Hi,
first of all, thank you for this great software. There are some issues I don’t understand why you chose to implement it that way, but it is very likely that I simply don’t see the reason, despite of its existence. Perhaps I will ask you some questions to that in the future.
But I am very sure that my first question is not about misunderstanding how the program works.
I am tagging a large collection. I already finished tagging mostly-complete albums. Now I began tagging the about 7000 files, that show up in iTunes (I am on Win7 x64) as “Unknown Album”, or where only one or two files in an album.
Now I have three songs from “Accept”, two of them without album tag.
One of them is tagged with title “Too high to get it right”, and has an ID3v1 album tag of “No Substitutes”. The title is wrong, it is the song “Balls to the Wall”. (iTunes doesn’t use the ID3v1-album, it shows up as “Unknown Album”, I guess this is because the ID3v2 has no album set. Jaikoz shows the information from ID3v1).
When I do the analysis in Picard (using AcousticID), it gets identified correctly as “Balls to the Wall” on “Heavy Metal Masters” compilation. I don’t know if that’s the correct Album, but it is the correct song.
But when I do the Jaikoz-AutoCorrect on these three songs, Jaikoz matches the song as “Too high to get it right” on album “All Areas - Worldwide”, the other songs are matched to different albums (I haven’t checked them yet, may be correct, may be not).
So Jaikoz seems to prefer the (incorrect) title tag over the (correct) AcousticID link.
I understand that Jaikoz tries to combine all available information of a song, and that it is not very helpful that the file is tagged incorrectly. But when there is clearly an AcousticID that does not match the existing title tag, I would appreciate Jaikoz asking me what to do or take the AcousticID-song.
Because tagging 7000 songs mainly automatically (for what I purchased Jaikoz) is useless and worsens things, when I end up with incorrect MB-IDs (after that I can’t tell which songs may be tagged incorrectly - at current state, I know that (ca. 18.000) songs with MB-IDs are 99.9 % tagged correctly, songs without MB-ID may be wrong, as “Too high to get it right” / “Balls to the Wall” is).
Only reason not to use this information would be a large number of incorrect AcousticID-links in AcousticID-DB. But I hope the AcousticID-DB is mostly correct?
Jaikoz uses metadata and acoustid to match songs and in the first instance trys to match groups of songs to a release. If it fails to match songs as a group it will then try to match songs individually which I guess is happening here.
Now I understand your concerns but matching is not an exact science. Some Acoustids can match multiple songs (i.e sometime two completely different songs can can create the same acoustid) and sometimes the Acoustid is linked to a completely incorrect MusicBrainz Id, there is a also a time cost involved in checking every song by both metadata and acoustid. I have taken the view that whilst metadata maybe missing or inaccurate it doesn’t normally comtain the metadata for a completely different song so if I get a good metadata match that is normally correct. However I take your point and there is always room for improvement, so Im going to look at examing this area again to see if I can tighten things up. I think you’ll find that this problem occurs in a very small percentage of songs, so although not perfect in no way does this make automatic tagging useless.
It is not possible to give you the option to choose because the idea behind Autocorrect is that it can run completely unattended, if dialogs cam eup during the Autocorrect that would completely breaks things.
Here are some things you can do with the current version, if you are not happy with the existing metadata you can delete it before running autocorrect that will force Jaikoz to only use Acoustid, of course you may end up with less matches this way.
You could also match more cautiously by only matching complete albums and not doing individual matches by enabling Preferences:Remote Correct:Match:Only Match Complete Releases , but once again this will cut down the number of matches you get.
However you could then run Manual Correct from Musicbrainz for the songs that still fail to match, this presents you with possible matches allowing you to decide if any are a good match.
Of course nothing actually gets changed until you have save changes, so review before you save.
Well, I see the difference between group matching and individual matching. In my case now, where I only have single files (~7.000 files from ~5.000 albums), group matching will not work. I think, having the possibility to force Jaikoz to individual matching would help. But this should not be my main problem, as Jaikoz in fact does individual matching after seeing that there are no groups. It would just save time to have the option. Please don’t misunderstand me, it is just a proposal to add that option for special cases, not critics about how Jaikoz works.
