I'm doing it wrong. (Lots of newbie questions.)

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Newbie here and some things aren’t working the way I expect them to, so I think I must be expecting the wrong thing, or maybe going about them wrong.

1. I have a bunch of files and I want to change the date for all of them to 1975. I would like to select the date fields for the lot and just type 1975, but that doesn’t work. The workaround I’ve used is to type 1975 in one slot, return, return, up arrow, copy, select the rest of them, paste. That seems inefficient to me; is there a better way?

2. I’ve left the default ‘fix iTunes files’ checkbox checked (sorry, can’t check the exact verbiage; it’s doing something now which will take hours) and turned off the ‘keep iTunes folder organized’ option in iTunes. I let Jaikoz do its local fixes, then hit save. This fixed a lot of artist names which should have consolidated the sloppy folders they were in into some nice clean ones, but this did not happen. Do I have to fix everything with Jaikoz and then turn that option back on in iTunes when the whole library is done, in order to fix the folders in my iTunes library folder?

3. Any chance it’ll be able to deal with larger libraries any time soon? I’ve seen the bit about adjusting the memory allocation but even if I give it all the memory I can spare it’ll still only take about half my library. With the default memory allocation I am only able to work on a fraction of my files (now I’m working on the A’s and B’s) and it’s going to take an awfully long time to go through my whole library. It’s like trying to iron a bedsheet on a mousepad.

4. Is there a way to take a number of characters off the front or back of a given field, like the “Remove N Characters from Front or Back” Applescript at Doug’s Applescripts?

5. Is there a list of words that should or should not be capitalized, or can the capitalization options be modified somehow so that short words can be capitalized?

I’ve got more, but this is a start… this looks like the program I’ve been waiting for, if I could only get on the same wavelength with it.

Mac OS 10.4.11, iTunes, 60,000+ songs.

[paultaylor]

1. I have a bunch of files and I want to change the date for all of them to 1975. I would like to select the date fields for the lot and just type 1975, but that doesn’t work. The workaround I’ve used is to type 1975 in one slot, return, return, up arrow, copy, select the rest of them, paste. That seems inefficient to me; is there a better way?

Is this a Mac thing, having selected the fields where do you type 1975, or is jaikoz just mmeant to know when you start typing after selecting some fields that it applies to all those fields, could you show me an application that does this. I think the copy and paste metaphor is still pretty efficient, there are no dialogs to concern yourself with. Another idea was having entered the date into the field would be to allow you to drag the bottom corner over the other fields to appy a paste to these fields.

2. I’ve left the default ‘fix iTunes files’ checkbox checked (sorry, can’t check the exact verbiage; it’s doing something now which will take hours) and turned off the ‘keep iTunes folder organized’ option in iTunes. I let Jaikoz do its local fixes, then hit save. This fixed a lot of artist names which should have consolidated the sloppy folders they were in into some nice clean ones, but this did not happen. Do I have to fix everything with Jaikoz and then turn that option back on in iTunes when the whole library is done, in order to fix the folders in my iTunes library folder?

Jaikoz can change folder names using the Action/File and Folder Correct/Correct Subfolders from Tags. But it doesnt do this by default precisely because users dont like to see there files moves/disappear and because of the effect on other applications such as iTunes. I am not entirely sure how iTunes works so you might have to expirement a little.

3. Any chance it’ll be able to deal with larger libraries any time soon? I’ve seen the bit about adjusting the memory allocation but even if I give it all the memory I can spare it’ll still only take about half my library. With the default memory allocation I am only able to work on a fraction of my files (now I’m working on the A’s and B’s) and it’s going to take an awfully long time to go through my whole library. It’s like trying to iron a bedsheet on a mousepad.

I want to be able to do this ( see item 2 on
http://www.jthink.net/jaikozforum/posts/list/512.page) but Jaikoz was not originally intended to work in this way so it is a difficult task to migrate over to this model so a little way to go yet.

But if you can load half the library I dont think bad for such a large library and if with teh defaults you can only load A&B it only going to take 13 different runs to do the whole library.

