personal/universal ratings (formerly using the email address in ratings)

[Bee-liever]

Was re-reading this and I think the whole idea of profiles has sort of overtaken this.

I think the basics would only have to be:

No change to the current behaviour if using "universal" ratings.

For "personal" you just need the option to supply an "ID" of some sort.  Then MB would add (not overwrite) ID@MusicBee|"rating"|0 to the tag/library database (NB: if you are using personal ratings, I would've assumed you were writing them to the file, but just in case you aren't).

MB would then read, preferentially,  ID@MusicBee|"rating"|0  or  MusicBee|"rating"|0  if the personal tag doesn't exist.

No keeping different user profiles and libraries.  Just simply telling MB to read this info if it exists or default to standard behaviour.

[Antonski]

I agree with you, custom ratings should be added, not replacing the normal rating, and there should be possibility to add multiple custom ratings, i.e. with different IDs.
The question here is where to take this ID from. And, how to display the correct rating, depending on the user playing the file.

[Bee-liever]

The question here is where to take this ID from. And, how to display the correct rating, depending on the user playing the file.

No. There is no question where MB takes this ID from.  If you select "personal" ratings, you have the option to enter an ID.  MusicBee then uses that ID to write ratings tags and displays that tag or, if no rating exists for that ID, MB defaults to "universal" rating if available.

If someone else uses MB and changes that ID, only their ratings or universal ratings would show.

If you wanted to see other saved ratings, you could use Tag Inspector.

[Antonski]

OK, I agree with this approach (entering the personal ID), however if it is hidden somewhere in the Preferences, it wouldn't be very convenient. Imagine we are three people at home using MB, every time the next one should change this settings.
Also, it must be visible which ratings are currently displayed, maybe the stars can be preceded by this ID, I don't know.
On the other hand, MB is currently not really a multiuser program, I mean it cannot be started multiple times by different users. So, it would be better if I install it three times, so everybody can run it's own copy, with its own settings, then the suggested approach can work well.
If some day Steven decide to rewrite MB and implement multiuser support, then everything will come to it's place.

[Steven]

i was going to do this as the last thing for the 2.5 release but i am not feeling completely comfortable how it would be implemented and the effort involved (ratings are involved in a lot of places in musicbee), so i am going to defer it again.
I would also like to see some more support for this request