Idea for another truly useful grid column

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Expand view Topic review: Idea for another truly useful grid column

Re: Checkboxes

by windcrest77 » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:46 pm

windcrest77 wrote:
A JMPS wrote:I think it would be great to have some extra file info like a checkbox for tracks which are, for example,

live
remix
covers

Thank you very much and keep up the good work
I asked for something similar to this a while ago, but I think it should be implemented generically so you can "add a checkbox column" to the grid and title it yourself. I realize you could use a custom field as text but that is much harder to maintain in the grid with a single click or (hit of the spacebar while the checkbox has focus). HTere should be a way where a user can dedicate one of their "custom tags" to hold an XML document that can be any number of checkboxes that they can use as columns. Mostly for the advaltage of single click status changing. For me I would like to have an "auditioned" flag, so I can quicly mark songs that I have already auditioned (for dance purposes in my case), so I know what songs I can ignore tomorrow when I continue auditioning more songs.

Here was my original, it might be similar:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =4&t=53647

Additionally I here people talking about "custom tag usage" when you think of it with the advent of XML you can stuff thousands of values into a single ID3 custom tag if you know the schema of the document you stuffed there, and have an application to manage that schema. You really only need one custome tag and a function in MM to let people maintain and stuff many values into it and deine what "kind" of UI control they want on the screen mapped to that piece of data, checkbox, slider, drop down list, text box, hyperlink, calendar date picker, etc. Dedicating the few available ID3 standard "custom fields" to specific purposes (like mood) is silly and wasteful. Those fields should be holding a schema based XML string that the user customized to represent any number of "virtual columns" that they can then place into the grid. They can decide if they want "Custom 1" for example to contain just plain text or an XML schema. If they select XML then MM would pop up a small editor that lets them create any number of virtual columns, title them, give them a data types, and map them to the desired UI control type that would apper in the grid or in the song properties editor. The ID3 Cutom tags are too valuable to waste on single purpose needs that only solve problems for a few. Right now thay are always just plain text, I'm saying they could contain multiple columns by using XML.

My big reason for a checkbox is I want something I can do with one click (and only one click) from the grid, which would be even easier than setting the Rating from the grid (which still requires two clicks) (one to give the row focus and another to set the rating). What I was hoping for was that one click would just update the checkbox and database, and not necessarily even give the row focus, but it would be ok if it did that too. That would be a behavior you could customize when you select checkbox as your UI control if they ever go with the ability to put XML in a custome field and give you an editor to create virtual columns (you could specify change row focus or not when this checkbox is updated in that editor).

Re: Checkboxes

by windcrest77 » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:22 pm

A JMPS wrote:I think it would be great to have some extra file info like a checkbox for tracks which are, for example,

live
remix
covers

Thank you very much and keep up the good work
I asked for something similar to this a while ago, but I think it should be implemented generically so you can "add a checkbox column" to the grid and title it yourself. I realize you could use a custom field as text but that is much harder to maintain in the grid with a single click or (hit of the spacebar while the checkbox has focus). HTere should be a way where a user can dedicate one of their "custom tags" to hold an XML document that can be any number of checkboxes that they can use as columns. Mostly for the advaltage of single click status changing. For me I would like to have an "auditioned" flag, so I can quicly mark songs that I have already auditioned (for dance purposes in my case), so I know what songs I can ignore tomorrow when I continue auditioning more songs.

Here was my original, it might be similar:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =4&t=53647

Re: We have custom fields, how about custom check boxes?

by Falcon » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:47 am

I use one of the custom fields to mark wether the tracks come from an HDCD or not, so yes, a checkbox field would be nice, as I currently fill in the field with "Yes" or leave it empty for "No".

Checkboxes

by Mizery_Made » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:46 am

I know that this is a subject that has been discussed here and there over the years, but I don't think it's something that can hurt to bring up again. We're already supplied with custom fields, which is nice as it allows people a place to stick misc information to suit their own needs. However, I think it would also be useful to have available a small group (maybe 3, or 5 to coincide with the number of custom fields?) of check boxes which too can be given a custom name.

The reason being, while not everyone does, I know there are some that will fill up a custom field with a "two-state" type marker. For instance, I've been using Custom 1 for quite some time to denote whether I have rated that album or not. For years, I would simply leave the majority of my tracks unrated while simply giving those that I really liked a 5-star rating. Over time, this system seemed pretty flawed and I got to where I would go through an album when I got it and rate each track, occassionally going through older albums to give them the same treatment. So, I've used my "Rated" custom field to separate the "legitament ratings" from the "lazy ratings" if you will. I supposed I could just clear out all the "lazy ratings" which would negate the need for a "rated" field (as then anything with a rating would have been "rated" but that's beside the point.

Fact remains that some people desire something like this, and others may find it useful down the road. I know that most frequently there has been a request for one check box to work similarly to that of iTunes where only checked tracks would be played/synced. One could be given for this, or you could supply an option to choose one of the Custom check boxes to function like this. *Shrugs*

Having some check boxes though would clear up three of my Custom Fields, as they each currently have two-state information in them to denoted "Rated", "Sync" and "Duplicate/Snippet".

I seems pretty easy to implement though. Being a two-state field wouldn't inflate the database much, as you would just need one value saved for each "0/1" for instance to indicate "off/on" respectively. You could also use a similar logic to that of the present Custom fields when it comes to saving them to the tags of files. Plus again, only a 1 value field would be necessary to represent the two states.

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by fharald8344 » Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:40 am

Would be good to category radio-records.

