MediaMonkey forum

Posted: **Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:12 pm**

Found this thread from searching for topics relating to storing Artist and Album data outside of tracks.

Yes I would like to have this sort of beyond-track data capability for music, which would:

store data on Artist and Album (possibly others as well) in dedicated DB structures outside of the track/file structures
be linked to related track/file entries (presumably a manual process)
be able to accept direct text entry in a comment-like field as typing or pasting (separate from the track comment field of course)
be able to ingest data from the Wikipedia and/or Musicbrainz sources that currently auto-populate the Artist node
have settings for the auto data intake along the lines of * always bring in new data, or * only bring in new data on-demand, or * never bring in new data, and * append imported data to existing data, or * overwrite existing data, or * never overwrite existing data

I'll look for a more current entry to add this to.

Cheers
Matt

Posted: **Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:03 am**

Hi guys,

I saw something like this from a year ago but that didn't seem to get any traction, so I'd like to raise it again.

I'm making extensive use of the comment field and the available custom fields to store track-related data in the current track-centric database structure of MM5. But I'm running up against the limitations of MM5 in that I can't store a description of a music artist without replicating it to all of that artists tracks, and I can't store a description of an album without replicating it to all of the album's tracks.

At the moment I'm having to manage this beyond-track data outside of MM5 (in Excel) but that is a clunky process and seems to rob MM of a role that it is a natural for.

So, I'm looking for a capacity to have Artist and Album data stored in their own tables inside MM5 but linked to the tracks so that I can have the Artist data in one place and Album data in one place and don't have to do that inefficient, error-prone and downright nasty data replication.

The functionality I suggest would:

store data on Artist and Album (possibly others as well) in dedicated DB structures outside of the track/file structures
allow the linkage of Artist and Album entries to related track/file entries
allow manual assignment of a link between a group of selected tracks and an artist/album description via a right click context menu entry (user-initiated behaviour updating the automatic assignment) - such manual assignment would have to be protected against subsequent automatic assignment unless requested by the user
allow user-initiated automatic assignment of an artist or album linkage based on Artist and Album values in the track entry (automatic baseline behaviour) - An interface showing proposed actions like with auto organise would be useful to catch naming inconsistencies.
be able to accept direct text entry for Artist and Album data in a comment-like field or panel via typing or pasting (separate from the track comment field of course)
<FOLLOWING ARE DESIRABLE IF COPYING DATA FROM SOURCES IS OK>
be able to ingest data from the Wikipedia and/or Musicbrainz sources that currently auto-populate the Artist node
have settings for the auto data intake along the lines of * always bring in new data, or * only bring in new data on-demand, or * never bring in new data, and * append imported data to existing data, or * overwrite existing data, or * never overwrite existing data

I assume that Artist would be more suitable for linkage than Album Artist - it is amenable to standardisation and doesn't get into difficulties such as Album Artist being given the "Various Artists" values for compilation albums. Given the variances of artist and album names, any such assignments would have to local to one MM5 database.

Access to the Artist and Album data could be enabled by having a pair of widgets that could, say, be configured to display in the right pane instead of the lyrics and album art panels. When the display was configured to show the Artist and Album description panels in the right pane, selecting a track in the centre pane would automatically display the linked artist and album data in the right pane. The artist and album data could be edited from those panels.

There would also need to be a related export function that could export this data like the existing File List report.

Cheers
Matt

Posted: **Wed Jan 04, 2023 1:37 am**

Hi Matt,

the MM5 database does have a repository for notes at both the whole Album and whole Artist levels.
It was more accessible in MM4. Up until about 10 minutes ago I thought that it had been abandoned in MM5 (because that was what I was told here).

But I have just noticed that this is not completely true.
Are you familiar with the Artist and Album detail panels that you see when you click on an album or artist name. See the red area here. (further instructions at the bottom of this post).

That panel contains artist, or album notes, which have been obtained from Wikipedia. If you click the three dot menu (see arrow in my illustration), you get an Edit Comment option. This allows you to append to, or replace, the notes obtained from Wikipedia ... and it saves the result into the MM database. From what I see, for this point forward the Wikipedia lookup, for the altered artist or album, is turned off, and you will see your own data. .. nb: you can see that have altered the notes by add "xxx" at the beginning.

Does this achieve what you want?
The problem is general accessibility to this data. It will always be available in the Artist and Album Detail panels. But you can't easily trigger it from Now Playing or MMA, etc.

There seems to one thing that doesn't work. When the album or artist finds no Wikipedia data, there doesn't seem to be a way to type in your own information. ... That can probably be improved. I will report it as a bug. .... IMO, (remembering that I am a "nobody"), there is much greater chance of getting that bug fixed, than there would getting them to agree to enhancement that you propose.

Hints: to get to the Album or Artist Detail panels, you access by clicking the name when it is display is high lite ... example here in the Grid menu. There are three different click action available

the album art : this opens an inline window displaying the album tracks, or the Artist's albums
the Artist name ... this shows the Artist Detail Panel
the album name, this displays the album Detail panel

Same thing in the blue areas here.

