Edit windows explorer details pane?

exmeaguy said:

Looks like there is still no answer to adding "Artist" as a detail column. Unbelievable that MS would remove one of the most important data items when selecting music.

Actually, if you've been paying attention, you'll notice that in Windows Explorer, the "Contributing Artists" field is, in fact, the "Artist" field you have been looking for. This I know, because my own "MP3 Media Properties Explorer" that I use to manage the tags in my music collection calls the tag "Lead Artist", and whatever I enter into that field shows up in Windows Explorer as "Contributing Artist".

MP3 Media Properties Explorer


Windows Explorer

The name is not important, as long as the various programs out there (including Windows Explorer) show the correct information.

I was told in another thread to edit the Contributing artist field in stead too. Anybody else ever work with data bases? Wrong field. Contributing Artist field is NOT the Artist field. I need to SEE the field I'm editing. If the OS does update a related field automaticaly (Bad form), I would like a way to verify. Don't mean to throw rocks, but thats a bad answer in my book. Sorry. The name IS important. The Edit pane needs to be customizable.
(X-base Programming 7 yrs)

cbleman said:

I was told in another thread to edit the Contributing artist field in stead too. Anybody else ever work with data bases? Wrong field. Contributing Artist field is NOT the Artist field. I need to SEE the field I'm editing. If the OS does update a related field automaticaly (Bad form), I would like a way to verify. Don't mean to throw rocks, but thats a bad answer in my book. Sorry. The name IS important. The Edit pane needs to be customizable.
(X-base Programming 7 yrs)

Ok, now we're arguing semantics here. As a Pascal/Delphi programmer of nearly 20 years, I can say this with the following code extracts):

Code:

    { TPE1 } fiLeadArtist, { Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s) }
    { TPE2 } fiBand, { Band/orchestra/accompaniment }
    { TPE3 } fiConductor, { Conductor/performer refinement }
    { TPE4 } fiMixArtist, { Interpreted, remixed, or otherwise modified by }

The above is only a small part of the ID3v2 standard (which defines over 90 "frames" of metadata). The "TPEx" frames is used to represent "human data", and usually contains names of people.

The out-moded "ID3v1" specification, however, defines only 7 items : "ID", "Songname", "Artist", "Album", "Year", "Comments" and "Genre".

Basically, all I'm trying to highlight to you is this: In the V2 metadata standard for MP3 files, the field is "TPE1". So how does the database field name make my previous answer incorrect, when (in the context of this thread), the terms "Artist", "Contributing Artist" or "Lead Artist" are simply used for display purposes only, and the data itself is embedded into an MP3 file using the "TPE1" field?

Would you rather have MS display it as "TPE1" (the actual field name) and yet another target of complaint setup against them?? The name of the field IS important, but the user "Display Name" for that field takes preference. The user does not care what the database field name is.

This is what I tried to highlight to exmeaguy, that some programs display TPE1 as "Artist" and others show it as "Contributing Artist", but the data it holds remains the same.

Cbleman, while I do not agree with your post as a whole, I do agree with you that the "Details Pane" (you incorrectly call it the Edit Pane. See how easy it is to get a name wrong?) must be customizable with more than just changing it's size. I'd like to see a facility where the user can decide which fields are displayed, and in which order. It should also be made more clear that some of the information it displays is editable.

Dzomlija said:

Ok, now we're arguing semantics here. As a Pascal/Delphi programmer of nearly 20 years, I can say this with the following code extracts):

Code:

    { TPE1 } fiLeadArtist, { Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s) }
    { TPE2 } fiBand, { Band/orchestra/accompaniment }
    { TPE3 } fiConductor, { Conductor/performer refinement }
    { TPE4 } fiMixArtist, { Interpreted, remixed, or otherwise modified by }

The above is only a small part of the ID3v2 standard (which defines over 90 "frames" of metadata). The "TPEx" frames is used to represent "human data", and usually contains names of people.

The out-moded "ID3v1" specification, however, defines only 7 items : "ID", "Songname", "Artist", "Album", "Year", "Comments" and "Genre".

Basically, all I'm trying to highlight to you is this: In the V2 metadata standard for MP3 files, the field is "TPE1". So how does the database field name make my previous answer incorrect, when (in the context of this thread), the terms "Artist", "Contributing Artist" or "Lead Artist" are simply used for display purposes only, and the data itself is embedded into an MP3 file using the "TPE1" field?

Would you rather have MS display it as "TPE1" (the actual field name) and yet another target of complaint setup against them?? The name of the field IS important, but the user "Display Name" for that field takes preference. The user does not care what the database field name is.

This is what I tried to highlight to exmeaguy, that some programs display TPE1 as "Artist" and others show it as "Contributing Artist", but the data it holds remains the same.

Cbleman, while I do not agree with your post as a whole, I do agree with you that the "Details Pane" (you incorrectly call it the Edit Pane. See how easy it is to get a name wrong?) must be customizable with more than just changing it's size. I'd like to see a facility where the user can decide which fields are displayed, and in which order. It should also be made more clear that some of the information it displays is editable.

You make a good point. Thank you for for the correct name to the Details Pane. Your programming experience trumps mine too.

After working with large data bases for so many years, I'm extremely cognizant of field names, and leary of saving data into the wrong field. Before I looked at your example, I was looking at the lables like fields in a flat data base. I can see your point though. Someone using my program would see a field labeled "First Name" when the actual field name could be called "tfrstnm1". Meaningfull to the Database manager (to Identify which database the field belongs to, and other usefull info.) but to nobody else.

"Artist" has been a main field in every MP3 editing program I have ever used. Since I reside in the U.S, this may be an ethnocentric point of view. I have no Idea what the rest of the world sees this field name as, and the US may well be a minority. I do however question the current name of the label in the pane. If I changed the "First Name" label on an input screen to "Christian Given Name", it would confuse the heck out of the people inputing the data, and cause the Database Manager to question my sanity. Just as I question the sanity of the person who decided to change name of a very widely used label in the US. I will put several MP3s back on the Win 7 machine, Edit the contributing artist field, and pull them back into Media Monkey to see if the "Artist" field updates correctly.

I had a problem with bunch truncated .MP3 files in my library. I blamed Win 7 and pulled my mp3 hard drive off the Win 7 machine. I never tested what you said, I just jumped in with both feet.... in my mouth. Sorry.

cbleman said:

I had a problem with bunch truncated .MP3 files in my library. I blamed Win 7 and pulled my mp3 hard drive off the Win 7 machine. I never tested what you said, I just jumped in with both feet.... in my mouth. Sorry.

That happened a lot with the BETA - untill MS released a patch...

I would also like to gain control over the "Details Pane" and "Contents" view.