Author Topic: My share of thoughts  (Read 3016 times)

Poweruser

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
Hello everyone
Sorry for my bad English, it's not my native language, I'll try my best to lesser your troubles.


● 1. Tags (Problem)

#1a: MusicBee saves "ALBUMARTIST" which is most common tag field for album artist (almost all major tagging tools using this) as "ALBUM ARTIST" (with space in between), which is less common.
It also remove "ALBUMARTIST" if presents in tags and replace it with "ALBUM ARTIST".
I'm not using MusicBee for tagging purpose (for this kind of complications) but then yet another problem occurs, when i'm using MusicBee for downloading artworks with settings that urge MusicBee to save covers as separate files next to musics and not embedded it into music files (configured both in preferences and active artwork downloader window), still MusicBee touched the music files sometimes and it cause multiple covers embedded in a single music file and usualy add "ENCODER" field in this process (for example "lame 3 something"). So everytime that i'd used MusicBee for updating album covers have to re-check to ensure see about that in the process of adding covers did MusicBee touched the music files or didn't! with standalone mp3 tagging tools and change "ALBUM ARTIST" back to "ALBUMARTIST", then remove "ENCODER" field and check for possible embedded covers duplication and defrag previously defraged files again.
Also sometimes when MusicBee not showing artworks i'd go to edit mode and select covers manualy, i usualy choose linking pictures to musics but again from time to time it all happens.

#1b: Sometimes MusicBee add "DISPLAY ARTIST" field. I cannot confirm this practice still happening in latest version or not, my archive is sorted and solid not using updating options that much anymore.

#1c: Tried both ID3 and APE methods, in APE mode, Sometimes MusicBee remove ID3 2.3 and left files with ID3 1.1 and APE.

So the only thing i want is to MusicBee absolutely not modifying my files, especialy when all the settings and methods that i'm choosing suggesting that too!

My sole music player is MusicBee, my tag editors are: Mp3Tag (showing most incompatibility with MusicBee) - Tag Scanner - MetaTogger


● 2. Library Statistics (Suggestion)

It'll be awesome to be able to browse throughout genres, artists, most played etc deeper and going to next pages to see the rest. I can do most of that on mainplayer window from left panel but still it'll be good that statistics can go deeper in, cause MusicBee is professional and reflexive in so many ways.

Examples:
100 Artists
Displaying 20 to 40
-First-  <<<Previous 20<<<   -   >>>Next 20>>>  -Last-
<Go back to statics


● 3. Artist Photo (Suggestion)

#3a: It'd be awesome that I can have my artists photos organized into folders. You see I have like a million photos from the years. I have them organized into folders with artist names, now I want address MusicBee to the main folder, so that photos I'm saving from MusicBee adding to my repository and MusicBee be able to shows already available photos in my archive. If there was settings like "save to folder with artist name"

#3b: It'll be great if MusicBee saving photos in sequence names that it generates automatically. I'd willingly change all my photos to fit in the format MusicBee used.

Examples:
Photo root folder / Artist Folder / "Artist"_"20190113""235958".jpg
Photo root folder / Artist Folder / "Artist"_"20190113""235959".png
Photo root folder / Artist Folder / "Artist"_"20190114""000000".png
Photo root folder / Artist Folder / "Artist"_"20190114""000001".jpg

And need to have option that added folders inside "Artist Folder" be excluded, so I can put photos I do not want to display in MusicBee in it, and filter them. for this to working this way MusicBee should not check folders inside Artist Folder, so this way MusicBee is not only connected to my music library it also is connecting to my photo library.


● 4. Sessions (Suggestion)

There is times that I'm working on some projects which consisted of many different musics. I'm playing It to some point and decide to stop and continued layer, in the mean time I wanted to listen to musics outside that project, I have to save the playlist with currently playing music as the name of the playlist so that i know where i was or close MusicBee with project loaded in and instead use some other music player temporarily.

