Disabling ID3 Tags

Disabling ID3 Tags
Luke Scott - [email protected]

In response to: [ 675002 ] "Option to disable ID3 Tags", posted on the SF
features suggestion board last year by [email protected].



*** Original Text ***
Zinf seems to dissolve ID3 Tags automatically. This destoys the
order in My Music, because the Tags are written in different
Formats (for instance, Title: "08 - title" because it was Track #8 on a
CD, or containing author info, but no title etc.), so I would like to be
able to turn off usage of ID3 tags in Zinf and use plain filenames
instead (I'm formatting them "Artist - Title", so this shall be no
problem). WinAmp offers a similar
function.
[email protected]
*** end original text ***



I fully agree with this. I have been working on a web-based equivalent of
ZINF's music catalog for a while - my solution to this was to allow the user
to enter multiple, prioritized format strings for the filenames, so that a
user's entire collection doesn't have to follow the same convention. In
other words, for each file that is scanned into the catalog, the software
tries to match the filename to format string #1, which might look like this:

#artist# - #album# - #track# - #title#

if the filename matches this template (in other words, there are three
dashes between four fields, and field #3 is numeric), then the filename is
parsed into the appropriate data items. If the filename doesn't match the
string, i.e. if there aren't enough dashes or if there is a period between
field 2 and 3 instead of a dash, then it will try to match the filename to
format string #2, which might look like this:

#artist# - #album# - #title#

and so on, until there is either a match or no more format strings to choose
from. The one potential problem with this system is that it has to be either
pre-configured to be as intelligent as possible (in which case it won't fit
well with EVERY user's naming conventions), or it has to be configurable by
the user, in which case it can be very quirky, because the user is
essentially "programming" the software by him/herself. If the order of these
format strings is wrong, or if some songs are unconventionally named, then
the track will be mis-labeled as the album, or whatever.

I definitely believe in freedom from ID3 tags! Once a song is scanned into
the ZINF database, the tags are irrelevant - so why depend on them?!

PS the allowable fields I included were:
#artist#
#album#
#disc#   (allows for multiple-disc albums, like "dark side of the moon")
#track#
#title#



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