Converting text file to a Playlist

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Cussy
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Converting text file to a Playlist

Post by Cussy »

Guys - I enter this forum with trepidation since I have no knowledge of scripts, other than what I great job they do when I have auto-installed them.

I'm interested in other people's playlists and these abound on the web in text or table form. Usually they can be copied and pasted into Word etc, and any tables converted to text to produce a simple list of titles and artists.

Take for example, someone's Top 100 Dance Tunes - http://mag.weddingcentral.com.au/music/ ... -songs.htm - I can make this into a text file, but to replicate the list in MM I'd have to manually search every track I have and add it to a playlist. And I'd have to do this 100 times.

A nice tool would be to get MM to automatically take that text file and make a playlist from it where it can match any titles - obviously highlighting any tracks I don't have. Or even substituting suggested similar tracks.

Teknojnky kindly pointed me to FIQL and musicip mixer, but they are not quite what I have in mind. Anyone have any thoughts? Cheers
Cussy
trixmoto
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Post by trixmoto »

I started on a script to do this called "RecreateM3U" but I never got round to realising it because it never really worked. The trouble is that artist's vary so much in spelling and punctation, so it's very hard to search your library for what someone else called a band. Track titles are just as bad because some people put the bracketed text in and other leave it out. And then featured artists always put a spanner in the works! Basically the matching was so poor that it made the script unusable. If you've got any good ideas then let me know and I'll see if I can make this work! :)
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judas
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Post by judas »

It's a good idea!!!
I dont know if it is feasable: how about searching for the string in the text file, and adding the tracks that have >90% similarity with the tracks in the library? these would ignore misspellings and the like, but i dont know how to code the 90% part efficiently.
Cheers, judas
trixmoto
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Post by trixmoto »

SQL doesn't understand what you mean by 90% match!
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Cussy
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Post by Cussy »

I think almost anything is useful since the original list is almost always likely to be relatively long, in excess of 20 say. And working with something like "the 100 best....", "50 greatest" etc means a lot of work.

We start with a text file, of course, which is easy to edit. Take the list I started with. I copied this, pasted to Word and immediately and simply removed all the quotation marks. So there could be a set of parameters that the user has to comply with first if that helps.

What about a progressive search, maybe with an option to run a string search if that fails?

You might need an initial option to say whether the original list is title - artist or artist - title. Then the script searches for the first word. Where it finds more than a set (or customisable) number it moves to the next word. And again if that is above the parameter it moves on until it has less than the final parameter.

So, take "I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor". It searches for "I" and finds 90 but is told to move on if it finds more than 5 results. So then it looks for "I will" and returns 21, and then moves on to "I Will Survive"

Where it can't find an exact match it perhaps could then allow a string search as in MM now and allow the user to specify which result to add to the final playlist.

Even if the final selection of the artist had to done manually and added to the playlist it would save a lot of work. Or maybe the results could display in a table with the original title/artist query in a column followed by the results with a check box to tick for the ones to include (but allow a "Check All" button option).
Cussy
rovingcowboy
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Post by rovingcowboy »

copy the playlist open it in winamp export to m3u. then import in to media monkey.

if the songs are in media monkey's database then they will show up
else they will be grayed out.

did you try that to see if it worked?

but as trixmoto said i believe the tags would be a nightmare to get to convert .
and i don't program so for me to see that it must be a huge nightmare.

:o
roving cowboy / keith hall. My skins http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=16724 for some help check on Monkey's helpful messages at http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 4008#44008 MY SYSTEMS.1.Jukebox WinXp pro sp 3 version 3.5 gigabyte mb. 281 GHz amd athlon x2 240 built by me.) 2.WinXP pro sp3, vers 2.5.5 and vers 3.5 backup storage, shuttle 32a mb,734 MHz amd athlon put together by me.) 3.Dell demension, winxp pro sp3, mm3.5 spare jukebox.) 4.WinXp pro sp3, vers 3.5, dad's computer bought from computer store. )5. Samsung Galaxy A51 5G Android ) 6. amd a8-5600 apu 3.60ghz mm version 4 windows 7 pro bought from computer store.
Cussy
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Post by Cussy »

I don't have winamp on my pc, Rovingcowboy, but would happily download it if it solved the problem. I'm not sure that it does though, looking at the winamp site - http://www.winamp.com/player/walkthrough.php

