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What is going on with the "/" in my filenames?!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:06 pm
by Guest
I've just downloaded the new RC and am wondering what is happening to all of my files that contain "/" within the tags. Some of them are getting changed to ";" and others are not. This is driving me nuts! It is wreaking havoc on my folder organization as well.

This is the first time I've ever encountered MediaMonkey changing file tagging without the user's permission. It is a little scary.

I have loads of files tagged in the following manner, for example:
Artist: Hough/Dutoit/Montreal Sym Orch

MediaMonkey is automatically changing it to:

Hough; Dutoit; Montreal Sym Orch

It would be less of a problem if it changed ALL the tracks.

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:49 pm
by rovingcowboy
you have enough tag rooms in the new mm 3 version for song properties that you no longer need to type them all in the title.

you can use grouping for the suite's name.
and the symphony's name can go under the artist tag,
the conductor and the composer both have their own tags now.
and the track can be called largo or what ever they are like on the albums.

so loading the tags for the file name with all those is not needed.

example of one of my songs i just put in
  • title venus
    artist Symphonic orchestra berlin
    year 2008 (yr put in computer)
    orginal year 1995 (yr cdrom was made)
    grouping The Planets
    composer Gustav holst
    conductor carl august bunte
see there are tags for everything 8)

Re: What is going on with the "/" in my filenames?

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:53 pm
by nohitter151
Anonymous wrote:I've just downloaded the new RC and am wondering what is happening to all of my files that contain "/" within the tags. Some of them are getting changed to ";" and others are not. This is driving me nuts! It is wreaking havoc on my folder organization as well.

This is the first time I've ever encountered MediaMonkey changing file tagging without the user's permission. It is a little scary.

I have loads of files tagged in the following manner, for example:
Artist: Hough/Dutoit/Montreal Sym Orch

MediaMonkey is automatically changing it to:

Hough; Dutoit; Montreal Sym Orch

It would be less of a problem if it changed ALL the tracks.
The new MM version uses / in the tags as a means to specify multiple values in fields (its the ID3v2 standard). AFAIK your tags aren't actually being changed, they just display as "; " instead of "/".

What situation is there where your "/" still displays?

Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:11 pm
by Guest
OK, I have figured out what is happening. The "/" is being changed to "; ".

This seems to be some new kind of multiple artist functionality within the single Artist or Album Artist tag.

Thus, if I had typed in "Joshua Bell; Jeremy Denk" into the Album Artist field, in the Album Artist tree, entries would be displayed for Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk seperately. Previously, I would have typed "Joshua Bell/Jeremy Denk" and this would be displayed in the tree as "Joshua Bell/Jeremy Denk".

I do like this new functionality and am going back and retagging my tracks. For instance I would change "Karajan/Berlin Phil Orch" to "Herbert von Karajan; Berlin Phil Orch".

The only thing that is bothering me is that if I right click on a track, and click Find More from same Album Artist, it will only display more from the first artist listed. I don't think that is the optimum functionality.

For instance, if you had a track with the album artist "Vladimir Ashkenazy; Itzhak Perlman; Barry Tuckwell", it would be nice to click on this and when you go to find more from same album artist, another arrow could appear where you could select individually or All.

Re: What is going on with the "/" in my filenames?

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:39 pm
by chrisjj
> they just display as "; " instead of "/".

This is crazy. Why does MM have to interfere with the property? The track list diapl yshould just leave unchanged whatever the user has written into the tag, whilst the tree passively interprets the multiple values for the separate artist nodes.

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:43 pm
by chrisjj
> click Find More from same Album Artist, it will only display
> more from the first artist listed.

I think it is copping out becasue the tree can display only one node at a time. If this cannot be fixed, better then for FMFS to generate an entry under a new Find node.

Meanwhile, possible workaround: rewrite your tags:

fred,jim,shiela;fred;jim;shiela

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:13 pm
by stan9980
Can anyone give me a little clarification regarding multiple value tags?

I can't find any info on the ID3 site about multiple values and using a semi-colon so my point may have been covered, if someone could point me in the right direction I'd be grateful.

My concern is that tags I view as single value are being interpreted as multiple value tags.

For example a song written by Bob and by Joe I would tag as Bob/Joe in the composer field. To me, this is a single value as the song required both of their contributions, and clicking the find more arrow should find me more by Bob/Joe, not stuff by Bob or stuff by Joe, or any other combinations.

Multiple values in my thinking and understanding of the info on the ID3 site is for when there are several distinct bits of information.

