Comments on Tagscanner Scripts for changing Album display

[Mede8er1]

Unreal

Nice one. Been so busy and just had a chance to test your script and its great. Only thing  I suggest to users who do not have their track dates correct is to remove the mixed field date from the script as if you don't it will turn Tracks into Albums.

ie from <album>%albumartist% - {%year%} %album%</album>
to         <album>%albumartist% - %album%</album>  


Mede8er1

[Unreal]

Thanks Mede8er1.  If users have missing YEAR metadata in their music collection, I would suggest fixing the metadata in their music collection rather than changing the script, but I realize it may not be important to everyone.  I have been called OCD on more than one occasion.  

I would also suggest people watch out for albums with the same name, like "Greatest Hits".  For those kind of album names, I typically add the artist name in parenthesis to the end of the album name.  For example:

Artist - {Year} "Album Name"
Boston - {1997} "Greatest Hits (Boston)"
Sublime - {1999} "Greatest Hits (Sublime)"

I do this because I keep my music on more than just the Mede8er (like mobile music players), and some devices will mix the metadata together if the album names are the same.  Thought I would mention it since anyone in this thread probably uses Tagscanner or some other tag software.  It's not necessarily the best, but I have been using Mp3tag for many years and find it does a great job.

[jer1956]

This issue is some data is Track information..and your modfying the Album name. So when the album is split into it various parts, by Genre, or Year..each part could have it's own unqiue Title due to the prsence of Year..which will  be from the year of the first track in the group.  This is a problem for Greatest Hits, and Compliations..where each trackcould have it's own year.  

IT's only the fact the XML parts have the same Album Title which allows them to be put back as a single entity in the databse.

If you don't have such albums..and tag each track with the identical album year..then the script is ok.

We had contemplated using one of the Comment Fields to create our own Album Year...but not all Tag formats have them..and users may want those feilds for their own purposes. It would also not have worked with the internal mp3 scanner.

[Unreal]

Just to be clear, I never put the Year in the Album name field...that is what the Year field is for.  I only was trying to point out that if two different albums have the same name (like "Greatest Hits"), I append the artist name to the end of the album name to ensure a unique album name.  I'm talking about how I tag my music, nothing related to the script.

Also, I ALWAYS use the year of the album when tagging songs in an album, not the year the song was originally released.  I can see where someone would have a problem with this script if they tag songs in one album with different years.  I would not have even thought to tag songs that way, so thanks for pointing that out.

[jer1956]

This post is about changing one feild in the Tagscanner script...the Album Name. As far as the databse is concerend..it is this feild that is the "album name"...not the Tag. It's isn't just eye candy...it's is how the database is created from the XML.  As Mede8er1 pointed out..in the case of compliation albums with different years for each track..your script would have a unquie  album name in the database for each track..and hence each track would be a seperate album in the database.

As long as users don't have compliations and other kinds of album where each track has it's own year...then the script works as you expect.

Handling Year for an Album  based system where Year is a track Tag has created issues. If you search by Year / Album...you searching for albums with at least one track with that year. So a complete compliation type album can appear in multiple years.

[Unreal]

I agree with everything you said, just think it is stated in a way which could be confusing to others reading this thread.

To make it simple...

The modified "u" script from the thread here...

http://www.mede8erforum.com/index.php/topic,8403.0.html

... should only be used by people who always tag their music with the same Year for all songs in an album.  I added this as a special note near the bottom of my post with the attached script.