Author Topic: / as multivalue field separator  (Read 7193 times)

sergiousme

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Hi everyone.

Is there a way to get / as list separator for multivalue fields (like genre or artist)?

I know ; works but it is causing me a lot of issues of compatibility.

Thanks in advanced!!


Zak

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What issues are you having?

The semi-colon is just how MusicBee chooses to display multiple values for editing, just as mp3Tag uses "\\". The character isn't actually written to the tag, and shouldn't make any difference if it's a semi-colon or a backslash.
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sergiousme

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Thank you both.

It's all about compatibility issues. All my files use semicolon written in the tag, specially (but not reduced to) genre, but when I update with BM any file that has semicolon, the miltigenre splitter adds a row in the tag inspector with the second value. I can't get Winamp to read that second value (not to speak of windows explorer)

I thought that getting ; replaced by / would be a solution only if MB was able to split the tag values and show them as single values, but any suggestion is welcome.

redwing

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the miltigenre splitter adds a row in the tag inspector with the second value

That's how multi-values are handled in files with MB and mp3tag. You might want to ask Winamp team to support reading those values.

sergiousme

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Thank you.

Now, I see MB works that way, but was wondering if there is a way to not necessarily split the value stored in the tag. mp3tag is able to store "value 1; value 2" as a string or value1\\value2 as multiple tag values.

I've noticed that values in COMMENT separated with semicolon are stored as string but are treated in MB as single elements. Something like that should work out.


boroda

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Also genre tag is not stored as multiple values, instead it is stored as single string "genre1; genre2; genre 3"

psychoadept

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Also genre tag is not stored as multiple values, instead it is stored as single string "genre1; genre2; genre 3"

It's not for me, not unless it's imported from another program.
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sergiousme

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It's not for me, not unless it's imported from another program.

That is right. If imported it keeps as a string value, but gets converted if managed with MB. Thanks.

All custom tags work that way.

I'll try to figure it out using custom tags. Thanks

sergiousme

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Finally!!

I noticed that I was looking for a solution without explaining precisely the problem, so here it goes:

I use GENRE and GROUPING tags as multi-value fields, separating each value with semicolon. To me, GROUPING works as a keyword-mood-occasion tag, it means, contains values like soft, instrumental, classic, Japan (for music from that country), french (for music in that language), orchestral, soundtrack, funky, sunny, popular, party, acoustic, live, and things like that.

The thing is, I must be able to perform fast but advanced queries based in those values, just like Custom Search works but in a faster way (see my previous post http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=14217.0), so I use Winamp in that case.

The way Multi Genre Splitter works causes that every value in GENRE are stored separatedly, instead of a string containing "value1; value2; value3...). This causes that Windows, Winamp, Tag&Rename and any other DJ software does not recognize any of the values but the first one. Personally, now that I understand how MB works, I prefer values stored separatedly but unfortunately I need compatibility with other software.

On the other hand, I just love the way MB treats values separated with semicolon as unique values, so using / instead of ; would be fine to get values stored as a string but also would make useless this feature.

So far, the problem exposed. Now the "solution" (it's not quite sofisticated but works for me, and hope for anyone else):

I managed to create a custom Advanced Search And Replace preset that takes GENRE and GROUPING and concatenates its values into PUBLISHER (I don't mind at all that tag) which is stored as a string and the Multiple Tag Splitter has nothing to do with it. Also set that rule to be automatically applied. That way I get my other-not smart software to read all values in the same tag (no, I don't mind that either, as long as they're all there). So, that's it!

Thanks a lot for reading/answering to this post.  :D
Last Edit: November 25, 2014, 07:20:45 AM by sergiousme

juk

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Hi, have you found any solution? A hidden parameter to set in MB to specify the field separator for example?

The ID3 standard is though clear : / is the separator to use. So why changing all files if MB is wrong?

http://id3.org/id3v2.3.0 :TOPE parameter
"The 'Original artist(s)/performer(s)' frame is intended for the performer(s) of the original recording, if for example the music in the file should be a cover of a previously released song. The performers are seperated with the "/" character."