For example, a single track that is a medley of 2 songs is going to have composer info for both songs, Bob/Joe; Dave/Steve.

Isn't assuming that any text separated by a slash is an individual value, slightly simplistic? Or am I just being cranky in the face of change? :-?

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:52 pm
by grommet
The "/" is a reserved character to separate the names for ID3v2.3 for at least the Artist, Composer, etc. That's how it's intended to be stored per the standard. So, because of this... you can't use a slash in the actual tag without MM splitting out the individual names. Well, with the explicit exception of AC/DC. :) The same is true for WMP 11, Explorer shell/Vista & any applications that follow the standard. But most applications ignore the whole concept of multiple discrete names, so this is ignored, too.

If you used another format, like WMA, a true slash could be stored in the tag since the tagging standard is more robust.

The semi-colon is used for display and entry purposes for multiple entries. The same is used for Windows shell, WMP 10/11, foobar2000, etc...

What is wrong with treating your two composers as two names? Don't they still display next to each other, with semi-colons between them in the display?

If you insist on treating the multiple individual composers or artists as a single item, use something else like "Bob & Joe".

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:37 am
by Owyn
Yep. I have used "\" as a separator for some time. Treats the collection of artists as a single entity, but, I can still find individual artists via search.

This pre-dates by far my use of MM3 and is also relatively consistent with Last.Fm tagging consensus.

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:28 pm
by stan9980
grommet: This is what I don't understand, the ID3v2.3 specs I've read (on id3.org) state that the writers (and various other frames) should be "seperated (sic) with the "/" character.". There's no mention of this being split subsequently by programs, or being replaced with "; ".

You've gotta love "standards" that immediately broken by pre-standard veteran rockers! :lol:

If the semi-colon is used for display and entry of multiple entries, it doesn't seem to make sense that "/" are changed.

My problem is going to be searching. If I want to search for a particular writing team I'm going to have to either either do multiple searches, because not all of my music uses ID3v2.3, search for part of the writing team or convert all my tags so I can use one system. None of which really appeal.

And I still can't find any information that replacing the "/" character with "; " is part of the standard.

Owyn: Thanks for the idea, I'm mainly concerned with the composer field so the single entity thing wouldn't really bother me. Not sure I fancy the large amounts of retagging though :-?

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:16 pm
by Owyn
Owyn: Thanks for the idea, I'm mainly concerned with the composer field so the single entity thing wouldn't really bother me. Not sure I fancy the large amounts of retagging though
Ummm. I mis-spoke on my prior post. I am using "/" as the separator.

But, Now I am totally confused (not unusual). I see only the combined strings in my Artists node, and my "/" are not getting changed.

Need to read through this whole thread again.

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:17 pm
by stan9980
Ok, I think I've solved my confusion. The semi-colons only appear when looking at files through the "My Computer" node. Viewing the same tracks through the "Library node" and the "/" remains.

So no mass re-tagging or search problems for me. Yay. :D

I'd still love to know where the semi-colons are mentioned in the standard though. :)

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:35 pm
by grommet
; is used in the MediaMonkey UI to separate discrete names in a field. This is defined by MediaMonkey; it has nothing to do with tagging standards directly. It's pretty common, though. e-mail program address lines, Windows Explorer shell/Vista, WMP 10/11, etc.

For MP3, when storing multiple names in the actual MP3 ID3 tag... it needs to be converted to "/", since this is the standard. For other formats, like WMA, it just stores each individual name with it's own entry since it doesn't depend on a text delimiter.

When incoming MP3s are added to MediaMonkey (3.0.3.1155+) or WMP 11, it will parse any multiple Artists, Composers, etc. names using the slashes, place them in the database correctly (individually) and display them with semi-colon on any full detail lines.

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:16 pm
by chrisjj
> ; is used in the MediaMonkey UI to separate discrete names in a field.
> This is defined by MediaMonkey; it has nothing to do with tagging
> standards directly.

That would be nice if true ;) Unfortunately it directly impinges on standards because it interferes with standard usage - in which ; is a regular character.

> It's pretty common, though. e-mail program address lines

Umm, the big difference is that in an email address, ; is reserved. In MP3 standard track fields it is not. Hence it is not free for MM to reuse for its own purpose.

> For MP3, when storing multiple names in the actual MP3 ID3 tag... it
> needs to be converted to "/", since this is the standard.

Agreed. The problem is that MM converts ; to / even when it was NOT a multiple artist separator. MM cannot tell the difference and has no business even trying to.