I'd mentioned a while ago that we were working on automated masstagging that would allow you to load a directory tree in puddletag, select which albums you want tagged, which tag sources to use, which fields you want tagged and which tag sources take precedence...and then sit back and watch puddletag do its work. The good news is that development is now complete and after lengthy internal testing we're making it available for your use -- *_don't_worry,_puddletag_will_NEVER_write_any_changes_to_your_tags_without_your_express_permission_*.
_*Underlying_principles:*_ Tag sources work as follows (whether using single album tagging or Masstagging): - Whilst tagging is album based, it can also be used to tag individual tracks. - puddletag's parsing code will retrieve all tags available from a tag source - by default, all tags provided by a tag source will be written unless you specify otherwise - there are two ways to modify this behaviour: 1) specify which fields you're interested in (in which case they're the *ONLY* tags that will be written) 2) specify which tags to exclude by preceding the field/tag name with a tilde "~" e.g. "~album, genre" (in which case all tags provided by a Tag Source will be written, excepting album & genre) - puddletag generally assumes that each album you want to tag is contained in its own folder (if this is not the case and filenames or existing tags are rich enough in content to distinguish albums you can use puddletag actions to move files to distinct folders before using Masstagging). If, however, files in the same directory have different values for the 'album' field, tracks with the same 'album' field will be treated as distinct albums and and lookups will be done for each album. - Puddletag currently supports freeDB and Musicbrainz as Tag Sources (there's a plugin framework for interested parties to add others). - With Masstagging you can configure puddletag to retrieve tags you want from specific tag sources and you can also combine metadata from various tag sources to "build" tagging metadata for writing to an album and/or track. - Using tagging profiles you're able to mix and match tagging behaviour using various tag sources to match your specific needs (this will be increasingly useful as more tag sources are added (hopefully someone out there is interested enough to add discogs, rateyourmusic etc. through the plugin framework). _MASSTAGGING_PROFILES:_ Create a Masstagging profile in which you specify which tag sources to use, the order in which to use them and which tags to utilise from the various tag sources. Masstagging profiles can be reused without having to do anything other than tell puddletag which Masstagging profile you'd like to deploy. A Masstagging profile specifies: - which tag source(s) to use - the order in which to poll the tag sources (important if you consider one source more definitive/authoritative than another ... puddletag will ultimately retain the last meta-data retrieved for a field/tag, so the most authoritative source should be the last polled) - which fields to retrieve from each of the tag sources - whether or not to utilise ambiguous matches for a particular tag source - various matching characteristics (filename pattern, fields to match against existing tags) - whether or not to brute force unmatched files (i.e. sort files in ascending order using filename and apply retrieved track meta-data top down from first to last track) _USING_MASSTAGGING:_ - Load the directory tree you'd like to masstag - Select the albums you'd like masstagged (Ctrl-A will select all files from all folders you've loaded). - Select a Masstagging profile - Select Start, sit back and wait for Masstagging to finish. *NOTE:* Whilst it's probably useful to you to sort the loaded tracks by filename and folder, there is NO NEED to sort the loaded directory tree before kicking off Masstagging. _*Reviewing_Masstagging_results*_ Once the Masstagging run has completed, puddletag will present you with the results (in fact, you'll see progress as Masstagging does its thing -- all tracks that have been matched are formatted bold) for your review and approval. To ease review you're able to sort the results by any column you please and can browse through the tracklist in the main view window. - If you're unhappy with the results for a particular track and/or album, they can be "deselected" (meaning that no changes will be written to them) simply by highlighting them and selecting Preview Mode/Clear Selected Files (Ctrl-Shift-F) - While reviewing proposed changes you can make any further changes you'd like using the main view, Tag Panel or Extended Tags view (Ctrl-E). Once you've completed your review you can write tags using Ctrl-W or clicking on the Write button. puddletag will then proceed to commit changes to all tracks formatted bold. To abandon a Masstagging session simply click on the Clear Preview button and there'll be no changes to write. That's all there is to it. -- audiomuze '*puddletag: A tag editor for Linux (that happens to run on OS X)*' (http://puddletag.sourceforge.net/) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ audiomuze's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=33613 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79733 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/ripping
