OK, this is what happened.
1 - I was given a load of charts in Chordpro format. Not really used to using these, but I decided to use them anyway.
2 - As supplied to me, these were named as follows;
Artist Name - Song Title.txt
3 - On the PC and using the excellent Total Commander file manager, I batch changed the extent to .cho. I then swapped the name and title around, so I now had the files named;
Song Title - Artist Name.cho
4 - Again using Total Commander, I deleted the Artist and the files are now all;
Song Title.cho
5 - All these files (200+) were placed in a separate directory and was then copied to Dropbox for import into MSP.
NB: This had to be done this way as Companion appears to have some sort of bug when transferring from PC to tablet (see earlier post).
6 - I then set up a Collection (Chordpro) and imported the whole lot into it.
NB: I used a collection so that, if it all went wrong, it was easier to find and delete the mess.
7 - Bingo! Everything seemed to work properly - until I looked at the files in the collection. To my astonishment, they are all named;
Artist Name - Song Title
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I had removed the Artist info on the PC, a couple of days ago. I name all my PDF's in a similar fashion and they work as expected.
Obviously, somewhere in the file structure this information must still exist, but where - and how to get rid of it?
(10-15-2015, 04:59 AM)GraemeJ Wrote: [ -> ]OK, this is what happened.
1 - I was given a load of charts in Chordpro format. Not really used to using these, but I decided to use them anyway.
2 - As supplied to me, these were named as follows;
Artist Name - Song Title.txt
3 - On the PC and using the excellent Total Commander file manager, I batch changed the extent to .cho. I then swapped the name and title around, so I now had the files named;
Song Title - Artist Name.cho
4 - Again using Total Commander, I deleted the Artist and the files are now all;
Song Title.cho
5 - All these files (200+) were placed in a separate directory and was then copied to Dropbox for import into MSP.
NB: This had to be done this way as Companion appears to have some sort of bug when transferring from PC to tablet (see earlier post).
6 - I then set up a Collection (Chordpro) and imported the whole lot into it.
NB: I used a collection so that, if it all went wrong, it was easier to find and delete the mess.
7 - Bingo! Everything seemed to work properly - until I looked at the files in the collection. To my astonishment, they are all named;
Artist Name - Song Title
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I had removed the Artist info on the PC, a couple of days ago. I name all my PDF's in a similar fashion and they work as expected.
Obviously, somewhere in the file structure this information must still exist, but where - and how to get rid of it?
Do the chordpro files have {title} & {subtitle} tags? I've not tested it out but I think that's where MS gets that info.
It's probably related to your first effort. Companion probably set up the folders then couldn't import into them. You may need to use a file manager to edit [remove] the files on the tablet if it is causing a problem. I think you'll find them in the [storage location] zubersoft.mspro >files folder. [Or something like that.]
(10-15-2015, 07:14 AM)DTownSMR Wrote: [ -> ]Do the chordpro files have {title} & {subtitle} tags? I've not tested it out but I think that's where MS gets that info.
They do and I wondered if that was a possibility. Some more testing required, I think.
(10-15-2015, 07:47 AM)Skip Wrote: [ -> ]It's probably related to your first effort. Companion probably set up the folders then couldn't import into them. You may need to use a file manager to edit [remove] the files on the tablet if it is causing a problem. I think you'll find them in the [storage location] zubersoft.mspro >files folder. [Or something like that.]
As far as I could see, my effort with Companion didn't move anything to the tablet or create any directories.
Even if that had happened, these are the same files, i.e. just the title as the filename - I have never tried to transfer the files as originally named - so it doesn't really account for what actually happened.
I can confirm DTownSMR is on to something and now we're getting somewhere.
I opened one of the problem files in a text editor and the start looked like this:
{title:Caspar Babypants - 9.99}
{artist:Caspar Babypants}
{key: D}
{preferred_key: D}
I deleted the first two lines (title and artist) and saved the file as test.cho. This I put in my Dropbox and then imported it into my Chordpro Collection.
Guess what? The title of the chart now appears as {preferred_key: D}.
So, MSP obviously parses the text within the file.
