Author Topic: Lyrics line breaks aren't displayed  (Read 6325 times)

hentrop

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I recently migrated from iTunes to MusicBee, and it seems like line breaks aren't handled well in the lyrics. When I edit a song's tags (by pressing Shift-Enter) and go to the lyrics tab, most of the line breaks don't show up. So, it ends up being one (or a few) long lines of text, instead of being displayed on multiple lines, like it should be. When I had these same songs in iTunes, the lyrics showed up properly.

Similarly, when I show the Lyrics panel in MusicBee's main window, the lyrics don't show quite properly there either. In this case, a single line break is shown properly, but when there's 2 line breaks (as when separating a verse from a refrain), it only shows 1 line break. I can edit these lyrics to add any number of line breaks, then they show up properly both in the window for editing tags, and in the lyrics panel.

So, it seems to be an issue with how MusicBee processes existing lyrics, rather than an issue with adding line breaks. Maybe this is an issue with Windows vs Unix line break formats? It looks like the existing lyrics, that were added using iTunes, use a line break format that MusicBee doesn't support?

hentrop

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I found a sort of "fix" for this issue. If I view the lyrics with a program called Mp3tag (a program used to edit song files' tags), they show up properly with line breaks, like I see them in iTunes. If I edit the lyrics using Mp3tag, even in just some minor way (like adding a single character to the end of the lyrics), then the lyrics show up properly in MusicBee with the line breaks.

So, it seems like MusicBee doesn't see line breaks in lyrics if iTunes was the most recent program to edit them.

My fix for now is that I added a short string of characters to the end of the lyrics of all my songs using Mp3tag, then removed that string with Mp3tag. Now all the lyrics have line breaks in MusicBee.

Is this an issue you could fix in MusicBee? I'm guessing there's a lot of people who switch from iTunes to MusicBee, so it would probably be quite beneficial.

violinbzjc

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Mmm I also experienced this when I moved from iTunes to MusicBee, and I manually re-did all my lyrics.

What actually happens is that the first line break (if originally done by iTunes) gets condensed into a tiny little space, that is shorter/thinner than a usual space and usually placed at the start of the next line if it contains text, and if there are two line breaks, it condenses the first one, and shows the second one. This is what you see if you look at lyrics through the Tag editor (i.e. right click -> edit -> lyrics tab).

However, if you view lyrics through the Lyric viewer which can be used as a floating window or as a side tab (preferences -> layout (tab 2) -> arrange panels (top right), it actually shows the full lyrics without condensing those line breaks.

Not saying it's not an issue, just saying that when editing, MusicBee shows the line breaks funny, but when viewing using a conventional lyrics viewer tab without being in editing mode, it shows them just fine.

hentrop

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I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing this issue!

Quote
What actually happens is that the first line break (if originally done by iTunes) gets condensed into a tiny little space, that is shorter/thinner than a usual space and usually placed at the start of the next line if it contains text, and if there are two line breaks, it condenses the first one, and shows the second one. This is what you see if you look at lyrics through the Tag editor (i.e. right click -> edit -> lyrics tab).

I don't remember seeing this shorter/thinner space, but all my lyrics are fixed now so I can't go back and check.

Quote
However, if you view lyrics through the Lyric viewer which can be used as a floating window or as a side tab (preferences -> layout (tab 2) -> arrange panels (top right), it actually shows the full lyrics without condensing those line breaks.

In my case, this isn't what happened. When I viewed the lyrics in the floating lyric viewer window, or as a side tab, they showed like I said in the original post: single line breaks showed properly, but double line breaks turned into single ones, so there were no spaces between refrain/verses.

