybe both can be adapted/implemented?
One of the solutions I resorted to is having two different MusicBee (portable) installs for my classical music and my non-classical music.
I just couldn't get optimal results for both using a single MusicBee install. The most important reason being the limitation of custom and virtual tags.
But, the limitation of virtual tags will soon be completely solved, since 3.6 will have 50 of them available, which is fantastic.
But the remaining limitation of having (needing) 16 custom tags is still a problem for me.
So my request would be to increase the amount of custom tags to e.g. 20, or 24.
Which would completely solve my problems regarding this.
And/Or:
There are a couple of tags that I believe have proven their worth over time to be available by default, and shouldn't require to be made available only when linking them to a custom tag.
Tags such as:
Subtitle
Set subtitle
Involved people list
Location
Media type
Initial key
in my opinion should be available by default without the need to set up (and sacrificing) a custom tag.
Personally, if only one of the two above suggestions gets rewarded, my 'problems' are resolved completely and I will be grateful.
But for the greater good, maybe both can be adapted/implemented?
5
MusicBee Wishlist / Do not 'Show Header in a Separate Row' available for sub-grouping in Albums view
« on: September 18, 2023, 05:23:07 PM »
For the 'Albums' view you can use sub-grouping to e.g. organise and sort albums by release types.
The problem with that is that it will often make a wasteland of a lot of the desktop space.
E.g. like this:
My request is that the same feature that is available for main grouping (which is to disable: 'Show Header in a Separate Row') also becomes available for sub-grouping.
A mockup of what that could look like:
This would make much better use of the available desktop space.
The problem with that is that it will often make a wasteland of a lot of the desktop space.
E.g. like this:
My request is that the same feature that is available for main grouping (which is to disable: 'Show Header in a Separate Row') also becomes available for sub-grouping.
A mockup of what that could look like:
This would make much better use of the available desktop space.
6
Beyond MusicBee / Brazilian music
« on: September 16, 2023, 09:48:17 AM »
continued from this thread
@xJohnny95
One thing that I am wondering about regarding Brazilian music is genres.
Most often MPB is used for the music that I know and like, but if you would take the meaning of it literal, it would not say much about how the music sounds. Only that it is or was 'popular' now or in the past?
Or does it describe a certain era of Brazilian music, and is it not used for modern music anymore? (which I think you kind of suggested in your earlier reply)
You will also encounter Bossa nova and Samba a lot. But those are mostly the rhythms that a song uses as a basis.
Many albums will contain a mixture of Bossa nova and Samba songs. But there will also be a large variety of how Bossa nova songs will sound. (over the years for example)
So I am curious, what is your opinion on properly labeling Brazilian music with genres?
Are there genre names that you would use that might be helpful to categorise Brazilian music a little bit better?
The artists that I named in the aforementioned post will give you a clue about the Brazilian music I have in my library.
I don't have a lot of more recent artists in my library, so any suggestions that you might have are welcome!
edit:
I just started listening to your suggestion Bem vindo, amanhecer by Saudade.
It also seems good example of the 'genre problem'.
RYM does not even know how to label it with a genre, and Discogs keeps it very general by just saying 'Latin'.
@xJohnny95
One thing that I am wondering about regarding Brazilian music is genres.
Most often MPB is used for the music that I know and like, but if you would take the meaning of it literal, it would not say much about how the music sounds. Only that it is or was 'popular' now or in the past?
Or does it describe a certain era of Brazilian music, and is it not used for modern music anymore? (which I think you kind of suggested in your earlier reply)
You will also encounter Bossa nova and Samba a lot. But those are mostly the rhythms that a song uses as a basis.
Many albums will contain a mixture of Bossa nova and Samba songs. But there will also be a large variety of how Bossa nova songs will sound. (over the years for example)
So I am curious, what is your opinion on properly labeling Brazilian music with genres?
Are there genre names that you would use that might be helpful to categorise Brazilian music a little bit better?
The artists that I named in the aforementioned post will give you a clue about the Brazilian music I have in my library.
I don't have a lot of more recent artists in my library, so any suggestions that you might have are welcome!
edit:
I just started listening to your suggestion Bem vindo, amanhecer by Saudade.
It also seems good example of the 'genre problem'.
RYM does not even know how to label it with a genre, and Discogs keeps it very general by just saying 'Latin'.
7
Tips and Tricks / Make Album highlighting act on any track in album instead of only the first one.
« on: September 15, 2023, 07:57:36 PM »UPDATE:
This Tip & Trick has been useful for one whole day.
The latest MusicBee patch update from today makes it so that Album highlighting will from now on act on any track of an album and not only the first one anymore.
So these virtual tags are no longer needed.
- - - - -
This
For highlighting rules, MusicBee will only check the first track of an album to decide if that highlighting gets displayed or not.
