<Artist> and <Display Artist>

[Mayibongwe]

Bringing this here just so we don't pollute the tip and trick topic.

Is that a trick question, haha.
<artist> itself is <display artist> in all occurrences within MusicBee.

Nope, no trickery going on here ;-)

Display Artist begins its life as an internal virtual tag that will indeed show what's in Artist.
But after modifying tags (not artist related tags per-se) it will begin a second life as a physical tag.
I myself am using Picard to populate the Display Artist tag, and that will sometimes differ from Artist.

So when you open the Tag Editor, what value is in the artist field?

Sorry I'm not being lazy, i would test it myself, but i have no other means of populating display artist besides editing it in MusicBee.

[hiccup]

So when you open the Tag Editor, what value is in the artist field?

It's the tag at the top?

Sorry I'm not being lazy, i would test it myself, but i have no other means of populating display artist besides editing it in MusicBee.

Just edit some tag of a track and save.
That will trigger the creation of an actual Display Artist tag.
Then when you open the Tag Editor Inspector you should see the Display Artist tag, and you can modify it from there.

[Mayibongwe]

It's the tag at the top?

I expected it would be "my physical display artist tag".
The above doesn't show even when you rescan the file?

This probably goes back to the "issue" zak brought up in the other thread.
I'm always editing the artist field in MusicBee, which in turn always updates display artist (both under and over the surface).
But from the above, it would appear that when display artist is edited outside of MusicBee, the artist field doesn't go on to mirror that new value (it only returns its last known artist field).

Somewhere, MusicBee is retaining the old Display Artist value where it can't be seen or changed by the user.

____

I was certain i knew how that tag behaves, but it appears i dont.

[Mayibongwe]

Actually, I now see why your results differ from what I'm expecting.
MusicBee writes to TXXX/DISPLAY ARTIST and your tag from picard has been written to DISPLAY ARTIST.

It sort of still stands that <artist> in MusicBee maps to <display artist> in the form of TXXX/DISPLAY ARTIST.

[hiccup]

The above doesn't show even when you rescan the file?

I may not understand that question?
ARTIST and DISPLAY ARTIST are (now) both physical tags enclosed in the file.
So a rescan will show them both.

This probably goes back to the "issue" zak brought up in the other thread.

Somewhere, MusicBee is retaining the old Display Artist value where it can't be seen or changed by the user.

You can create (and see) a physical Display Artist tag using the Tag Editor Inspector.
Display Artist shows up in the drop-down menu when you click the + icon.
(edit: maybe this is not true for a clean install, and I only have this because I have created a custom tag for Display Artist)
 

[hiccup]

Actually, I now see why your results differ from what I'm expecting.
MusicBee writes to TXXX/DISPLAY ARTIST and your tag from picard has been written to DISPLAY ARTIST.

Yeah, my screenshot is from an OPUS file, so that is using Vorbis Comment, not ID3.
But the general principle would be the same. (I think)

[hiccup]

Btw, I made a quick trip in my time machine, and I saw that in the near future Karbock is going to post a nice "all-you-need-to-know about MusicBee's Display Artist tag".
It will reveal all its mysteries.

PS/edit
I have posted a wishlist request for letting us know what <tag> can be used to see (and use in virtual tags) what value MusicBee is using for it here.

[Mayibongwe]

Yeah, my screenshot is from an OPUS file, so that is using Vorbis Comment, not ID3.
But the general principle would be the same. (I think)

shucks, you right. I just converted one of my mp3s to opus and I do see it's written as DISPLAY ARTIST in the file.

You can create (and see) a physical Display Artist tag using the Tag Editor.
Display Artist shows up in the drop-down menu when you click the + icon.

Doing as you say here does create a display artist tag indeed (similar to the one auto-written by MusicBee).
However, what's in DISPLAY ARTIST is then what I see popping up in the artist field (as expected).
What confuses me here is that you are saying that the "artist: +" field for you is showing the <artist> (Paramore) and not <display artist> (my physical display...)


_________________

Eagerly waiting for karbock to present his findings (I remember he already has an existing segment on the artist splitter - I can't remember if that goes into detail regarding display artist).

[hiccup]

What confuses me here is that you are saying that the "artist: +" field for you is showing the <artist> (Paramore) and not <display artist> (my physical display...)

No, I was talking about the + icon in the Tag Editor Inspector, which allows you to create a new tag.
In this case, the Display Artist tag.

edit
I'm sorry, I've lead you into a wrong rabbit hole. I meant and should have said Tag Inspector.
(which also allows you to Edit Tags ;-)

[Mayibongwe]

No, I was talking about the + icon in the Tag Editor, which allows you to create a new tag.
In this case, the Display Artist tag.

