Question Involving Masks/(Scripts?)

[Billllly]

Hi there everyone. I've been using MediaMonkey for a while, and I think it's probably the best thing ever. And with the new update, working with 'the' was made a lot easier. But, I still have one problem. First, here's my organizing string:

E:\My Music\Full Albums\<Album Artist@1>\<Album Artist>\($if(<Custom 2>,<Custom 2>,<Year>)) <Album>\$if(<Custom 1>,<Custom 1>)\<Track#> - <Title>

Example: E:\My Music\Full Albums\A\A Tribe Called Quest\(1993) Midnight Marauders\01 - Midnight Marauders Tour Guide.mp3

You can ignore everything except the bold type. It is very hard to work with "The" before a band name. Before, I just had the <Artist> tag be, for example, The Adverts, and the <Album Artist> be Adverts, The. This made it so the folder names would say Adverts, The, and the tag name say The Adverts. This seems fine, right? Well, it gets annoying in MM's library when both names come up, and it can cause confusion in some of my other programs.

Is there any way to make a mask that removes the first few letters of a field? I got this far:

$if(<Artist:3>=The,<Artist>,<Artist>)

I don't know if there's a mask that will do what I asked (remove the first 4 letters [The ] from a field) but if anyone could help me, I'd basically love you for life. I tried to explain this as best as I could. There could even be a script that could work if there are masterful scripters out there to help me. Thanks in advance to everyone,

Billy

[onkel_enno]

AFAIK It's not possible yet.
Bet you could use Trixmoto's Script to fix the Artist-name.

[Billllly]

Well, it's not the "The" after the comma that I'm worried about, because I can easily change that. Thanks anyways, that's a really useful script.

Anyways, I resolved my own problem by making both the <Artist> and the <Album Artist> "The Adverts", and making <Custom 3> "Adverts, The", and used this mask:

$if(<Artist:3>=The,<Custom 3>,<Artist>)

This checks whether or not the first three letters of the Artist are THE, and if they are, it uses <Custom 3>, which is "Artist, The". Otherwise, it just uses the Artist.

I like this solution best, but if anyone thinks of a better way to do it, reply. Thanks.

[jiri]

Maybe <Album Artist@1> and <Artist@1> could automatically remove prefixes as configured in MM and use the first letter after the, a, ...

Any objections?

Jiri

[Teknojnky]

Sounds Peachy!

[onkel_enno]

Sounds good!

[Steegy]

The only problem I see is when people want the full artists names in their file structures (e.g. "The Levellers" instead of "Levellers") so they would want:
My Music\S\Sabracadabra\
My Music\S\S...\
My Music\T\T...\
My Music\T\The Levellers\
My Music\T\T...\
While they only want to see "Levellers" in the library (using the "ignore the, a, ..." functionality).

I know this would be inconsistent and probably won't happen much, but it's just something I wanted you to "take into account", if necessary.

Anyway, it's a good idea.

Cheers
Steegy

[Billllly]

Well, the only problem I have with this newfound idea is the fact that it wouldn't work in re-organizing. The Auto-Organize tool runs on ID3 tags, which means that even though the Library says, for example, "Adverts, The", the tag still says "The Adverts", rendering the <Artist@1> thing useless. If there was a mask to REMOVE prefixes (start from a certain letter) instead of having a set number of letters from the beginning(a la @1, :1, et cetera), then it would be absolutely perfect. Maybe the guys over at MM HQ can add a mask like that in the next MediaMonkey.

[Steegy]

If there was a mask to REMOVE prefixes

Isn't that what jiri is suggesting?

[Billllly]

Ah, I didn't know jiri was the programmer. Sorry, I misinterpreted his post. Yes, jiri, that would be an EXCELLENT addition to MediaMonkey.