Topics

16

Questions / Using the track # of ## tag

« on: August 14, 2014, 02:59:08 AM »

Is there an automatic way to enter the 'of' tag?
Are there any good uses for this tag?

I've just been deleting it all these years, so I thought it was about time I found out about it.

17

Questions / My favourite new features

« on: August 12, 2014, 09:14:52 PM »

One of the best ways to learn musicbee's features is to go through the changelogs in the Latest Version threads. I read them periodically, and today noticed some great additions in v2.4:

- media keys should now work without the need for the "media keys" plugin
- the volume analysis tool has been enhanced to give better feedback and control when peaks would be clipped
- "expanded view" in the artwork layout has been enhanced to include support for when the Artwork layout is grouped by artist
- enhanced file organiser: you can define rules in the auto-organiser to move files across drives
- the progress of long running operations now shows in the windows taskbar (win7+)
- the library explorer can now be set to not filter tracks in the main panel when not viewing the music library node
- library filters can be directly edited using the right click button on a library filter node

The benefit of some of these changes might not be apparent to everyone or affect everyone's workflow, but for me most of these
are really big improvements, so I'd just like to say thanks Steven! Just when you think it can't get better...

18

MusicBee Wishlist / Thumbnail Browser: artwork retrieval

« on: August 12, 2014, 12:45:23 PM »

I have lots of thumbnails which use the default icon because artwork cannot be found automatically.

In these cases, I was wondering how difficult it would be to automatically retrieve and use the
embedded/linked album-cover from the first track of that artist?

At the moment I'm manually copy/pasting from Google. But occasionally for some reason the cache
is lost, and I have to do it all over again. It would be more convenient just to display an album cover.

19

Questions / Quick Question: re-sorting static playlist

« on: July 13, 2014, 04:14:13 PM »

If I load a static playlist into the main pane in track detail view, the 'right-click column header -> sort-by' options don't work.
However, the 'left-click -> column heading' does re-sort the list.

Is there any good reason why the sort options don't work?
I want to sort by album artist/year, and then list -> update play order

Thanks.

20

Questions / ex.fm to shut down

« on: May 16, 2014, 12:34:51 PM »

Just a heads-up...
Just got an email saying ex.fm is going to shut down in the next few days.
So that part of the 'streaming' feature in AutoDJ will stop working.

21

Skins / adding alternating shaded rows to a skin

« on: January 10, 2014, 09:28:38 AM »

I've not used any skins except the 'Windows Theme' skin, basically because very few skins have alternating shaded rows.
How easy is it to edit an existing skin and add alternate rows with colours I designate?

I read the tutorials, but couldn't find the answer.

Thanks.

22

Beyond MusicBee / Space Engine

« on: January 05, 2014, 06:06:21 PM »

Here's some awesome software which, like Musicbee, is developed by one guy in his spare time. Amazing.

Warning #1 - I'm not responsible for any days/weeks you may lose in this software.
Warning #2 - It is in early 'beta' and therefore has some bugs/crashes. Also user interaction (Eg navigation) isn't always easy.

Video: Scale of Space Engine: Earth To Universe Zoom
Remember, after leaving the Milky Way at 2:20, each pinpoint of light from then onwards are tens of thousands of explorable galaxies; each galaxy contains millions of stars, and most stars have several unique explorable planets orbiting them...

Video: YT user Solaris SE
Space Engine is a 'model' universe. It only has 300,000 real objects from astronomical databases. The other billion objects are 'procederal'  - meaning they are created by algorithms.

Video: Terrains
Each star has a unique configuration of unique explorable planets and moons.
(More Videos From LifeLive42 here)

Download here: http://en.spaceengine.org/.

Enjoy!

23

MusicBee Wishlist / Add option to 'overwrite existing replaygain tags'

« on: December 26, 2013, 04:49:17 PM »

Regarding the option: prefs -> Tags (2) -> auto-tagging -> tags -> 'calculate and write missing replaygain tags for new music files'
Could there be an additional option underneath to: 're-calculate and overwrite existing replaygain tags for new music files'.

The reason being, a lot of music that users 'acquire' already has replaygain tags set using different methods/settings/levels/etc.
If your collection has different replaygain settings applied to it, then it kind-of defeats the purpose.

It is easy enough to manually overwrite the replaygains each time music is added, but I thought it might be useful to automate it?