4. Is there a way to take a number of characters off the front or back of a given field, like the “Remove N Characters from Front or Back” Applescript at Doug’s Applescripts?

Is this actually what you want to do or do you want to remove an actual list of characters from the end or start. Because you can use Find and Replace to replace a string from the start or end of fields in a column

5. Is there a list of words that should or should not be capitalized, or can the capitalization options be modified somehow so that short words can be capitalized?

There is a list of words that should not be capitalized and should always be capitalized that you can modify in Preferences/Manipulators/Capitalizer

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[quote=paultaylor]
Is this a Mac thing, having selected the fields where do you type 1975, or is jaikoz just mmeant to know when you start typing after selecting some fields that it applies to all those fields, could you show me an application that does this. I think the copy and paste metaphor is still pretty efficient, there are no dialogs to concern yourself with. Another idea was having entered the date into the field would be to allow you to drag the bottom corner over the other fields to appy a paste to these fields.[/quote]
Ah, touch�. Nothing does this. I guess I was thinking about how I do it in iTunes where I select a bunch of files and type the desired string into the Info box field and it applies to them all. Dragging a corner like in Excel would be divine!

Jaikoz can change folder names using the Action/File and Folder Correct/Correct Subfolders from Tags. But it doesnt do this by default precisely because users dont like to see there files moves/disappear and because of the effect on other applications such as iTunes. I am not entirely sure how iTunes works so you might have to expirement a little.

Oh. I do like the way iTunes moves the folders and was hoping Jaikoz would do the same. I’ll do what I said above: clean it all up with Jaikoz and then let iTunes do the furniture moving all at once.

I want to be able to do this ( see item 2 on
http://www.jthink.net/jaikozforum/posts/list/512.page) but Jaikoz was not originally intended to work in this way so it is a difficult task to migrate over to this model so a little way to go yet.

But if you can load half the library I dont think bad for such a large library and if with teh defaults you can only load A&B it only going to take 13 different runs to do the whole library.

True, but each run seems to be taking a couple of days since I am letting it percolate on the long tasks overnight. The other issue is that as I fix things they get re-alphabetized so I may have doubles, etc that I don’t know about until I get the whole kit and kaboodle in one place.

No matter. I’ve lived this long with the mess, another month to clean it up is still magic. But I’ll be happy when your wishlist comes true!

Is this actually what you want to do or do you want to remove an actual list of characters from the end or start. Because you can use Find and Replace to replace a string from the start or end of fields in a column

No, that is what I want to do. I have a lot of files with similar-but-not-the-same prefixes that are the same length, and I want to just zap them. Remove N Characters does pretty well at this so I know it’s possible: you punch in the number of characters and whether you want them off the beginning or end of the given field.

If you wanted to go a step further, it’d be nifty if the user could select the characters in one field and get a count that way, then apply the “remove” to the batch. If you’re removing more than 20 or so characters, it’s a little bit tough to count by eye when there are spaces and punctuation involved.

There is a list of words that should not be capitalized and should always be capitalized that you can modify in Preferences/Manipulators/Capitalizer

Lovely! Thank you! Al, Ed, and everyone else with short names thank you.

I really appreciate your taking the time to read and respond to all this.

[miasma]

Dragging a corner like in Excel would be divine!

I’d second this, probably would become one of the most useful features for rapid manual editing

[paultaylor]

Added 'Remove N Characters ’ to todo list

[EnricusWFunk]

[quote=bink]

1. I have a bunch of files and I want to change the date for all of them to 1975. I would like to select the date fields for the lot and just type 1975, but that doesn’t work. The workaround I’ve used is to type 1975 in one slot, return, return, up arrow, copy, select the rest of them, paste. That seems inefficient to me; is there a better way?
   .[/quote]

I am using a Mac too, so, if you want to quick edit a field, you don’t need to hit Enter. Just scroll to the field and start typing there, so you avoid the keystrokes involving Enter.
Good luck!

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Right, but you have to click out of it and click back on it when it’s blue in order to copy the information so you can paste it on the other blue fields, I think. When I try to copy while it’s still in text-edit mode, that won’t paste onto the other selected fields.