We are starting with a .doc file or .txt file - are you saying that Winamp can simply open that file and convert it to a playlist for exporting?
Cussy
rovingcowboy
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Post by rovingcowboy »

i don't really think so, i thought it was just a list text file.

m3u's are just text files containing the local url to the song and they will when the extension is changed from .txt to .m3u play as a playlist.

and if you have winamp or monkey set up to get the tags from the song files. then the names show up in the playlists view area.

so that is what i ment but if the doc is just a text file try changing that to a .m3u and see what it will do in opening with media monkey?

i have made m3u's with winamp and media monkey and they both add in a code for their use as to put the name and beat and stuff in the listing.

but when i edit that in the notepad and just leave the local url / mask, to the song and then play the m3u in either one of them the titles show up.

i showed some place here how to make a m3u list? but just a short recap
here.

open note pad.
type in it the location for the songs like.
  • c:\my music\fiddlin frenchie burke\big mamu.ogg
    c:\my music\jimmy c. newman\aligatorman.ogg
thats a very simple m3u playlist. it depends on the tags having the information in them already.

if the document is like that then just change the extenstion from doc to m3u
and you have a playlist.
roving cowboy / keith hall. My skins http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=16724 for some help check on Monkey's helpful messages at http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 4008#44008 MY SYSTEMS.1.Jukebox WinXp pro sp 3 version 3.5 gigabyte mb. 281 GHz amd athlon x2 240 built by me.) 2.WinXP pro sp3, vers 2.5.5 and vers 3.5 backup storage, shuttle 32a mb,734 MHz amd athlon put together by me.) 3.Dell demension, winxp pro sp3, mm3.5 spare jukebox.) 4.WinXp pro sp3, vers 3.5, dad's computer bought from computer store. )5. Samsung Galaxy A51 5G Android ) 6. amd a8-5600 apu 3.60ghz mm version 4 windows 7 pro bought from computer store.
trixmoto
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Post by trixmoto »

You misunderstand rovingcowboy - the request is to use a raw text list of songs and search for them to create a playlist. The file is not a playlist itself and therefore Winamp cannot read it any better than MediaMonkey.

I have tried to create a script like this before and not succeeded. However, should I find myself with some free time I'll give it another go. Maybe another scripter will have more luck?
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rovingcowboy
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Post by rovingcowboy »

oh you mean like a database or dos text file.

okay i thought they wated to import playlists?

sorry about the misunderstanding. :oops:
roving cowboy / keith hall. My skins http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=16724 for some help check on Monkey's helpful messages at http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 4008#44008 MY SYSTEMS.1.Jukebox WinXp pro sp 3 version 3.5 gigabyte mb. 281 GHz amd athlon x2 240 built by me.) 2.WinXP pro sp3, vers 2.5.5 and vers 3.5 backup storage, shuttle 32a mb,734 MHz amd athlon put together by me.) 3.Dell demension, winxp pro sp3, mm3.5 spare jukebox.) 4.WinXp pro sp3, vers 3.5, dad's computer bought from computer store. )5. Samsung Galaxy A51 5G Android ) 6. amd a8-5600 apu 3.60ghz mm version 4 windows 7 pro bought from computer store.
Teknojnky
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Post by Teknojnky »

I wonder if this could be somehow like the 'extract fields' script and some sql %like% matching.

like iterate through a list, try to figure out artist matching then track matching, generate a report of possible matches with a red/yellow/green color match code, then create the playlist based on what the user approves matches of.
Cussy
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Post by Cussy »

As a variant of the search method I suggested earlier how about this.

The script takes the search subject and puts the words in order of size, and then alphabetically if there are two or more words of equal length. So, "Angel of the Morning - Crystal Gayle" becomes "Crystal - Morning - Angel - Gayle - the - of"

The search then looks to match the first word, and if there are more than 2 results it looks to match the next word and so on.

I've tried it with several songs using the advanced search, progressively adding words to the criteria and it seems work pretty good.
Cussy
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Post by Guest »

BUMP.

Any progress on this?

Anybody?

Even something that is close (with code for further tweaking/troubleshooting)?
trixmoto
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Post by trixmoto »

Well I like Cussy's idea and I think there's potential there for some pretty good matches. At the moment I've got a lot of things on so I can't attempt this myself, but hopefully another scripter will think about giving this a go.
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trixmoto
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Post by trixmoto »

I'm working on this again now, will let you know how it goes...
Download my scripts at my own MediaMonkey fansite.
All the code for my website and scripts is safely backed up immediately and for free using Dropbox.
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