eCustom V2-2 - for editing Custom fields

[raybeau528]

eCustom V2-0 is a complete rewrite of eCustom. With eCustom V2, the eCustom DropDowns and Options Panels are replaced with Menu items. There is no longer the limit of 5 Categories. The Menus adjust to the number of Categories and items within the category. The end-result functionality is the same: the selected fields (genre and customx fields) are 'edited'.


eCustom.vbs is located in MediaMonkey\Scripts\Auto
Click Edit/eCustom Options to add, edit, or delete a Category
New - Enter the Category, Field Name, Edit Type, Delimter, and item list (separated by commas)
Edit - Edit an existing Category, and Field Name, Edit Type, Delimter, and item list
Delete - Delete a Category
Right Click in the Main Tracks Window or in the Now Playing Window and select "eCustom", then the category and then the item to edit the genre or custom fields

' The available fields are Genre and the Custom fields - Others could be added if requested

eCustom V2-2 install package can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/?jymwq5tyzmi

The previous version will remain available for those wishing to use the drop downs rather than the menus.

Note that V2 does not affect the player, ie the one-click play is not implemented in eCustom V2.0. I wish to keep eCustom as an 'edit' only utility. Let me know if you want the one-click feature and I will make it available as a separate script. You might want to consider my Stations script as a complement to eCustom.

Any/all comments suggestions are welcome.

V2-x history
3-Feb-2009 Added Comment and Grouping fields per request
27-Feb-2009 Added [;] and [; ] delimiters and added a confirmation before deleting a category





------------------------------------------------------------- V1.x---------------------------------------------------------------------
This script uses a single-line dockable panel with up to 5 pull down fields to edit custom fields. The panel is initially docked to the bottom of the main tracks window.

eCustom install package can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/?yzgukmdddmn



25-Oct-2008 Fixed pulldown fields not getting set correctly
Implemented autostart with panel displayed on startup per request
Option sheet turns off panel - must reload eCustom to load any new settings
'26-Oct-2008 Eliminated need for previous/next buttons, just use MM selection (arrows,click,etc.)
Pull down now affects the 'selection', not the current playing track (though they could be
the same)
Pulldowns now operate on selection, not just current playing track
Any change in selection (node, track, multiple track selection, etc) immediately starts playing
first track in selection
27-Oct-2008 Changed the width of the eCustom panel to be a function of the number of pulldowns defined
28-Oct-2008 Added 'More Options' sheet to select Vertical or Horizontal layout of the eCustom panel
29-Oct-2008 Added 'One_Click_Play' checkbox in More Options Sheet. Toggles classic MM flow or one_click_play.
29-Oct-2008 Recoded the 'delimiter' and added more choices. Fixed a double-space inserted with delimiter.
31-Oct-2008 Change panel to dock to bottom for first time use to prevent docking over controls
Anyone who is using eCustom will have to re-dock the panel to position of choice (first time only)
04-Nov-2008 Removed code that allcoated a progess bar which wasn't used



The eCustom option sheet (Tools/Options/eCustom) lets you define the number of pull down fields you wish to use, The caption or category for each pull down, which field the pull down will affect, the delimiter to use and the selectable items in the pull downs. Multiple pull downs can edit the same fields or separate fields.
The eCustom application is invoked from the Edit menu.

Copy to MediaMonkey/Scripts/Auto/eCustom.vbs

This is a total rewrite/redesign from an earlier attempt (ETA-Extended Tracks Attributes). The option sheet makes it much more flexible. I use all 5 pulldowns to edit Custom2. Any combinations of pulldowns to custom fields is acceptable, ie 1 pulldown for each custom field, or 2 pulldowns for custom1 and 2 pulldowns for Custom4, etc.

Any/all comments suggestions are welcome.

[twinbee]

What a great script. I've been looking for this for ages, after someone mentioned it existing a while back. The prequel to this version is probably what I was looking for!

A couple of quick gripes however before I use this solidly:
1: The docking of the panel is really neat, but when I close and repoen MM, it 'forgets' its position, and affects the other elements of the screen. I'd also like it to be open by default when I start MM.
2: When I try to select one of the dropdowns (after I made one in the ecustom options), it doesn't affect the track. I must be missing something obvious, but it won't change the custom fields for me.

[raybeau528]

Twinbee,

I'm Happy to hear you like the script and will do what I can to get it to work for you. I'm no expert and still learning VBS and MM's interface. It does work fine on my system which is running XP.

1.What OS are you running?

2. The dockable panel is set to dock to the top ( DockablePanel1.DockedTo=3). I use it without the NowPlaying window opened. Note that it is designed to update the track which is currently playing. So if you have tracks displayed in the main tracks window you should double click a track to start playing it or click one of the buttons on the dockable panel (Previous="<", Next=">"). Selecting an item in the available pulldown should edit the appropriate custom field.

