Author Topic: More custom tags?  (Read 21073 times)

jistme

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And in the floating edit panel there's room for all custom tags to be displayed at once without any scrolling at all...
Not on a laptop.

-edit-
Okay, maybe there is. I'll have to check. :P

It will fit easily, even on a lowres 2007 netbook.

Steven

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i have tweaked the layout so the maximum custom tags that can fit on the panel are displayed - scrolling is now only necessary when docked in the main panel. Its in the next 2.1 update

Roadrunner

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The additional tags are great for those who like to store as much information as available.

But I suppose, most of us don't use more than a few of them. Unfortunately the many new tags overload the search and track browser right click menus (other fields) and other selection lists. In a screen with 1080px height, one has even to scroll to see all fields in the search box.

My suggestion would be to show everywhere but in the preferences menu only tags which are in use:
  • For virtual tags this would be very easy to recognize, because no formula means no need to show. The tricky part could be, when I use some virtual tags for grouping or so and remove the formula later on.
  • For custom tags it could be a little bit more difficult, because I could enter values in tags without renaming it. But it might possible too: Tags which don't have any value in MB's database? The only place where this wouldn't be sufficent is the tag editor (but there it might not bother too much). An alternative could be a new default under "save to music file as tag", something like "unused" instead of "save to MusicBee database only".


Steven

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yes good point. I will do something for the next 2.1 update

psychoadept

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yes good point. I will do something for the next 2.1 update

YAY!!!
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Zak

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I know everyone wants every menu item to be top-level, but in this case I think sub-menus for Custom tags and Virtual tags would not only be appropriate but preferable. Half the time I can't find a tag because I don't know if it will appear under the name I gave it or under Custom1, Virtual3 etc.

Also much easier to implement and less confusing than hiding unused custom tags and virtual tags without formulas.
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Steven

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good idea - i have created a new sub-menu for each at the same level as "Other Fields" so no extra drill down is required

Steven

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this has the change for grouping Virtual and Custom tags in the field selectors

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Last Edit: January 07, 2013, 09:59:11 PM by ma_t14

jistme

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i have tweaked the layout so the maximum custom tags that can fit on the panel are displayed - scrolling is now only necessary when docked in the main panel. Its in the next 2.1 update

Very nicely done. Also the available width for the names of custom tags is now perfect.

Roadrunner

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Half the time I can't find a tag because I don't know if it will appear under the name I gave it or under Custom1, Virtual3 etc.
It might have had some earlier versions, however currently I haven't found any place which showed Custom1/Virtual3 asf. when they was given a specific name.

good idea - i have created a new sub-menu for each at the same level as "Other Fields" so no extra drill down is required
Thank you for thinking about it and implementing a new solution. Of course it's better than a 3rd right click menue level. But in my opinon the result is less user friendly than before, because until 2.1.4750 it was perfectly transparent: After creating my own custom/virtual field, I hadn't to think about it anymore, it was just like each MB own one. Each list box, the track browser and the search box showed <work> as <title>, <artists first 3 letters> as <artist>, all in alphabetical order. Everyone else could use my configuration without knowing the backgrounds.

Now, list boxes are different (of course still alphabetically), the search box right click menue too (much longer than the group by one). In the new group by right click I have to know that <work> exists and that it is a custom tag. In addition it shows all my used custom tags at the bottom, after 13 unused ones, bad naming luck and a long way for the mouse cursor...

If one has to give up transparency, I hope, that nevertheless one day, I don't have to scroll over unused custom/virtual tags ::) . And that the search right click box works the same way as the group by one.

i have tweaked the layout so the maximum custom tags that can fit on the panel are displayed - scrolling is now only necessary when docked in the main panel. Its in the next 2.1 update
Very nicely done. Also the available width for the names of custom tags is now perfect.

This parts of course are just fine! Thx

psychoadept

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In addition it shows all my used custom tags at the bottom, after 13 unused ones, bad naming luck and a long way for the mouse cursor...

I agree it would be nice if the used tags were automatically at the top.  Since it's not that long of a list, you could probably leave them in the original order: custom1 to custom16, virtual1 to virtual16.  If we want them alphabetical we can make them alphabetical.
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Roadrunner

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I agree it would be nice if the used tags were automatically at the top.  Since it's not that long of a list, you could probably leave them in the original order: custom1 to custom16, virtual1 to virtual16.  If we want them alphabetical we can make them alphabetical.
I wouldn't change sort order for usability reasons: When the predefined fields are alphabetically ordered (and this is good of course), the others should be the same way round.
There's no reason to show unused tags: Why should anyone wants to search for, filter or group by non-existent content or to order by nothing?

Roadrunner

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By the way: I just realized that right clicking on the column names brings up the columns the new way, that means separately for predefined, custom and virtual tags. In this menue there is also a "group by" with again all predefined, custom and virtual fields including the unuses ones together in one endless list... If you want to continue this way consistently, you should also have 3 submenues here, but is this really what we want?

Zak

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Having just seen the new context menu arrangement my immediate thought was "That makes so much sense, why wasn't it always like that?". You won't convince me that this is in any way less user-friendly than having up to 32 additional arbitrary menu items on the Other fields context menu.

If you want to continue this way consistently, you should also have 3 submenues here, but is this really what we want?
I think it makes perfect sense for these menus to be implemented consistently wherever they appear (including the Search Menu fields menu).

I hope, that nevertheless one day, I don't have to scroll over unused custom/virtual tags ::) .
You've already answered your own request with this:

  • For virtual tags this would be very easy to recognize, because no formula means no need to show. The tricky part could be, when I use some virtual tags for grouping or so and remove the formula later on.
  • For custom tags it could be a little bit more difficult, because I could enter values in tags without renaming it. But it might possible too: Tags which don't have any value in MB's database?
It's very easy for a real human person to look at a virtual tag and think, "I'm not using that, why is it there?". It's much more difficult for a computer program to know what the same real human person intends to do with a custom/virtual tag.

I suppose you could hide virtual tags that don't have a formula in them, but there would be no way to temporarily hide an item - you'd have to delete it and recreate it each time, which limits its usefulness.

To implement what you've suggested for custom tags (hiding ones that don't have a value), MusicBee would need to check the value of every tag against the values stored in the database for every track every time it displayed a context menu (or started up or whenever else is deemed suitable). That's a lot of overhead/work/regression testing just to hide a few menu options.

I agree it would be nice if the used tags were automatically at the top.  Since it's not that long of a list, you could probably leave them in the original order: custom1 to custom16, virtual1 to virtual16.  If we want them alphabetical we can make them alphabetical.
The same point I made above is also relevant to this. For MusicBee to display "used" tags at the top, it needs to know which tags are "used".

I think the time required to do it properly (and fix any associated bugs) far outweighs any measurable benefits it would provide in the short term.
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Bee-liever

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Having just seen the new context menu arrangement my immediate thought was "That makes so much sense, why wasn't it always like that?". You won't convince me that this is in any way less user-friendly than having up to 32 additional arbitrary menu items on the Other fields context menu.

I'd always thought that the first level should have been populated with your 10 most frequently used items and the less used items went into the Other fields context menu. But the reality of the work required to keep track of those changing statistics made me keep my mouth shut and not suggest it.  I agree that the new menus are a good compromise.

I can live with having to scroll over the unused custom/virtual tags. Even if I do think that anything starting with Virtual or Custom could be excluded from the alphabetising and then placed on the bottom of the list.

But what really irks me is the Virtual/Custom 10 thru 16 appearing before the 1 thru 9! All that work and not full alphanumeric sorting  ;)
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