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The reason this is a big deal is how it is stored in the database. If some songs used "the beatles" as an artist name, those songs would get linked to the artist id that corresponds to "the beatles". If other songs use "beatles" as the artist name, they would get linked to a different artist id in the database.
I was going to just link each of these artists to each other using an "other_aliases" field, but that becomes a problem if the artist is either completely wrong or something vague like "Various Artists".
And it's not so much the obvious artist names (filtering out "the" is no big deal), but maybe one like this:
Thirty Seconds to Mars
vs.
30 Seconds to Mars
I just used "the" as an example because it was the first thing that popped into my head.
So far, I think the best solution will be to just do an online lookup, determine the most likely artist using all info available, and only store that artist in the database. Then I will link all of the related songs to that artist id, log the changes, and give the user the option to override the changes after the import is complete.
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I would say flag the entries that have a problem, skip them, and then let the user decide what to do. It sounds like you are worried about how much time/effort it will take for the end user, but really it only is an issue on the very first import. As a user, I would understand if it took a long time since it's looking up every song. I can then go through at my leisure and correct the ones that the software is "unsure" of.
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Hi compcentral
im really looking forward to using this program and also appriciate that you are able to find the time to make it!!
cheers
cbb
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I posted a "request" for something like this only a short while ago.
This will make my HTPC life heaven on earth. I cant wait to give it a try.
Your work is already very much appreciated!
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Thank you both for the encouragement. I really appreciate it.
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Hi compcentral,
kudos to you & your project.
it's a mammoth undertaking, but ultimately imperative to strive towards
universal & efficient standards, for the love of music & the overwhelming
allure of dewey digital catalogue feng shui...
anyhow, you asked for some feedback/suggestions.
and as music is one thing i've spent far too many hours on..
here's a couple thoughts to chew over.
It's sad but true that naming conventions for some artists are inconsistent,
(Tupac, 2Pac, 2pac)(Rolling Stones, The)
and some may intentionally defy logic
(AC/DC,$wingin' Utter$).
I don't believe it prudent to replace any characters with similar looking ones,
it can only lead to more alias/folder structure horror,
sadly I use the humble underscore _ in place of illegal characters
(AC_DC, Boney M_, B_Witched)
until a universally complete/compatible codeset/font is here.
It occurred to me that no 'mere' regex formulae will absolve
every deviate discrepency when dealing with massive collections
My idea is the 'Essentially Holy Trinity Library Division'
or more precisely 'The Good, The Bad & The Ugly'
All 'complete','favourable bitrate' & 'correctly tagged & named'-
Artist/Albums are locked read-only tight in 'The Good' directory,
Any incomplete, poorer quality, poorly tagged/named, missing art etc
you guessed it 'The Bad' for further work needed.
And ALL illegal, immoral and plain system-breaking miscreants,
can join the unfavourably formatted & obscure bootleggers etc
in the 'Gulag' where the threat of painless deletion looms
til someone figures out if they're safe to merge again.
The upside is instead of churning 50000+
60%-compliant files through a library update,
with unsatisfactory results.
'The Good' say (60%) or 30000-tracks @ 100%
Top-of-the-Pops are flying for Eternal Paradise.
The Bad & The Ugly well they probably shouldn't be allowed library access
on account of their ill-litter-rate.
I'm also interested in finding the Holy-Grail of
fabled file/folder heirachy that seamlessly includes
releases, singles, collaborations, bootlegs, re-masters,
with info, artwork, lyrics, music videos, press-releases
tour-dates, maybe even tablature/music notation etc.
There's a fine-line between fan & fanatic.
I look forward to more Audio-matic mania.
Hats off to the fantastic XBMC-team for the finest
multi-media mega-mayhem in the business.
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You bring up a good point... how to handle illegal file/folder name characters (*, ?, \, /, etc.)? Obviously in these instances, the file/folder name will not match the actual name.
I think the underscore substitution method is probably the best option. I will add an option to treat an underscore as an unknown character during import. Upper ascii character substitution will also be optional when renaming, but when doing a "lookup" to either find downloads or identify music, it will be taken into consideration somehow.
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I can't wait to try the beta.
Any release date planned ?