3. For each pulldown you want to implement, you should have set:
- Caption/Category - entered as text
- The field to edit (selected from pulldown, ie custom1, custom2, etc
- The Edit Type - replace,add,add&sort
- The delimiter (, | : ) etc.
- The Item List: these are the elements or tokens, separated by comma, you wish to have available in the
pulldown which ultimately are written to the custom field

Did you set all these in the Tools/Options/eCustom sheet?

Do the items show up in the pulldown?

4. Can you post a reply with the section from MediaMonkey.ini for [eCustom] ? You'll find it in the same folder as mm.db. For XP it's c:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\MediaMonkey.

5. I'll work on having it startup when you start MediaMonkey.

Ray

[raybeau528]

Twinbee,

I believe I've fixed the issue you reported.
It also now opens by default when you start MM.
I've tested it on both XP and Vista.

Let me know if you're still experiencing issues.

Ray

[raybeau528]

Uploaded new code in post 1.

'26-Oct-2008 Eliminated need for previous/next buttons, just use MM selection (arrows,click,etc.)
Pull down now affects the 'selection', not the current playing track (though they could be
the same)
Pulldowns now operate on selection, not just current playing track
Any change in selection (node, track, multiple track selection, etc) immediately starts playing
first track in selection

[twinbee]

Nice update! This is gonna shine once it's finished. Also, the change to the field works as expected now - good fix.

Pull down now affects the 'selection', not the current playing track (though they could be
the same)

That's great too, a nice time-saver.

A couple of bugs however:
1: When I go to Tools -> options, ecustom closes.
2: When I change a field when a track is currently playing, the track stops. Is it possible to not interfere like this?
3: Clicking on a track once in MM now makes it play immediately. It wasn't doing this before...
4: Good to see it open on startup, though the docking is a bit weird.

This is how I have it usually in MM. It looks fine:


However, after rebooting MM, this happens:


5: Feature suiggestion: Is it possible to have the pulldowns organized vertically. I value horizontal much more than vertical, and they're very thin, so it would make more sense I reckon.

[raybeau528]

Twinbee,

1. I intentionally closed eCustom when the option sheet is invoked. My thinking is that if you make an update in the option sheet in won't reflect in the pulldowns until you close it and restart it. If you'd rather not have it close, I can do that.

2.hmm, I don't know why the track would stop Playing. Mine doesn't and I certainly wouldn't want it to either! You might need to tell me more about this. Perhaps it has to do with where you have eCustom docked. I'll get to that in number 4&5.

3. Yes, just selecting a track (click once) makes it play immediately. I like it that way. Is it an issue for you? Notice that just making a multitrack selection also starts the selection playing immediately as well, ie the selection is added to the NowPlaying panel. The way I intended to use this is to add different attributes to the custom field(s) while I was listening to a track. So just clicking on a track starts it playing immediately (less key strokes). Selecting multiple tracks lets you update all of those tracks' custom fields at once with the eCustom pull down.

4. I'm not clear on where the eCustom panel is in your image! Doesn't look anything like mine! How do you insert an image in this posting? Mine is docked to the top of the main tracks window in a single horizontal line. The pulldowns list the items vertically.

Can you try dragging the eCustom panel to a different location? You might like it better in the top position of the main tracks window.

Ray

[raybeau528]

Twinbee,

I think I understand why your MM layout gets 'weird' after restarting MM. The eCustom panel is defined with a fixed width to accommodate up to 5 pulldowns. From what I can see you have 1 pulldown defined but the panel is set for 650 pixels wide. When you start MM the panel gets docked right above the 'nodes', ie libary, etc. and widens that entire window to fit the panel. For my own use I dock it to the top of the main tracks window. Can you try dragging it there and see how that works for you? I will also look at setting the size of the panel dependent on the number of pulldowns defined. A bit more coding but should be doable.

Can you elaborate on this request a little more?

5: Feature suiggestion: Is it possible to have the pulldowns organized vertically. I value horizontal much more than vertical, and they're very thin, so it would make more sense I reckon

Right now the panel, with 5 pull downs would like something like this:

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| PullDown1 Pulldown2 Pulldown3 Pulldown4 Pulldown5 |
+---- Item1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Item2
Item3
Item4

Are you suggesting you want it to look like this:

+-------------------+
| PullDown1 |
+-------------------+
| PullDown2 |
+-------------------+
| PullDown3 |
+-------------------+
| PullDown4 |
+-------------------+
| PullDown5 |
+-------------------+

Ray

[raybeau528]

Twinbee,

I updated the code in post 1 to make the panel width a function of the number of pulldowns defined. Try it and let me know if your layout doesn't change when you restart MM.