This Tip&Trick is a way to make highlighting act on any track of an album.
It needs two virtual tags.
The first one is to define what original tag must be used for the highlight, the second one will be used in the highlight rule.
- virtual tag 1 will be something like this:
$IsNull(<original tag>,,1)
- virtual tag 2 will be something like this:
$If($Sum(<virtual tag 1>,<Album>)>0,yes,no)
Two real-world examples:
1. Does the album contain a track that has no ReplayGain value?
virtual tag 1:
- label:
trackgain
- formula:
$IsNull(<Track Gain>,1,)
virtual tag 2:
- label:
trackgainalbum
- formula:
$If($Sum(<trackgain>,<Album>)>0,"RG missing",)
- rule for album highlighting:
trackgainalbum has a value
2. Does the album contain a track that was encoded in a lower quality lossy format?
(in this example below 160Kbps)
virtual tag 1:
- label:
bitratelow
- formula:
$If($Split(<Bitrate>,k,1)<160,1,)
virtual tag 2:
- label:
bitratealbumlow
- formula:
$If($Sum(<bitratelow>,<Album>)>0,bitratealbumlow,)
- rule for album highlighting:
bitratealbumlow has a value
8
Skins / Request: a bdr attribute for the top border line of the Extended Panel
« on: September 08, 2023, 05:46:19 PM »
A bdr attribute for "Content[Artwork].Expanded" would make it possible to adjust the colouring of the deviding line at the top of the expanded panel as discussed here.
9
Skins / borders of control buttons
« on: August 27, 2023, 09:13:22 AM »
Something changed regarding the borders of the control buttons. (already a very long time ago I now see)
It used to be that the highlight border only showed up when hovering over a button.
Now there are buttons that have a highlight displaying permanently.
There are two issues I found regarding this:
1. the colour of this new 'permanent' highlight border seems to be auto-calculated and can not be set to an exact value.
Could it be made that it uses the exact value of highlight bdr, or perhaps add a new element for these permanent borders?
2. while the highlight border of a button would only show while hovering over it, it now sticks after you have clicked that button. I am guessing that is not intentional. (I don't see a purpose for it)
As I said, this has changed a long time ago. I had to go back to 3.0 to show the difference clearly.
On the left 3.0, on the right 3.5:
P.S.
I also notice that the default skin has a thicker border for the 'active' button.
Is there an option to do that for custom skins also?
It used to be that the highlight border only showed up when hovering over a button.
Now there are buttons that have a highlight displaying permanently.
There are two issues I found regarding this:
1. the colour of this new 'permanent' highlight border seems to be auto-calculated and can not be set to an exact value.
Could it be made that it uses the exact value of highlight bdr, or perhaps add a new element for these permanent borders?
2. while the highlight border of a button would only show while hovering over it, it now sticks after you have clicked that button. I am guessing that is not intentional. (I don't see a purpose for it)
As I said, this has changed a long time ago. I had to go back to 3.0 to show the difference clearly.
On the left 3.0, on the right 3.5:
P.S.
I also notice that the default skin has a thicker border for the 'active' button.
Is there an option to do that for custom skins also?
10
Skins / border around the scrollbar arrow in the Now Playing bar
« on: August 26, 2023, 03:33:57 PM »
The Now Playing bar:
If I am correct, the border around the scrollbar arrow gets its (auto-adjusted) colour from the fg of "Panel.ChildBody.Default"
It would probably be better if it used bdr of "Panel.ChildBody.ScrollBarThumb"
At least for my skins that border would then be nicely invisible, same as in all other locations for these skins.
(skins that have scrollbar buttons enabled)
edit:
These scrollbar buttons should probably also be available for the scrollbar on the left when a skin has these buttons enabled?
(not having a strong opinion on that though)
If I am correct, the border around the scrollbar arrow gets its (auto-adjusted) colour from the fg of "Panel.ChildBody.Default"
It would probably be better if it used bdr of "Panel.ChildBody.ScrollBarThumb"
At least for my skins that border would then be nicely invisible, same as in all other locations for these skins.
(skins that have scrollbar buttons enabled)
edit:
These scrollbar buttons should probably also be available for the scrollbar on the left when a skin has these buttons enabled?
(not having a strong opinion on that though)
11
Beyond MusicBee / Preparing your files for MusicBee. Picard? Mp3tag? Tag&Rename? Something else?
« on: August 06, 2023, 06:03:05 PM »
I'm curious:
Many MusicBee users seem to be using other software tools to prepare their files before allowing them into MusicBee.
I myself use MusicBrainz' Picard for that. (and Tag&Rename also plays a small but important role in this, credit where credit is due)
Others are using Mp3tag, which I am sure is a good option also. (it just never appealed to me, so I may be missing something there)
So I guess this topic is intended to boil down to:
- what other software tools are you using to prepare your music files before allowing them into heaven?