I seem to be biting more than I can chew. Just to make sure we are on the same page:
Do you have a value in DISPLAY ARTIST on any one of your songs that you cannot see when you display <artist> as a tag anywhere in MusicBee?

[hiccup]

Do you have a value in DISPLAY ARTIST on any one of your songs that you cannot see when you display <artist> as a tag anywhere in MusicBee?

That depends on the location.
For the main panel and the track information panel it will display an actual <Display Artist> tag when using Artist.
But when using Artist in the column browser, a physical Display Artist tag will not show up.
(if you use a virtual tag: <Artist>, and select that one for the Column Browser it will)

Obviously there is some clever stuff going on why and where MusicBee displays artist and display artist, and it is working well in practice.
But if you want full control over this stuff when using a virtual tag it's a bit difficult, since <Artist> will deliver dynamic results depending on the existence of an actual Display Artist tag.
So you can't be sure if it was sourced from an actual Display Artist tag, or an internal 'virtual' Display Artist tag.
That's why I think it would be good if we had access to a tag that will display a physical Display Artist tag, and will remain blank if it doesn't exist.
But maybe that's just me, and nobody else would ever use that?

I also think I owe you a second apology for leading you on some wrong trail.
I have several testing installs of MusicBee on my computer, and for at least one of them I have created a custom tag for Display Artist. (because I am using Picard for creating and populating it)
It looks like I was wrong when I said that Display Artist will show up in the Tag Inspector's drop-down menu.
It will for my installs, but I think it probably doesn't for clean installs.
Perhaps it should?

Since MusicBee can create it by itself, we should be able to also?

[Mayibongwe]

It looks like I was wrong when I said that Display Artist will show up in the Tag Inspector's drop-down menu.
It will for my installs, but I think it probably doesn't for clean installs.

No, it does on my side as well - so probably for everyone else too.

But if you want full control over this stuff when using a virtual tag it's a bit difficult, since <Artist> will deliver dynamic results depending on the existence of an actual Display Artist tag.
So you can't be sure if it was sourced from an actual Display Artist tag, or an internal 'virtual' Display Artist tag.
That's why I think it would be good if we had access to a tag that will display a physical Display Artist tag, and will remain blank if it doesn't exist.

On the testing I've done over here, it's conclusive that there is no difference between what you refer as the physical Display Artist tag and the internal 'virtual' Display Artist tag.
Contrary to what I claimed to be the case on reply#2, MusicBee only keeps 1 record of Display Artist - and that is whatever value has the tag code DISPLAY ARTIST in the tag inspector.

Unless somebody has an impractical artist field which looks like the below screenshots (where display artist has been set to blank/empty), then:
The <Display Artist> tag will always be populated. If the user does not provide such a value, then MusicBee will auto-populate it with the raw values from the artist splitter.
So unfortunately, I'm still of the opinion that <artist> is returning whatever is set in DISPLAY ARTIST in the tag inspector.

[hiccup]

So unfortunately, I'm still of the opinion that <artist> is returning whatever is set in DISPLAY ARTIST in the tag inspector.

Considering that it is your attempt of creating some AT&RT function that has triggered this discussion, maybe take a step back:

I'm curious,
AT&RT has the option to select <Display Artist> in its drop-down menus. (MusicBee doesn't)
Does AT&RT show different values for <Artist> and <Display Artist>?
And does the result depend on if an actual Display Artist tag is present in the file or not?

[Mayibongwe]

Does AT&RT show different values for <Artist> and <Display Artist>?
And does the result depend on if an actual Display Artist tag is present in the file or not?

I'm gonna have a look, but you're right in that this is what fried my brain earlier on.
The AT&RT allows writing to both artist and display artist. In the morning, I only attempted writing to artist which was giving me weird results.
Writing to <artist> with the plugin overwrites the existing <display artist> tag and every other artist varient that is not <artist: artist>.

I'm at wit's end trying to figure out how one can actually edit the contents of <artist> without modifying all other artist tags in the file.
Attempting to add/write to <artist> overwrites existing variants like <artist: guest>.

[Mayibongwe]

From an API point of view, Steven says <artist: guest> is readonly and writing to it is not possible. Although boroda found a way to write to such a tag using the API.
And oddly enough, I cannot see <artist: guest> as a writeable tag within the AT&RT. It's just not available in any drop-down list for destination tags.

adding a value to <display artist> using the plugin successfully modifies <display artist> only.
on the other hand, adding a value to <artist> with the plugin overwrites/deletes all existing forms of <artist: role> contained in the file - which is not nice I think.

when using (MetaDataType)147, for Guest Artists, I am not able to add Guest Artist

No its currently not possible. As it stands guest artist is read only.

try to use \u0000, \u0001, etc. instead of \0, \x01,...

Wow thank you, it worked