Adding something like "save current playlist as session" / "load previously saved session" to right click menu with correct order of played musics would be great.


● 5. Batch Downloading Windows (Suggestion)

Batch downloading windows (lyrics, artist thumbnails) are the most obsolete and out of theme part of MusicBee.
#5a. You cannot use column headers to sort entire column.
#5b. You cannot use keyboard keys or do multiple selections (up, down, control, shift, space). Only way of user interact is with mouse.
Imagine thousands of mouse clicks and hours of scrolling up and down, which can be done in few minutes if not seconds...


● 6. Shake Database (Suggestion)

It'll be good to having force re-check option that checked files for existing, duplications, manually added lyrics, covers etc, beside options like folder monitor and complete rebuild of database. Rescan ain't do this I tried it, it finished just in 2 seconds, tricks I'm using are renaming folders inside monitoring folder, change the locations or right-click on them and send them to scan. but a global option for integrity check would be great.


● 7. Showing Assigned Genres (Suggestion)

As you know genres previously were in lists with assigned codes (00 for Blues, 13 for Pop, 17 for Rock etc) for ID3, some stupid old tagging tools (and players) writing numbers instead of genres! It'll be great if MusicBee have option to shows assigned genres instead numbers.


In all I'd give MusicBee solid 10 of 10 anytime, by far the best music manager ever existed. I have 250k (2 terabytes) songs and managing them in any way I want inside MusicBee with ease and fun, I want to say thank you so much for all the efforts you put into this masterpiece project.


Added:

● 8. Queue After Currently Playing Album and/or Artist (Suggestion)

For not getting too crowded, it's better Queue have a sub menu.
Example;

Queueing...
- Queue Next
- Queue Last
- Queue After Current Album
- Queue After Current Artist

Can even extended more (current genre, current year etc.)

● 9. Play/Resume/Replay combo Hotkey (Suggestion)

There's different combinations in hardware and software music players for play / pause / replay functions. You cannot define any standard for this. It's better that end user be able to configure hot keys based on one's habits and needs. I'd preferred "play"  "resume from pause" and "replay" all done by same macro or button.
When playback stopped act as PLAY, when paused act as RESUME and during playback act as REPLAY. While pause button also act both pause and resume from pause. This way most people's needs will be addressed. At the moment if i wanted to play currently playing track from beginning have to stop first and restart playback again or use mouse drag to reach beginning of the song.
Triple combo is elegant way to over come this situation.


● 10. Adding edge, border or roundness to tabs (Suggestion)

So you'd have visual about tab's length, in some dark themes there's possibility you mistakenly hit the close while switching tabs.

With love ❤
Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 05:19:45 PM by Poweruser

phred

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9301
In all I'd give MusicBee solid 10 of 10 anytime, by far the best music player ever existed.
I'll let someone else comment on your comments, but I do want to point out the MB was built to be a music -manager- not a music player. And it continues that way today. It's main use is as a means to manage one's music collection. Having a (good) player included is simply a bonus.
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

Poweruser

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
And indeed it's very good manager, actually things that i pointed out is more related to managing part of MusicBee, only session is about playing.

Tagging (more standardized and features like converting genre number ids to genre names) and Batch Downloading Covers/Lyrics Windows (marking & sorting) need a little more attention i think.

I start collecting my music library from mid-90s. And used unlimited number of players/managers that you can imagine, i tried them aaaaalllll, i used winamp when it was in beta stage and from version like 0.96 you get the rest... by far MusicBee is best of all kinds (playing, identifying and managing). After 26 years finally i got what i always wanted and i really appreciated. MusicBee is made for perfectionists.

Love you guys.
In all I'd give MusicBee solid 10 of 10 anytime, by far the best music player ever existed.
I'll let someone else comment on your comments, but I do want to point out the MB was built to be a music -manager- not a music player. And it continues that way today. It's main use is as a means to manage one's music collection. Having a (good) player included is simply a bonus.

hiccup

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 7781
● 7. Showing Assigned Genres (Suggestion)

As you know genres are in lists with assigned codes (00 for Blues, 13 for Pop, 17 for Rock etc), some stupid old tagging tools (and players) write numbers instead of genres! It'll be great if MusicBee have option to shows assigned genres instead numbers.