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by windcrest77 » Tue Nov 23, 2010 3:09 pm

Mizery_Made wrote:I think the ability for scripts to create their own properties sheets has been added for MM4.0 (maybe even the ability for them to write non-MM tags? Not quite sure on that one, pretty sure on the first one though). However, instead of using up all of your custom fields, you could possibly "hijack" one of the multi-value supported Classification fields and then use them as multi-purpose fields. You could inter something like "Instrumental: Yes; Accurate: Yes; Something Else: No" and then you would have nodes for each one in the tree (as it's multi-value). If it's a matter of having to inter the extra fluff (ie, the "Instrumental: " part instead of just a "Yes" or whatever), perhaps you could find the old "eCustom" script in the Add-Ons forum. It allows you to tag some files with pre-defined sets of values (thus, you could have "Instrumental: Yes" and "Instrumental: No" just a few clicks away with no typing.) The script could be set to replace the field with the value, or add it to the end of the list.
Would it be a one-click check box? Selecting drop down lists in the grid is a pain.

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by Mizery_Made » Sun Nov 21, 2010 12:42 am

Found the relevant mantis entries for what I mentioned at the beginning of my post: 6218: Scripting: Add support of non-standard frames in tags & 6248: Scripting: Ability to add a custom Page to the Track Properties Dialog

The first one hasn't seen any activity since it was entered, but the second one has already been implemented in 4.0

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by kmenzel » Sat Nov 20, 2010 11:59 pm

That would be awesome! When MM4 drops I'll probably sit down and actually script away... it'll be a nice tangible coding project...

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by Mizery_Made » Sat Nov 20, 2010 10:24 pm

I think the ability for scripts to create their own properties sheets has been added for MM4.0 (maybe even the ability for them to write non-MM tags? Not quite sure on that one, pretty sure on the first one though). However, instead of using up all of your custom fields, you could possibly "hijack" one of the multi-value supported Classification fields and then use them as multi-purpose fields. You could inter something like "Instrumental: Yes; Accurate: Yes; Something Else: No" and then you would have nodes for each one in the tree (as it's multi-value). If it's a matter of having to inter the extra fluff (ie, the "Instrumental: " part instead of just a "Yes" or whatever), perhaps you could find the old "eCustom" script in the Add-Ons forum. It allows you to tag some files with pre-defined sets of values (thus, you could have "Instrumental: Yes" and "Instrumental: No" just a few clicks away with no typing.) The script could be set to replace the field with the value, or add it to the end of the list.

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by kmenzel » Sat Nov 20, 2010 7:58 pm

I'd love this - I wind up using my 5 custom fields for different genres differently, and a lot of that is for simple on/off type classification... ie, if it is an instrumental track or not, or if I've currently made sure the tags in the file are accurate, or if the case of the lyrics are singular or plural... anyway, a whole bunch of random stuff that could easily be a binary on/off. I wouldn't mind it hashed into some custom field in the file (like <CustomMMBin>="11000111"> or something... anyway, it'd be cool not only to be able to do that, but to be able to essentially create a custom "form" for the custom tags property page - so we could lay out the tags in a way that makes sense to us... of course that's probably a MM6 suggestion or something...

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by windcrest77 » Sat Nov 20, 2010 7:05 pm

I'm been thinking now there is no need to persist the boolean in the media file either, just the database is ok. Since my intent is to use it as a working field to make it easier to know where I left off in my work.

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by nohitter151 » Thu Nov 18, 2010 8:21 am

I agree with you in that sense (doing it for individual tracks is much easier with some kind of check box), but since you said mostly you would use it via right-click, properties, I just wanted to point out that you can basically already achieve the same thing.

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by windcrest77 » Thu Nov 18, 2010 12:08 am

nohitter151 wrote:
windcrest77 wrote: Mostly I would envision myself auditioning 100 or so tracks, then doing a multiselect on them, right click to properties, and flag all 100 tracks as "Auditioned" all at once.
In that use-case, isn't it pretty much the same as a checkbox to just type an 'X' into one of the custom fields? I don't really see how the checkbox makes it much different.
If I use the properties dialog that would be ok I guess, but still would like to mark items in grid with one click.

Updating custom field from grid involves clicking the grid that weird way you have to to open up a field for edit (with a slow double click so as to not start playing the song) and then typing an X then hitting enter key or moving off the row to cause the update to take place. After 300 songs, its very fatiguing with all that work per song. Also if multiple checkboxes can be provided you then have to put X,Y in the custom field then remember what the X meant and the Y etc. I think having 1 to 8 general purpose checkboxes that are one click-able even if the row is not hilighted would be ideal. Currently I have no good way to know where I left off in auditioning, and am constantly re-visiting songs I've already made a decision about how to use them in the studio. Ultimately it's just a marker flag to make the database rows easier to manage over time.

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by nohitter151 » Wed Nov 17, 2010 8:08 am

windcrest77 wrote: Mostly I would envision myself auditioning 100 or so tracks, then doing a multiselect on them, right click to properties, and flag all 100 tracks as "Auditioned" all at once.
In that use-case, isn't it pretty much the same as a checkbox to just type an 'X' into one of the custom fields? I don't really see how the checkbox makes it much different.

Re: Idea for another truly useful grid column

by windcrest77 » Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:07 pm

Mizery_Made wrote:Even if it were to be implemented, I doubt it would be "one click" and rather actually be "two click". Reason I say this is, the Ratings used to be "one click" and people complained about how easy it was to accidentally alter a rating. Thus, it was changed to where you can only click and set the rating of the currently selected track. If a check box (or multiple ones) were introduced, I could see them functioning similarly.
So one click as far as the current selection goes, would be good.

Mostly I would envision myself auditioning 100 or so tracks, then doing a multiselect on them, right click to properties, and flag all 100 tracks as "Auditioned" all at once.

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