Author Topic: Batch edit "Date Added"  (Read 6475 times)

SofaQueen

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Hi Steven & everyone,

lately I've been doing a lot of research on the "Date Added" field, which I often use to sort my library. I don't want to get into the complicated mess that is my library here, but I just want to suggest: It would be nice to have more flexibility in terms of editing Date Added for multiple files (though there are some workarounds).

So, two suggestions/wishes:
1) Enabling batch editing of the "Properties" tab which is currently only possible for single files. That would make it easier to edit the info manually.
2) Making"Date Added" writable in the additional tagging tools (copy/swap tags). Right now "Date Added" does not show up in the list of destination tags to copy TO, presumably because it's not technically a tag or something. But I saw that in June 2014, 'Play Count', 'Skip Count' and 'Last Played' were made writable. Would this be possible for Date Added as well? Then you could replace the current Date Added with the Date Created/Modified, depending on which one you want as the Date Added.

I've found various posts surrounding this subject which are 2-3 years old and I was wondering if there were any changes planned by now or anyone was still interested in this. So I thought I'd refresh the topic.

In this post Steven declared having no intention of implementing batch editing of file properties:
http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=4530.0

In this post vaterp offered to write a script to enable editing of the database file where information such as Play Count and Date Added are stored:
http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=7249.0

As far as making Date Added writable in advanced tools goes, I haven't seen anyone suggesting that yet.

As always, thank you Steven for this wonderful music player!

Cheers,
Sara

emmaoninternet

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+1 this request

This feature would be especially useful to those of us who use 'Date Added' for playlist creation and/or anyone who endeavors to upgrade X portion of their library with higher quality versions of already existing content.

Although the latter scenario can be accomplished via Right Click > Send To > Folder (Replace) > Replace the Selected File ..., it must be done individually on each file, which is just a skosh too tedious when replacing literally 1000s of tracks. Allowing batch write of the 'Date Added' field would also preclude any need to program a smarter 'Replace' function to handle multiple files, as the existing additional tagging tools + copy/paste tag functions would effectively accomplish the same OCD goal of retaining your tracks' dynamic/personal metadata. For now, when I'm doing retroactive quality upgrade batch replacements, I've actually resorted to just temporarily changing my computer's date, which I can deal with, but is a little bit silly.

Also, I might finally get to allow track metadata changes to update 'Date Modified', as it would no longer have to serve as the fallback "more real" 'Date Added' (for my purposes), thereby enabling device/phone synching to work as fully intended :)

I don't know if it's even possible for me to gush about MusicBee with greater enthusiasm than I already do (whenever the opportunity arises), but it's possible that the addition of this feature could inject 1 or 2 more superlatives into my MB/Steven-is-the-best spiel.

Thanks!




Skinjob

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+1

Have wanted this for a long time, would be very helpful.

redwing

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+1

Too many occasions to lose metadata unexpectedly while managing folders. Then no way to fix this unless re-importing tracks with a manipulated system date.

Freddy Barker

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+1

I could make good use of this sometimes  :-X

boroda

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+1

@Steven, very many +1's. i dont think its too complicated to implement.

Steven

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phred

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date added and other info for the summary tab are now supported
It may be time for new glasses, but I can't find the summary tab. Where might it be?
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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Steven

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phred

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Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here