Welcome to the forum Poweruser.

The assigned genre codes you are referring to date back to 1999 as they were suggested for id3v1.
Hardcoding a 20 year old genre list into MusicBee now doesn't seem the best idea to me.

You can quite easily achieve what you want by means of custom and/or virtual tags.
If you want to learn how, you could search the forum and/or wiki, or use the 'Questions' board.

Poweruser

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
● 7. Showing Assigned Genres (Suggestion)

As you know genres are in lists with assigned codes (00 for Blues, 13 for Pop, 17 for Rock etc), some stupid old tagging tools (and players) write numbers instead of genres! It'll be great if MusicBee have option to shows assigned genres instead numbers.

Welcome to the forum Poweruser.

The assigned genre codes you are referring to date back to 1999 as they were suggested for id3v1.
Hardcoding a 20 year old genre list into MusicBee now doesn't seem the best idea to me.

You can quite easily achieve what you want by means of custom and/or virtual tags.
If you want to learn how, you could search the forum and/or wiki, or use the 'Questions' board.

hello, thank you my friend ♥

well i just downloaded some top chart lists about a month ago, and some of the tracks had the codes instead of genres, it's true that using assigned codes are out fashion now days, but every now and then i see them in use, i think some funny guys think they'll look alike professional hackers or old masters or something like that if using code instead of genre name... but id3 1.1 is still in use many taggers also inject id3 v1.1 strings together with id3 v2 frames or ape metadatas.

Although not crucial, having this tables would be useful in rare cases after all it's just two columns table and presented as standard in mp3 format it should be acknowledged and putting into effect, don't you think so?

Thanks for your time 🌹

Zak

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2450
Re genre codes - I assume you mean this list : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ID3v1_Genres
I don't think MusicBee should do anything to encourage people to keep using these very old codes, many of which were at the whim of the Winamp developers (Primus has its value).

It will be easy to write a script to convert the tag value from the number to its text equivalent.
I'll post something in the next day or two.

Bee excellent to each other...

Poweruser

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
Re genre codes - I assume you mean this list : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ID3v1_Genres
I don't think MusicBee should do anything to encourage people to keep using these very old codes, many of which were at the whim of the Winamp developers (Primus has its value).

It will be easy to write a script to convert the tag value from the number to its text equivalent.
I'll post something in the next day or two.



Hi, yes that's what i meant.
Oh you know about Primus, that's crazy. 😂
Actually having the first (standard) 80 codes (from 00 to 79) is sufficient, doesn't need to include winamp's extended list though. 😉
this list finds uses outside of mp3 container too, maybe in future with adding support for more less known formats this seen as logical move.

As i said before it's not crucial thing and absolutely not my most demanded wish but keeping standard values (even outdated ones) is always a good gesture. standards are like DNAs, sharing their roots to way back time.

And again, sorry for my English and thanks for being patient. 🌹

Zak

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2450
I wrote a script for Metatogger to convert ID3v1 genre numbers to their text equivalent.

Then I realised that wouldn't work because Metatogger automatically converts the genre numbers to text, but won't let you save tags if it doesn't think any values have changed. This became an annoying catch-22, because it was being too clever for itself. So I gave up.
(It would work if I also added a temporary dummy tag value, but then you'd have to delete that separately. Still annoying.)

Instead, I've created an action for Mp3tag and uploaded it to TinyUpload.
(I don't often upload files to share - this was just one of the first free file upload sites I found)

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=47254713284150776442

This isn't very clever or elegant - it just uses Mp3tag's built-in functions to repeatedly check the genre number and set it to the text equivalent if it matches.
e.g.
Code
$if($eql(%genre%,'0'),Blues,%genre%)
If it doesn't match anything, it just sets the genre to itself so it stays the same.

