[prae5]

More shocking to me is the fact there is no simple way to RENAME an artist from the context menu.

So when it screws up and scans Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Red Hot Chili Peppers you just press 'c' on one artist and rename it to the other, and voila. problem solved, all albums under ONE artist name.. not split up into two

Got to say thats incredibly short sighted. You aren't correcting the source file, so if your db needs rebuilding in the future, you use another app, another streamer, etc... you will need to do this again / for every single device that uses the files. Complete waste of time. Do something once and do it right.

One option would be to retag the mp3's though xbmc which i see as being good option, however i'm sure you would find it unacceptable.

To me, thats one of the most basic, fundamental things ever. I would be working on that before adding other bells and whistles because this is surely something to drive other people insane.

Patches welcome as they say.

Oh, and whats the reasoning behind not figuring out Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Red Hot Chili Peppers are the same?

Two different strings, it could, personally majority of users who want a sane library will sort their files so they are tagged correctly.

And to all of you squawking about the SFV files, alot of places require them to be in original format. What if you're filling a request for someone on the FTP site and they request the original format, and you send them some hacked up repack with your own Tag Edits? And on top of that, you expect people with huge libraries to go and edit every single .mp3 by hand and change the tags manually?

You were the one that brought up the sfv files. You have two options, either retag files and fill with updated tags and sfv or have files in your library that are tagged incorrectly.

Yes most people do keep there librarys tagged with sane tags, doing it either by hand or one of the many apps that will do it for you.

This is basic, basic stuff that should be included in XBMC IMO

Patches welcome.

[jpennell]

More shocking to me is the fact there is that I couldn't find a simple way to just RENAME the artists before scanning into XBMC.

So when I screw up and XBMC scans Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, rather than taking responsibility for the crappy quality of my tags - I chose instead to blame the free media player I was using. And voila, problem solved, I don't have to do anything.

To others, editing the tags is one of the most basic, fundamental features I should have done a long time ago.. people should be working on this before adding other bells and whistles because this is surely something to drive people like me insane. Not that the solution you guys reccomended isn't fine, but that certainly is a major pain in the balls for novice users. The interface should be inviting and intuitive if you want to attract idiots.

Oh, and whats the reasoning behind not figuring out Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Red Hot Chili Peppers are the same? I've seen the film AI - I know it's doable.

And to all of you squawking about the SFV files, alot of places require them to be in original format. What if you seem to be running a business supplying copyrighted material on an FTP site and a request is made for the original format - even though you'd doubt the "original format" was an MP3, you still wouldn't want to send them files with modified tags with the correct information in, would you? And on top of that, you expect people with huge libraries to go and edit every single .mp3 by hand and change the tags manually?

Getting the tags right was basic, basic functionality - and I failed to do it.

[jmarshall]

Editing MP3 tags from within the XBMC interface was decided against many moons ago for a couple of reasons:

1. There's very few _reliable_ libraries out there that even READ mp3 tags correctly.
2. There's even fewer _reliable_ libraries out there that write mp3 tags that the libraries from 1 would have a chance of coping with. For big players like iTunes and WMP they simply don't care how interoperable they are. Opensource like XBMC does care how interoperable it is.
3. Altering tags within an interface designed for a remote control is clumsy at best - it really needs a mouse and keyboard interface.
4. The additional restrictions that allowing editing places on skinning are significant.

These are not trivial obstacles to overcome. If everyone had a keyboard then I'd be willing to work on 3 and 4 (indeed, I hope to do that at some point). 1 and 2 are getting better - this may now be possible using taglib for instance, I'm not sure.

Lastly, trying to "autodetect" mis-spellings has the obvious problem of: Which one is "right"? Do we just blindly take the first one even though the first one may be the only file that has it wrong? Do we try and do it after everything is scanned using some sort of heuristics? It's impossible to get it right 100% of the time, and most other players don't even bother trying, so if we did it in XBMC no other player would benefit anyway.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[jpennell]

@locust - my £4000 Sonos does not allow the tags to be edited. It assumes the media files were from a legitimate, high-quality source - or at the very least that I had checked the tagged data was correct.

I have a RHCP album with a mis-spelling of Chili - Chilli. And another where an internet database spelt it Chilly cos some idiot had put it in wrong.

What if the genre was wrong - or you didn't agree? Should XBMC allow that to be edited too? Come to think of it, shouldn't XBMC contain ALL the functionality of purpose-built tag editors available for free from a number of sources?

----

I've been using XBMC on the Xbox for over three years now - and have never been much of a community member. But it astounds me that many people - especially the devs give up so much time to support what is easily the BEST open-source media centre available.

I really wouldn't have the patience to deal with people like yourself (as this post probably shows).

If you don't like XBMC's functionality then get "Programming for Dummies" and write your own version... and don't let the door slam on your way out through it.

@spiff - respect. Don't know how you guys do it. I'll stay well out of these kind of posts from now on...

@jmarshall - same to you - the community (and the project) would be dead without you guys.

[locust]

jpennels posts are utterly useless, is there a way to add him to ignore? every time this guy posts, in any thread, it's just nothing but instigating and offers 0 useful suggestions.. it's like a big block of useless text with his puckering up at the end

spiff and jmarshall and prae5, thanks for the thoughtful responses. i'll just stick to the sql editing method for now I suppose, maybe someone will work on a GUI app to pass the sql commands to the MyMusic7.db file, probably wouldn't be too tough. tag renaming or editing in the MP3 file itself is an impossibility; i want to maintain the integrity of the original source SFV's as I mentioned in the past.

and of course a big thanks to tron on EFnet for discovering this workaround and helping a novice user like myself to fix it!

i wish i could contribute but unfortunately i don't know any code!

cheers