[UPDATE] I didn't read your post until the end. I see that I didn't need to labour the point about the Album & artist Detail panels.

Posted: **Wed Jan 04, 2023 8:12 pm**

Issue is being tracked here.

Posted: **Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:39 am**

Barry,

Thanks for that prompt and considered reply. Glad to see that MM5 does indeed have structures for notes on Artist and Album.

Hints: to get to the Album or Artist Detail panels, you access by clicking the name when it is display is high lite .

I get the same access to the panels by clicking on individual artists and albums from the node tree in the left panel.

Same thing in the blue areas here.

Sorry, my screen isn't configured like yours and I can't seem to find how to do so, but no matter, I understand the general principle of accessing the notes panels via explicit artist or album links in the interface.

Does this achieve what you want?

Yes, partially. The edit features you've pointed out are sufficient for my "recording data" purposes; thanks for showing me the access path. I hadn't looked hard enough in the three dots menu because the first options I saw were to edit the data in the native source area (eg Wikipedia) and I didn't want to do that. Yes I can see how not having access to notes editing if there is no text from the sources should be treated as a bug.
I expect that MM5 does not actually save the notes into the database unless they are edited, correct?

The problem is general accessibility to this data. It will always be available in the Artist and Album Detail panels. But you can't easily trigger it from Now Playing or MMA, etc.

My thoughts on the notes panels themselves were that they could be displayed in the right panel as album art and lyrics can be at the moment, which would make them available when the Main List was being displayed in the centre panel, my main mode of operation. To make that happen, "Artist Notes" and "Album Notes" would need to be added to the Available Elements under Options>Layout.

Unfortunately, having the data in MM5 isn't everything. I also need to be able to export it so that I can combine it with the track data that I can export via the File List command into an episode script. I can't see a means of exporting artist and album notes via the native menus - is there an addon which would do that?

And would I be able to import the artist and album notes as I can for tracks and playlists?

Thanks
Matt

Posted: **Thu Jan 05, 2023 4:25 am**

MattTown wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:39 am Sorry, my screen isn't configured like yours and I can't seem to find how to do so

That is probably because we are using different skins.
There is a link to the one that I use in my forum sig below.

MattTown wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:39 am
I expect that MM5 does not actually save the notes into the database unless they are edited, correct?

I haven't seen any documentation about this facility, but that is what I observe when looking in the database.

MattTown wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:39 am My thoughts on the notes panels themselves were that they could be displayed in the right panel as album art and lyrics can be at the moment, which would make them available when the Main List was being displayed in the centre panel, my main mode of operation.

I agree. That would be a very useful enhancement.
The comment made to me, during the beta test phase of MM5, was that the Album and Artist notes facilities where not being migrated into MM5 because next to nobody used them.
But since the Album & Artist notes facility was all but invisible in MM4 ... actually they were even LESS visible that in MM4 ... So I think that the perceived lack of popularity for the feature was very much a chicken and egg situation, where the MM4 implementation wasn't much more than a thought bubble.

I have never noticed the Edit Comments facility until your query. And it was not explained to me when I made my original query.
So maybe this is early signs of a Work In Progress? I hope so.

MattTown wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:39 am Unfortunately, having the data in MM5 isn't everything. I also need to be able to export it so that I can combine it with the track data that I can export via the File List command into an episode script. I can't see a means of exporting artist and album notes via the native menus - is there an addon which would do that?

I don't know about an addon.
There is no way to do that in native MM5. A "comment" can be exported, but it is only track level comments.
You would be wanting separate exports facilities for Album, and for Artist level data.
Maybe even for Composer and Conductor and Publisher levels also.

Yoo could extract the data if you had a SQL Browser to read the MM5 database.
You can SEE the data by using the MM5 addon named SQL Editor.
eg. To see Artist level notes, type the following command into it, and press Execute.

Code: Select all

select artist, comment
from artists
where comment is not null and comment <> ''

You could add your request to have an export enhancement to the SQL Editor Addon here in this thread.

MattTown wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:39 am And would I be able to import the artist and album notes as I can for tracks and playlists?

Not ATM.
How do you import track note data atm?

Posted: **Sat Jan 14, 2023 10:31 pm**

I last imported comments a long time ago, my recollection is that I used MP3Tag to write the values to the music files, which was then read by the MM import process, but I can't find my notes from that time.

Thanks for the hint about SQL Editor, I'll check it out.

Cheers

MediaMonkey forum

FR: Intern customizable Database for Actors, Producer, Publisher, etc. [#16613]

Re: FR: Intern customizable Database for Actors, Producer, Publisher, etc. [#16613]

Separate Tables for Artist and Album Data

Re: Separate Tables for Artist and Album Data

Re: FR: Intern customizable Database for Actors, Producer, Publisher, etc. [#16613]

Re: FR: Intern customizable Database for Actors, Producer, Publisher, etc. [#16613]

Re: FR: Intern customizable Database for Actors, Producer, Publisher, etc. [#16613]

Re: FR: Intern customizable Database for Actors, Producer, Publisher, etc. [#16613]