Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools

[MayorQwert]

Okay so I can get the actual ALR preview box to work with the following setup, now it's just a matter of figuring out how to grab the info with the $ALR function real-time!

Used a pair of Virtual tags:
AlbumDisc = <Album><Disc>  (I am using disc to denote albums in my library, so this gives a unique ID for each disc individually)
TimeIFPlayed = $If(<Play Count>>0,<Time>,)  (Displays track time if it has been played)

I then set it up in the ALR menu as so:
"AlbumDisc, Sum(TimeIFPlayed)"
I set it to save Sum(TimeIFPlayed) to <NULL> and assigned virtual tag function ID "test"

When I update and preview it does what I expect in the preview window, but I have not figured out how to grab this info in the "Track Information" panel.
I tried the following:
$ALR(<URL>,test)   -   which is NULL for all but a few random albums? Maybe 6 out of the hundreds of albums
and
$ALR(<AlbumDisc>,test)  - which throws an exception for about half of the results and nothing at all for the other half.

Exception text: "$ALR Failed: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation."


Am I missing something here? I feel like I'm soooo close!


Edit: I have confirmed for the 1% that displays correctly using <URL> for that it does update after each track is played, however I'm getting an exception with Sub/AddDuration when I try to use it. Going to try to see if I can work around it.

Edit Edit: Trying to see if I can define a Custom Tag for it to save to (that isn't saved to any files so I don't change the modified dates on them), so I can then use the Custom tag in my formulas and hopefully get around the issue with it throwing exceptions when I try to use the value. It seems to throw an exception when I use the ALR function with any of AT&RT's math functions, even if I go and only use a numerical bit (no :'s) with a standard add or subtract function. :\

However, I can't seem to get it to save to the tag. I set it to save "Sum(TimeIFPlayed)" to custom tag "PlayedTime", but it doesn't seem to be saving. idk if I am missing something.. Here's a screencap:

 

[MayorQwert]

Got the softlock fixed. For some reason, now if I tell any to update at startup it will freeze when the counter says 100% until I right click the taskbar process and press "close" then wait a few seconds and press "no". For some reason it never finishes updating otherwise and softlocks. The same is true if it tries to automatically update all the tags while the process has been open (by using the "update every x tracks" tick box).

For now I just unticked both presets I had and will just go from there. At least the preset that displays the number of sections an album has (counting every 'disc' value) still works..

Aaaaand great.... somehow I softlocked MusicBee.... :|

I unchecked the tick next to the preset at the top and also checked "Save only if tag" AlbumDisc IS AlbumDisc. (wasn't sure but thought that would maybe cause it to write every time I changed songs since it would always be equal).

Also added a second preset to display the number of unique disc values for a given album (the default disc count function wasn't displaying appropriately for all cases).
I did it with:
Album, Count(Disc#) linked with a virtual function id. Confirmed that one worked perfectly, at least.

The problem started when I restarted MusicBee. It freezes while generating previews with the text "Generating preview (reading): 100%" perpetually at the bottom.

I tried deleting the folder for the plugin, but to no avail... is there a way I can fix this without a total reinstall?

[snively]

Would this plugin have the capability of combining two different play counts? I've spent time between foobar and iTunes and it's not looking good on finding a way to combine the two diff play count tags.



Edit: So I found this option here:



but this doesn't actually combine (add one into the other, 1+2=3) it just takes both of the tags and incorporates them into 1 tag. Would it be possible to get an option to do this?

edit: if anyone ever comes across this, you can use a program titled Mp3Tag to combine two different play counts.

[Johan_A_M]

What would be the easiest way to copy everything before (or after) a certain character to another tag? For example, in a file with track title "Café Del Mar [Humate Remix]", I'd like to copy Café Del Mar to <album>. I know that there is a preset "Move everything before <Custom text> from <Tag 1> to <Tag 2>", but if I want to copy instead of move. I'm sure I'm just missing something here, but how would you do it? (In one single step that is, I guess I could copy the entire tag, and then use "remove everything before and including...".)

[phred]

I don't think you can do it in one step. You'll have to use the preset "TOY: Copy tag command" to move <title> to <album> and then use one of the "remove" presets. There are a few that might work, but you'll have to test them to see which does exactly what you want. And DO NOT do a mass change until you're certain it's working as expected.

[Johan_A_M]

I don't think you can do it in one step. You'll have to use the preset "TOY: Copy tag command" to move <title> to <album> and then use one of the "remove" presets. There are a few that might work, but you'll have to test them to see which does exactly what you want. And DO NOT do a mass change until you're certain it's working as expected.

Thanks @phred, will do so (including testing first...)! And to @boroda, may I put this to a wishlist?

[phred]

And to @boroda, may I put this to a wishlist?

Please let us know how it worked.

Boroda hasn't been on the forum since last May, so I don't know what will happen with your request.

[Johan_A_M]

Please let us know how it worked.

Boroda hasn't been on the forum since last May, so I don't know what will happen with your request.

Oh, I hope he's ok!

As a follow-up, I ended up using the regular Additional Tagging Tools>Tagging tools>Copy Tag and copied <title> to <album>, and then ATRT's "Remove everything after and including <Custom Text> in tag <Tag 1>.

[hiccup]

Oh, I hope he's ok!

I have send him a PM a couple of weeks (probably months) ago, that should get forwarded to his email, but I got no response from that either.
Let's hope he's O.K.
Or, if he is just done with MusicBee it would be helpful if he could state that.

[Johan_A_M]

I have send him a PM a couple of weeks (probably months) ago, that should get forwarded to his email, but I got no response from that either.
Let's hope he's O.K.
Or, if he is just done with MusicBee it would be helpful if he could state that.

Oh, impossible to not think about Covid... 

[hiccup]

Oh, impossible to not think about Covid...  

No, he is Russian, he's probably tough.

[cjoprey]

Let's hope he's OK...

On another bug note - I'm using the latest portable build of Musicbee (3.4.7764) and every time I try to enable the latest version of mb_tagtools  I get an error telling me: "Unable to initialise plugin: mb_TagTools.dll Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation." - anyone know how to get round this and get the tools working again? I miss the support it gives!

[phred]

Are you certain that the plugin is in the Plugin's directory which is directly under the MB directory?

The only other thing I can think of would be to whitelist the entire MB directory in your AV/Security software application. DLLs can sometimes trigger a false positive.

[cjoprey]

Thanks for the response @phred.

Just to be sure, I redownloaded the latest ZIP file, and unpacked it to the Plugins folder under my portable Musicbee install. I know it's the correct one as I also added the Discordbee plugin to the same folder, and that works. I then went into my AnitVirus and excluded the entire Musicbee install folder to ensure that won't affect it.

I have the same symptoms sadly - I can see that mb_tagtools is in the Plugins tab on the Preferences dialog, but it is marked as disabled. When I try to enable it, it fails to start as explained before.

One more thing I just tried - I deleted the tagtools files from the Plugins folder, opened Musicbee to ensure it was gone in the Plugins dialog, and then used the "Add plugin" button to reinstall from the ZIP I downloaded today. It re-added the mb_tagtools entry on the dialog, and then immediately failed in the same way when trying to enable it.

I'm not sure I can think of anything else to try.

[phred]

I'm not sure I can think of anything else to try.

Nor can I. Hopefully someone else will have an idea. Unfortunately the developer of this plugin has not been on the forum since last May.