Not a wish, but a thought/suggestion regarding 'play-count', 'date added' etc.

[hiccup]

Here is me, posting a suggestion for something that I don't care about myself at all.
(except for that it is something that has come up, and is still coming up in the forum very frequent)
 
There seem to be quite some users that are concerned about them losing track information that concerns things like 'play count', 'date added', etc.
But since such information is only stored in MusicBee's (propriatary/closed) database, it can pose a problem for users migrating, reinstalling, or experiencing issues or other challenges.

I myself am a firm believer in having all relevant information about a song that I care about in the file itself, and not be concerned of or depend on it being present and only available in some specific application, database, or some 'fresh' installation.

Cut to the chase:

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea if there was an option within MusicBee, or if there was a plugin, that allows for storing such information in the files themselves by means of tags.
That way it would be easy to make sure that such information 'travels' with the files themselves and won't easily get lost.

[Pickles7853]

Cant you?
Seems like you could create a virtual tag: VPlayCount: [<play count>] and then link it to a custom tag: <PlayCount>: [PLAYCOUNT] to store it in the file itself.
I only have one playlist so I do not *really* want to test this out.  But it seems like it should work...

[hiccup]

Seems like you could create a virtual tag: VPlayCount: [<play count>] and then link it to a custom tag: <PlayCount>: [PLAYCOUNT] to store it in the file itself.

How would it get saved into the file, and what 'link to' feature in MusicBee are you referring to?

[Pickles7853]

Apologies.  I think I am getting several separate features/ things mixed up here.  I have been reading too much MusicBee content recently and posted without thinking on it too much which was a mistake.

But I was specifically thinking of the Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools plugin.

In one of the screen shots (third on the posting page) you can see a field for assigning a virtual tag function id.  This, combined with a statement farther down the page:

Calculates auto rating on the basis of the number of plays per day for selected tracks. Also its possible to auto rate all tracks of your library on MusicBee startup or update auto rating if currently played track is changed.

made me think that this plugin could likely read the MBDB tags.  And, if so, should then be able to write them back as a tag.  My brain is mush right now so I apologize for likely sending this thread down an empty rabbit hole... but in my mind (ATM) it made complete sense...

[hiccup]

Apologies.  I think I am getting several separate features/ things mixed up here.

No worries, you can't be blamed for being enthusiastic about MusicBee and all the things that may perhaps be possible in some way or another.

But this topic is about something quite specific:
An option to have attributes such as 'last played', 'play count', 'date added' etc. saved to the files instead of into MusicBee's database.

If you (or anyone else) know how that can already easily be accomplished using the AT&RT plugin, please describe how.
Making assumptions about how this *perhaps could be done* is not good enough in my opinion.

[Pickles7853]

Nailed it!
Topic: How to save Play Count to music files as tag