To use it, download this file (and Mp3tag if you don't have it already) and save it to Mp3tag's Actions folder.
I use a portable installation, so it's just the data/actions folder inside the program folder.
For a normal install, I think it goes in appdata/local/ somewhere.

I suggest trying it on a copy of some files first to make sure it does what you want.
Bee excellent to each other...

hiccup

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 7781
This became an annoying catch-22, because it was being too clever for itself. So I gave up.
(It would work if I also added a temporary dummy tag value, but then you'd have to delete that separately. Still annoying.)

I don't use it much myself, but wouldn't the Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools plugin be the perfect solution for this?

Zak

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2450
This became an annoying catch-22, because it was being too clever for itself. So I gave up.
(It would work if I also added a temporary dummy tag value, but then you'd have to delete that separately. Still annoying.)

I don't use it much myself, but wouldn't the Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools plugin be the perfect solution for this?
Dunno. I don't use it. Does it support scripting or some other method of easily mapping 100+ values?
Metatogger has support for C# scripts which makes it good for complicated tagging.

I find Mp3tag easier to use for repetitive mass tagging than MusicBee.
It's still limited to its own built-in functions, but the actions are saved as text files so they can be easily edited.
Bee excellent to each other...

boroda

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 4595
Does it support scripting or some other method of easily mapping 100+ values?
i think 'multiple search & replace' can easily do this without a scripting.

Poweruser

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
I wrote a script for Metatogger to convert ID3v1 genre numbers to their text equivalent.

Then I realised that wouldn't work because Metatogger automatically converts the genre numbers to text, but won't let you save tags if it doesn't think any values have changed. This became an annoying catch-22, because it was being too clever for itself. So I gave up.
(It would work if I also added a temporary dummy tag value, but then you'd have to delete that separately. Still annoying.)

Instead, I've created an action for Mp3tag and uploaded it to TinyUpload.
(I don't often upload files to share - this was just one of the first free file upload sites I found)

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=47254713284150776442

This isn't very clever or elegant - it just uses Mp3tag's built-in functions to repeatedly check the genre number and set it to the text equivalent if it matches.
e.g.
Code
$if($eql(%genre%,'0'),Blues,%genre%)
If it doesn't match anything, it just sets the genre to itself so it stays the same.

To use it, download this file (and Mp3tag if you don't have it already) and save it to Mp3tag's Actions folder.
I use a portable installation, so it's just the data/actions folder inside the program folder.
For a normal install, I think it goes in appdata/local/ somewhere.

I suggest trying it on a copy of some files first to make sure it does what you want.


Hi dear, so very interesting this was my solution for this matter too! 😇
Mp3tag was my favorite tag editor tool for a long time, but it had some incompatibilities with some music files which their tags were edited by MusicBee (showing that tag header like ape or id3 exist but there is no value for any fields and if i missing this and saving the file, whole tag datasets will be gone) and because MusicBee have a very important role for my sanity and is in the higher priority I'd switched to TagScanner (my second favorite tag editor) as TagScanner is working just fine with those music files that edited by MusicBee.
In TagScanner you also can do the same, but there is a tiny problem, if you going through huge batch editing (transforming if technically speaking) you must first make sure about presence of values in all genre fields otherwise transformation option will fill those are blanks with "0" for you! 😶

And also remember to use the double digit format, as "0" isn't valid ("00" is). Single 0 ain't blues but is possible leftover of Tag Scanner' previous mess!!! Oh man it's always much fun finding irrelevant problems when trying to solve other ones! 😉

Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 02:33:41 AM by Poweruser

michealespinola

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 1
I wrote a script for Metatogger to convert ID3v1 genre numbers to their text equivalent.

Hi!  tinyupload doesn't seem to exist anymore. Can you post your Metatogger search and replace script here or somewhere else? Thanks!