Ray

[twinbee]

Much better! The docking works a treat, and all sizes (whether horizontal or vertical) are remembered by MM after rebootup. Thanks for adding the vertical panels too. In answer to your points:

2.hmm, I don't know why the track would stop Playing. Mine doesn't and I certainly wouldn't want it to either! You might need to tell me more about this. Perhaps it has to do with where you have eCustom docked. I'll get to that in number 4&5.

It seems okay now. I'll let you know if it happens again.

3. Yes, just selecting a track (click once) makes it play immediately. I like it that way. Is it an issue for you? Notice that just making a multitrack selection also starts the selection playing immediately as well, ie the selection is added to the NowPlaying panel. The way I intended to use this is to add different attributes to the custom field(s) while I was listening to a track. So just clicking on a track starts it playing immediately (less key strokes). Selecting multiple tracks lets you update all of those tracks' custom fields at once with the eCustom pull down.

Okay this an interesting issue. I actually would be one of the first to biased *for* this behaviour, because I've often moaned how one needs to double click a Windows folder to open it, when one click would be se much nicer. Heck, I might get used to it MM quite easily like this. However I have a few issues which counteract the convenience of a single click:

a: When I go to 'Now Playing', only a single track appears, when of course it should be the whole playlist.
b: Sometimes I want to select/change the tag of a different track while the current one is playing.
c: Even if I get used to it, many others will find it weird to only click once (even if they shouldn't
d: When I click a playlist on the left, the tracks instantly start playing. I may just want to add that new playlist, to my "Now Playing" list, and this removes that functionality completely.

As you can see, there are a number of issues even before I consider switching, but by all means go for it if you can fix them. 1 click is better than 2 In any case, all you need to do for now is make it optional.

4. I'm not clear on where the eCustom panel is in your image! Doesn't look anything like mine! How do you insert an image in this posting? Mine is docked to the top of the main tracks window in a single horizontal line. The pulldowns list the items vertically.

You probably found it in the end, right above the playlists. To insert an image btw, click on "Img" and insert the URL of the pic in there.

Can you try dragging the eCustom panel to a different location? You might like it better in the top position of the main tracks window.

I might try that if I get more than a couple of ecustom panels. For now I'm just using two.

Great work on this update, and only issue 3 is keeping me from using this permanantly

[raybeau528]

Twinbee,

Per your feedback and suggestion, I added the option to toggle between classic MM style and the One_Click_Play style.
You'll find it in the More Options sheet. With One_Click_Play unchecked, the Play Now action works the way you have it set in Tools/Options/Player. You can select and edit tracks independent of the track that's playing. You can edit tracks in either the main tracks window or the now playing window.

Let me know what you think.

Ray

[twinbee]

Awesome, I'm gonna try this out for a while now to see how I get on. There's a couple of glitches though which you might like to fix in the meantime:

I love the way you've added the Add mode as well as Replace. However, when I use 'Add mode', it ends up adding two spaces before the delimiter is inserted (i.e. 2 spaces after the old string), and then the delimiter followed by a further space. In other words it might do something like this:

Code: Select all

game  , skip  , pop  , sfx

...when I would prefer the custom field to look like (primarily to save space):

Code: Select all

game, skip, pop, sfx

.. or even

Code: Select all

game,skip,pop,sfx

If you implement this change I'm suggesting, people can still have spaces if they prefer simply by inserting them in the options -> Item list.

The other thing I would like is to have a "space" delimiter. My tags are all done like this (for better or worse), and I'd like to keep the consistency for now.

[raybeau528]

Twinbee,

Changing the delimiters is certainly doable. I'm not sure why you get two spaces in yours, though. I add a space before and after the delimiter. Just beware that if you use a space as a delimiter you would be limited to single word items as the space would be interpreted as a delimiter. What I could do is create more delimiters to choose from which would include spaces etc. and not add any before or after the items. I actually did that in an earlier version but it was difficult to discern the spaces themselves. Perhaps I could enclose them in brackets for display in the delimiter pull down and strip them out. I'll give it a go and upload a new version later.

Ray

[raybeau528]

Twinbee,

I discovered and fixed the double space issue. Also implemented a different delimiter scheme. I no longer add any spaces before/after the delimiter. The delimiters in the pull down are surrounded by brackets - the brackets don't get inserted in the custom fields. There's also a space delimiter - [ ]. Give it a try. Let me know if you'd like other delimiters in the list - easy enough to add them. I could also easily add more fields in addition to custom1,2,3,4,5 if you see a need.

Ray

[twinbee]

Wow that was quick. It could not have been easy to do, but I love the new delimiter system - very well thought out (I imagined some tricky issues which may arise, but the new system overcomes them elegantly).

Apart from some very minor UI stuff now (maybe I'd like a deeper dropdown, so I don't need to scroll), this is pretty much complete for me - thanks muchly!