The process involves a menu to either to use the filename as the title (which is what I asked it to do) or guess a title from the filename. It's actually doing neither of these actions (I tried both, with exactly the same result) but taking the chart name from information embedded in the file itself. The only thing I find a little odd is that it didn't show the filename as {key: D}, which would seem more logical.
To me - and unless someone can prove otherwise - this is definitely a bug. Even if it isn't, then I would like some means whereby I can provide my own filenames and not totally useless ones (for my use) dreamed up by the software.
A couple of things Graeme. First off, with text files, the default behavior is to use metadata inside the file to populated song fields such as title, artist, key, etc. You can disable this by going to Settings->Text File Settings and unchecking "Use Text Fields During Song Creation". Second, you are correct that there is an error with the parsing of the title if an explicit title isn't provided. The reason it didn't use {key
} as the title is that {key} is a supported command that is recognized, so it knew not to use it as a title. preferred_key is not a supported field, so it used it as the title. I've now added code that will not use a line as the title if it contains any keywords inside braces. This still would result in an odd behavior though, so it's always best if a title is provided on the first line.
Mike
(10-15-2015, 02:10 PM)Zuberman Wrote: [ -> ]A couple of things Graeme. First off, with text files, the default behavior is to use metadata inside the file to populated song fields such as title, artist, key, etc. You can disable this by going to Settings->Text File Settings and unchecking "Use Text Fields During Song Creation". Second, you are correct that there is an error with the parsing of the title if an explicit title isn't provided. The reason it didn't use {key} as the title is that {key} is a supported command that is recognized, so it knew not to use it as a title. preferred_key is not a supported field, so it used it as the title. I've now added code that will not use a line as the title if it contains any keywords inside braces. This still would result in an odd behavior though, so it's always best if a title is provided on the first line.
Mike
Thanks for that info Mike. As you must have realised, this is my first real excursion into Chordpro files or, for that matter, text files, as I have always converted the few text files I do use to PDF before loading into MSP.
I removed the whole lot from the Library, modified the Settings menu as you have suggested and re-imported them again. I told it to use the filename as the title.
THIS HAS MADE NO DIFFERENCE - I am still seeing the display as Artist Name - Song Title!
Attached are screenshots of my Settings and the resultant Collection display. Either I am doing it incorrectly or something is broken.
Do you have a back for just prior to starting all of this, just in case all of the unwanted data wasn't removed?
Okay, then that's definitely a bug - I'll look into it ASAP. Thanks for looking into it.
(10-16-2015, 12:37 AM)Skip Wrote: [ -> ]Do you have a back for just prior to starting all of this, just in case all of the unwanted data wasn't removed?
Oh yes - a whole string of them
.
(10-16-2015, 02:40 AM)Zuberman Wrote: [ -> ]Okay, then that's definitely a bug - I'll look into it ASAP. Thanks for looking into it.
Thanks Mike.
I don't usually ask how long something like this will take, but this time I have to?
I really don't fancy the thought of having to indvidually edit 300 or so text files, but I don't need them immediately and I have a window of time to play with.
(10-15-2015, 02:10 PM)Zuberman Wrote: [ -> ]I've now added code that will not use a line as the title if it contains any keywords inside braces.
There's nothing in any ChordPro standard I know that states that the first line should be interpreted as song title.
I would strongly suggest to remove this functionality altogether.
I second Sciurius: {t: or {title: specify that everything after the colon up to the closing } is the title, no matter where it is located within the file.
I came across another bug related to the interpretation of ChordPro tags: colons within the subtitle string are removed, but shouldn't.
If I specify the authors of text and music in the subtitle like
{st:M: Frank Composer, T: Jack Texter}
it is displayed as
M Frank Composer, T Jack Texter
the colons are missing.
I've never been involved with Chordpro, prior to this, but I rather think that this feature is probably a (clever) step too far.
I strongly suspect that most of us use the filename as the title - no matter if it is a Chordpro, PDF or JPG.
I don't know about removing the feature, there may be some users who fnd it useful, but I certainly think the default action would to be use the filename for the title.