So, unlike your experience, they did not show properly in either edit mode or lyric viewer tab mode.

violinbzjc

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Well, hentrop, I encountered these issues maybe half a year ago, so not within this version. I'm not sure whether it happened for most people, and haven't had this issue since (since I haven't used iTunes lyric editing since), so it may have been a way the past version dealt with iTunes lyrics that they don't now.
tbh though, having the double line breaks turn into single line breaks in lyrics viewer mode was probably what happened for me too, it's just that when there was a double line break in editing mode, then it did show.
I just remember having to redo all my lyrics myself by locating those tiny little spaces or remembering where line breaks were, deleting those spaces and putting new line breaks in. Hopefully Steven fixes this issue soon for those who struggle with it, if it's a small fixable thing.
Last Edit: September 19, 2018, 09:04:30 AM by violinbzjc

Steven

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I recently migrated from iTunes to MusicBee, and it seems like line breaks aren't handled well in the lyrics. When I edit a song's tags (by pressing Shift-Enter) and go to the lyrics tab, most of the line breaks don't show up. So, it ends up being one (or a few) long lines of text, instead of being displayed on multiple lines, like it should be. When I had these same songs in iTunes, the lyrics showed up properly.

Similarly, when I show the Lyrics panel in MusicBee's main window, the lyrics don't show quite properly there either. In this case, a single line break is shown properly, but when there's 2 line breaks (as when separating a verse from a refrain), it only shows 1 line break. I can edit these lyrics to add any number of line breaks, then they show up properly both in the window for editing tags, and in the lyrics panel.

So, it seems to be an issue with how MusicBee processes existing lyrics, rather than an issue with adding line breaks. Maybe this is an issue with Windows vs Unix line break formats? It looks like the existing lyrics, that were added using iTunes, use a line break format that MusicBee doesn't support?
I agree the tag editor is not splitting text with lf seperators, and thats addressed now.
For the lyrics display, its intentional that 2 line breaks shows 1/3 of a line height. However I agree it is too small so i have changed it to span one full line

https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee32_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee files

hentrop

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violinbzjc: ya, it sounds like different versions had this issue in different way.

Steven: thanks for the update! It's great to see a developer who responds to their users! I'm glad to see the full line break instead of 1/3. Makes it easier to see different verses.

I just downloaded the patch you attached and copied the files into my install directory, but there's still an issue with lyrics that have been edited by iTunes. The test I did was:

1. In MusicBee: put lyrics into a song that previously didn't have any.
2. Quit MusicBee
3. In iTunes: open the Song Info dialog window for that song. The lyrics I just wrote show up properly. I then edit them by adding one word to one line of lyrics.
4. Re-open MusicBee. Now the lyrics for that song show up without any line breaks at all (whether there were previously 1 or 2 line breaks), and it shows this way both in the tag editor and in the lyrics floating window/display.

I have iTunes 12.8.0.150 and MusicBee 3.2.6836

Steven

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sveakul

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Steven:  Thank you for this change/fix, lyrics looking great in Now Playing.

hentrop

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Steven: yep, works perfectly now. I can go back and forth between iTunes and MusicBee to edit lyrics, and they look fine in both programs.

Thanks for fixing this!

chrswrn

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I'm having the opposite issue myself with the lyrics display panel, where there's too many line breaks. I didn't have lyrics attributed to most songs in iTunes though (i made the switch from iTunes recently) and the lyrics now are gotten from the web. Genius.com is the first one it fetches from, and I'm wondering if the issue is with how Genius display the lyrics on their website, in which case I guess there's nothing that can be done about it?

Below screenshot shows the default on the left, and after I edit on the right. Editing consists of deleting the top line break (above first line) and then removing one line break from between each paragraph in the lyrics. This is pretty time consuming considering I'm doing it for almost every song at the moment. Any help at all appreciated in case there's a way I can sort this out easily.


redwing

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Editing consists of deleting the top line break (above first line) and then removing one line break from between each paragraph in the lyrics.

You could use regex to fix it using Multiple Search & Replace command with Additional Tagging Tools plugin.

frankz

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Isn't there a seeing to display or not display extra line breaks,  or am I thinking of something else?

chrswrn

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You could use regex to fix it using Multiple Search & Replace command with Additional Tagging Tools plugin.

Sounds good. How would I do that? Any chance of some pointers?

Isn't there a seeing to display or not display extra line breaks,  or am I thinking of something else?

Not sure, but I can't find that setting.

redwing

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Any chance of some pointers?

Sure. Usually you can find a newline character by searching for "\r\n" (without quote) with regex option enabled (first tick box for the plugin command). So it would help if you first try replacing all newline characters in the lyrics of a test file with a certain character to figure out which part needs to be removed before constructing the preset. There are plenty of guides to regex in general on the web and most syntax are supported by the plugin.