04-03-2020, 11:35 PM
So far, I'm finding tiresome the process of having to delete manually field values that have become unused due to my having corrected them (which, per your design, can only be done by entering a new field entry for a song and then deleting the incorrect old one from the song--if I'm wrong on this part, please correct me). THEN, I notice that the "deleted" old one still exists in the list of available pre-used entries even though no song uses it. I then have to "delete" it from the list of available entries. This makes 2 deletion processes and a new entry process for one simple correction. Furthermore, unless I'm missing an easier process, when I do the final deletion, I'm looking at the old and the corrected in a list, with no indication of which no longer has a song assigned to it; ergo, unless the nature of the correction makes it obvious which is the old and which is the corrected, I have to double-check by clicking on each field value to see if any songs open.
I fully understand how some users might wish to retain unused field values (especially if there's a way to pre-load possible field values for later selection) and therefore NOT want their unused values automatically deleted, it sure would be nice to be prompted after an "edit" with something like "Hey, I see you just added a new field value to this song or collection of songs very similar to an existing one in the same field. Would you like to substitute all 'Alred Neumann' with 'Alfred E. Neumann' in all songs and delete 'Alred Neumann'?" I have seen that technique used in other non-music database apps, but only when the field entry is allowed to be edited directly, which MSP doesn't allow; in that case, the only open question is whether the user wants all items containing that field value to be changed to the new version, since it's obvious that the present record is intended to be a substitution.
I'm agnostic as to how this edit/delete process should function, but it should not be so cumbersome to correct a simple typo and have the correction apply to all songs that use that value AND not burden the database with old, incorrect values that might accidentally become assigned in the future to new songs instead of the corrected version. I encounter this most often when I add information to a composer, like birth name or city/country of origin, or death date, or middle name or a/k/a, which I'd obviously want to have replace the previous form of that composer's field value.
PERHAPS, allowing the user to right-click the existing field value and open up an editing dialog that would automatically delete the old version and substitute the new value for all instances of the old (with a prompt for permission, because, e.g., replacing "2015" with "2014" in the Years field shouldn't assume that all 2015 entries are supposed to be 2014). Another possibility would be to allow this form of editing only when listing all values under a particular tab (rather than inside one song).
Another possibility (inelegant) is to have a separate process available for deleting dead field values or a user option that dead field values are to be automatically deleted. This would be very useful to folks like me who generally do all their editing externally and then re-import and therefore don't need a pre-loaded list of available field values and don't want the old ones hanging around for any reason.
I fully understand how some users might wish to retain unused field values (especially if there's a way to pre-load possible field values for later selection) and therefore NOT want their unused values automatically deleted, it sure would be nice to be prompted after an "edit" with something like "Hey, I see you just added a new field value to this song or collection of songs very similar to an existing one in the same field. Would you like to substitute all 'Alred Neumann' with 'Alfred E. Neumann' in all songs and delete 'Alred Neumann'?" I have seen that technique used in other non-music database apps, but only when the field entry is allowed to be edited directly, which MSP doesn't allow; in that case, the only open question is whether the user wants all items containing that field value to be changed to the new version, since it's obvious that the present record is intended to be a substitution.
I'm agnostic as to how this edit/delete process should function, but it should not be so cumbersome to correct a simple typo and have the correction apply to all songs that use that value AND not burden the database with old, incorrect values that might accidentally become assigned in the future to new songs instead of the corrected version. I encounter this most often when I add information to a composer, like birth name or city/country of origin, or death date, or middle name or a/k/a, which I'd obviously want to have replace the previous form of that composer's field value.
PERHAPS, allowing the user to right-click the existing field value and open up an editing dialog that would automatically delete the old version and substitute the new value for all instances of the old (with a prompt for permission, because, e.g., replacing "2015" with "2014" in the Years field shouldn't assume that all 2015 entries are supposed to be 2014). Another possibility would be to allow this form of editing only when listing all values under a particular tab (rather than inside one song).
Another possibility (inelegant) is to have a separate process available for deleting dead field values or a user option that dead field values are to be automatically deleted. This would be very useful to folks like me who generally do all their editing externally and then re-import and therefore don't need a pre-loaded list of available field values and don't want the old ones hanging around for any reason.