24

MusicBee Wishlist / Syncing and 'modified date'

« on: October 28, 2013, 12:13:14 AM »

When I sync playlists to my mp3 player, MB overwrites nearly all 12Gb of files even though I may actually only be adding or deleting two or three albums. It seems to do this because editing tags changes the 'date modified' field, and like many people I'm constantly editing my collection.

My proposal is to have a tick-box next to the 'synchronise' button, labelled something like: 'do not overwrite existing files'.
When ticked, MB will compare filenames only, and ignore tag and 'date modified' differences.
If a filename exists, MB will not overwrite that file with a new version.

Any thoughts or comments?

25

Skins / Is it possible to change the 'love' icon?

« on: October 27, 2013, 02:04:28 PM »

I don't use last.fm or scrobbling, so I just use the 'love' tag to quickly mark favourite albums.
Thing is, the heart icon is too feminine for my taste.
Is the icon kept in a dll somewhere that I could edit, to swap the heart for something else?

Yes, musicbee is now close to perfection that I'm reduced to thinking about silly, inconsequential niggles.

26

MusicBee Wishlist / ctrl-click library filters to multi-select

« on: October 26, 2013, 01:03:09 PM »

No idea how difficult this would be or what problems it might cause but I wonder if it would be useful
to be able to multi-select library filters in the list, and have the main pane 'merge' the selected filters?

27

MusicBee Wishlist / Re-enable 'Saved Custom Searches'

« on: July 12, 2013, 09:17:34 AM »

I see that the custom search has recently been improved, so that the last search is remembered.

However, users also used to be able to save 5 searches for easy retrieval.
I was just wondering if that feature was going to be brought back at some point?

If I find myself using a custom search regularly, I'll usually be able to create an 'admin' autoplaylist for it instead.

But the advantage of also having a few saved searches, is that you can easily browse through individual sections of the library (filters & nodes). You just click on the section (filter or node) in the top-left pane, and then select the saved search. Whereas you have to edit an autoplaylist to change the section (filter or node) that you want to search.

Is anyone else missing the saved searches or is it just me?

An additional feature that I've always wanted, is to not have the search refreshed when you click on another section (filter or node). It would be great to be able to set your search up, and then simply click your way down the filters/nodes. At the moment, you have to reselect the search each time you change to another filter/node.

Again, is that just me?

28

MusicBee Wishlist / Re: Customise the autoDJ genre tags (in the streaming pane) [SOLVED]

« on: June 13, 2013, 10:12:51 PM »

I love using the AutoDJ streaming feature to find new bands. At the moment typing in my own genre 'tags' works fine.

However, it would be really cool if I could delete the hard-coded list of genres, and enter a list of the genres I usually
listen to, so that I can quickly select from the drop-down list. Nothing fancy - a config file would do.

Thanks!

29

MusicBee Wishlist / 'not rated' should mean 'no value' rather than -1

« on: February 05, 2012, 11:31:45 AM »

'Album rating' can have 'no value' if tracks have never been rated (ie. they do not have an 'album rating' field in tag inspector at all).
This matches the rule: 'album rating has no value'.

If a track has been rated and you're trying to get rid of the rating completely, the obvious choice is the 'not rated' tag/option.
However, instead of deleting the 'album rating' field, the 'not rated' option keeps the field and gives it a value of -1.
This matches the rule: 'album rating = [no stars chosen]', but does not match the rule: 'album rating has no value'.

To solve this discrepancy, I feel that:
· the 'not rated' option should remove the 'album rating' field from the tracks completely, so it becomes 'no value' rather than -1
· the rule: 'no stars chosen' should correspond to 'no value' instead of corresponding to a value of -1

This discrepancy probably also exists in the Track Rating too. If so, it should also be addressed so the ratings are congruent.

I'm trying to think of an instance where it would be helpful to have a separate 'no value' and -1 value, but I can't think of any - it just
seems to needlessly complicate the filtering because you need to remember to set two rules instead of one.

Cheers.

30

Questions / quick poll: how many people use individual track rating?

« on: December 26, 2011, 10:27:01 PM »

As the title states, I'm interested in finding out if people generally bother with manually marking individual tracks with a rating.
A simple YES/NO response is fine, but if you want to explain how you use ratings that's fine too.

Thanks.