- what do you believe to be the advantages of the tool that you are using over other tools that you have tried?
Many MusicBee users seem to be using other software tools to prepare their files before allowing them into MusicBee.
I myself use MusicBrainz' Picard for that. (and Tag&Rename also plays a small but important role in this, credit where credit is due)
Others are using Mp3tag, which I am sure is a good option also. (it just never appealed to me, so I may be missing something there)
So I guess this topic is intended to boil down to:
- what other software tools are you using to prepare your music files before allowing them into heaven?
- what do you believe to be the advantages of the tool that you are using over other tools that you have tried?
12
Plugins / Google virus warning for the QQ Lyrics plugin
« on: July 17, 2023, 07:18:57 PM »
@administration:
When trying to download the QQ Lyrics plugin for Chines lyrics that can be found here: https://getmusicbee.com/addons/plugins/473/qq-lyrics/
Google Drive won't allow it and warns that the file contains a virus:
I am guessing it would be good if the plugin page for it was removed completely?
(The creator has never signed up on the forum, and has never shown up again after creating the plugin page)
When trying to download the QQ Lyrics plugin for Chines lyrics that can be found here: https://getmusicbee.com/addons/plugins/473/qq-lyrics/
Google Drive won't allow it and warns that the file contains a virus:
I am guessing it would be good if the plugin page for it was removed completely?
(The creator has never signed up on the forum, and has never shown up again after creating the plugin page)
13
MusicBee Wishlist / the option to disable MusicBee auto-populating Album Artist
« on: July 17, 2023, 08:08:51 AM »
MusicBee will currently 'invent' an Album Artist (using the Artist tag) when the Album Artist tag is in fact empty. (absent)
This may be beneficial for many users that are not prepared for (or aware of) maintaining and populating the Album Artist tag themselves, but it also has negative effects for users that have lots of singles or Various artists albums, or prefer to have control over the Album Artist tag themselves. (like me)
So the request is to have a setting in MusicBee that disables the auto-population of the Album Artist tag.
This may be beneficial for many users that are not prepared for (or aware of) maintaining and populating the Album Artist tag themselves, but it also has negative effects for users that have lots of singles or Various artists albums, or prefer to have control over the Album Artist tag themselves. (like me)
So the request is to have a setting in MusicBee that disables the auto-population of the Album Artist tag.
14
MusicBee Wishlist / make .Ext available for the Duplicate Finder and the field selector menu for VTs
« on: July 16, 2023, 02:34:23 PM »
.Ext is currently not available for the Duplicate Manager, and it is also not showing up in the field selector drop-down for creating virtual tags.
Edit/addition after entering OCD mode:
'More' should probably be written as 'more…'
Edit/addition after entering OCD mode:
'More' should probably be written as 'more…'
15
MusicBee Wishlist / A layout wizard for new MusicBee installs?
« on: June 27, 2023, 07:17:49 PM »
More a thought than a wish:
There are quite a few new users that have a hard time finding out how to get some relevant items/features to display.
(before often probably not even knowing they exist)
For example the (existence of an) Inbox is an enigma for many new users.
That's probably because it does not show on a new install, since the whole Navigator panel is hidden by default.
Also many users seem to apreciate using the Column Browser.
But it is also not showing by default, so many users won't know it is available, and/or have difficulties finding it, not knowing what such a feature is called when they try to look for it.
So I am thinking it might be useful to have MusicBee present a couple of sensible preset layouts that can be chosen when MusicBee is run for the very first time.
Maybe one more minimal, like the current default.
Another one that shows some more panels such as the Navigator Panel and the Column Browser.
Maybe one that shows even more goodies such as lyrics, the graphic visualiser, etc.
If others think this is a good idea, perhaps there could be some survey on what types of layouts are used more frequently?
Also, the choice between a light skin (MusicBee's default) and a dark skin could be offered?
There are quite a few new users that have a hard time finding out how to get some relevant items/features to display.
(before often probably not even knowing they exist)
For example the (existence of an) Inbox is an enigma for many new users.
That's probably because it does not show on a new install, since the whole Navigator panel is hidden by default.
Also many users seem to apreciate using the Column Browser.
But it is also not showing by default, so many users won't know it is available, and/or have difficulties finding it, not knowing what such a feature is called when they try to look for it.
So I am thinking it might be useful to have MusicBee present a couple of sensible preset layouts that can be chosen when MusicBee is run for the very first time.
Maybe one more minimal, like the current default.
Another one that shows some more panels such as the Navigator Panel and the Column Browser.
Maybe one that shows even more goodies such as lyrics, the graphic visualiser, etc.
If others think this is a good idea, perhaps there could be some survey on what types of layouts are used more frequently?
Also, the choice between a light skin (MusicBee's default) and a dark skin could be offered?