Metadata and columns

Help & Support
1

There are discrepancies between Metadata panel and columns
I didn't check every column but only the ones i use.

Directory
Directory.jpg1009×631 212 KB

"Comment" becomes "Comments": not a big mistake but just to let you know
"Artist" becomes "Authors" (Artist column is empty because is taken from music section)
"Years" is not displayed
"Genre" is not displayed

Both Year and Genre are not displayed becaose file is video while the column are taken from music section (like the Artist one),but i found nothing that shows year and genre for files video.

1 Like
2

Another thing to say it's that grouping byt Comments is really weird

Here i grouped by Comments where i put "Season #" I was expecting all Seasons to be separated but the Groups have Q-Z requirement to stay in that group (?)

This is what i would expect

3

For custom grouping a script column could be used.

A script column could also get the season numbers from the filenames without needing to use metadata, which would be quicker.

That would require Pro, of course.

4

About being "quicker". In fact i noticed that in detailed view the data takes long time to be loeaded and entering a folder where files are grouped/sorted by "title",the files takes 4-5 seconds to be sorted. It's a lot of time

But normal users can't do scripts. I'm not a programmer

5

Metadata involves opening and parsing the content of each files, which takes a lot longer than reading the directory listing. If the data is already in the filename then things can run much faster, and avoid lots of disk access, by using that data instead.

We can help write scripts for people (but it only makes sense if you're planning to buy the program, and the Pro version, otherwise you won't be able to use the script).

6

A script to extract values from a file name as new columns already exists so you would not need to write it. Its here Column - Custom Text and Regexp - #22 by wowbagger.
You would need to write a regexp for each value you want to extract but we can help you with that.

7

Is it also possibile to filter the files i want to see by metadata?

I know that support for those kind of things is only for people that has already bought the software,i was not asking it,but what i showed i think that could be already available by default. i don't understand why you enabled year and genre only for mp3 and not for video too.

8

Probably

  • You can use the Filter Bar to hide files you are not interested in, this works well with Flat View.
  • You could group by columns and collapse the ones you don't care about.
  • The regexp column script lets you target specific files again using regexp.
9

This was further discussed in a private message, thought i would put the resolution back here in case others we interested.
After installing the custom text columns addon mentioned above.

Requirement 1:

Let’s say i want to extact these things from “Gotham - 1x01 - Le Regole Di Gotham”:
1 - Gotham
2 - Stagione 1, where “Stagione” is added manually by me and 1 is the 1x01 of the season

Solution

{
  "columns": [
    {
      "name": "test-season",
      "label": "test-season",
      "header": "test-season",
      "type": "text",
      "defwidth": "20",
      "justify": "left",
      "infotiponly": false,
      "maxstars": "5",
      "datetimeformat": "yyyy-mm-dd",
      "noGroup": false,
      "grouporder": "",
      "sorting": "normal",
      "regexp": ".*\\s-\\s(\\d)x(\\d\\d).*",
      "inputItemProperty": "name_stem",
      "firstValid": false,
      "output": "Stagione $1",
      "filter": "all",
      "nogroup": false
    },
    {
      "name": "test-name",
      "label": "test-name",
      "header": "test-name",
      "type": "text",
      "defwidth": "20",
      "justify": "left",
      "infotiponly": false,
      "maxstars": "5",
      "datetimeformat": "yyyy-mm-dd",
      "noGroup": false,
      "grouporder": "",
      "sorting": "normal",
      "regexp": "(.*?)\\s-\\s.*",
      "inputItemProperty": "name_stem",
      "firstValid": false,
      "output": "$1",
      "filter": "all",
      "nogroup": false
    }
  ]
}

The dialog for the columns simply saves some config in to a global variable. You can replace all the column config with the config I sent above.

  • Go here Global Variable Management Dialog and grab the addon and install it.
  • Open the Vars dialog
  • Find the variable called RegexpCustomColumnsConfig
  • Paste JSON in that the value section.

If you would rather make the custom columns with the dialog.
Column1:
Name: Season
Regexp: .*\s-\s(\d)x(\d\d).*
Output: Stagione $1

Column2:
Name: Name
Regexp: (.*?)\s-\s.*
Output: $1

Requirement 2:

  • Episode 001, and you want Episode and 001.
  • Name Surname - Episode 002, and you want Episode and 002.

Solution

Notice there are multiple capture groups now.
^(.*?\s-\s)?(.*)\s(\d{1,3})$
Testing in expresso.

image
image.png1028×667 30.6 KB

10

i noticed that is not possible to group files by the columns created with scripts. Sorting is possibile but grouping is not

GROUPBY

SORTBY

It's not only for button creation. Look here too

11

This was a bug in the script. It has been fixed in version 1.5.5. Column - Custom Text and Regexp
You might need to open the config dialog and resave the config, or open it in the GlobalVariableManger and change noGroup to nogroup.

1 Like
12

OK thanks. i think i'm going to buy the software and i hope some will help with all the things i have to do (like these custom colums and script to filter files with the same parameters of the colums) because honestly i didn't understant the code you showed me to filter file names.
Now i have to decide how to rename files properly so we can then create the scripts i need

The last one (Episode) doesn't work but now it's not important.