I am sure you are right that the “complete mismatch” problem occurs very seldomly, though it depends on the data quality in the library. But as it happened with my first tests on the first files (“Accept” is at the very beginning of the artist-ordered list), I am concerned that this could happen too often. The roots of my library reach back to 1998, when I started to collect songs. In this time, it was very hard to find correct information on the songs in the internet, and I was younger and less exact, too, as were the people on “original” Napster (etc.) these days. And because of the reduced bandwith in these times, I have lots of single files, loading albums took days.
I also understand the idea behind the Autocorrect feature. What I miss is an additional “interactive” autocorrect - optional, of course. So if someone does want a true Autocorrect, he still gets it in normal way.
Because, let me explain my problems with the current function: You say, I should review any changes made by Autocorrect. But this is very hard to do. First of all, not all columns are visible by default, so changes (which get highlighted when visible) don’t show up. Showing all columns takes very much screen space and you constantly have to scroll horizontally. And there is no column for the length of a song (why?), to get this information you have to click the song and perhaps change the information tab to Summary. (By the way: I would appreciate additional columns for AcousticID-Fingerprint and AcousticID-ID, which only show whether there is a Fingerprint or ID (like in Summary tab) for saving screen space - the actual Fingerprint or ID string is an information most users won’t need, I guess. Optional, of course, so the user can choose and no one gets disappointed).
Also I think, there should be additional columns for the “original” values from the files, without remote correction. Because to check what has changed, one has to go to the Changes tab (which is a click). And then a scroll, because the information there is ordered alphabetically, and “title” most time is not visible from the top on “small” screens (laptop, 1280x800 in my case). Scrolling the Changes tab works not good, because it is very slow in Jaikoz. It is an additional click for telling Jaikoz, that I want to scroll the changes tab, and then my mousewheel scrolling scrolls ~2-3 pixels down per “mouse wheel click” (not click, you know, when mousewheel snaps on next position). So it takes long time and feels horribly. So currently I have a workaround and click the General tab too see the original filename, which is the “original” title tag, because iTunes uses that information for file naming. But this is no good solution.
And the next problem is: lets say, I took 100 files out of iTunes to Jaikoz, and I am confident with what Jaikoz did to 90 files, but not to 10 of them. I have to select them individually (perhaps with Ctrl or Shift, but then I can’t check them anymore, because I will loose the selection), and then manually “close” this files and tell Jaikoz not to save changes to these files. Click-click-click-click… and make no mistake! Isn’t there an easier way to tell Jaikoz not to touch these files, when I am not confident with the lookup? Like right-click - dismiss, or a selection box in the first column which I can uncheck?
Matching complete albums only will not work in my case, because no album is complete with these ~7.000 files.
Paul, thank you again! I really like Jaikoz, and I see that it is very powerful. My suggestions here are not “do everything different, Jaikoz is crap” - they are just my ideas how to improve UI and functions from a user point of view. I know that not everyone will see the need of some of my suggestions, but I am very sure, many users could profit from the one ore other change. As always you have the possibility to implement those features optionally and let the user choose.
I don’t think that you check if I really purchased your software, but as a developer I would be very sad to read so many “critics” about my baby from someone who hasn’t even paid. But if you want to - I purchased from different eMail-address (girlfriend’s one) because I don’t have a PayPal account. Date was April 17, and the address j....0907de@gmail.com.
[quote=RobertR]I think, having the possibility to force Jaikoz to individual matching would help.
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Possibly but I think most would prefer Jaikoz to check groups first, after all are all 7000 files really from different albums, Im sure you have at least some partial albums in there.
You could take the pragmatic approach of letting Jaikoz do its worst, and then when listening to your music you find something incorrect tagged fix it there and then, Im sure this wont happen often.
Or take the ultra cautios approach and delete all your metadata so Jaikoz has to match by Acoustid only.
Or make a copy of your library, don’t rename any files, and then you can always compare modified file with original.
Or you could use the Jaikoz export to spreadsheet feature to save all your metadata before matching so you have it to hand.
I have considered this, and maybe it is a good idea but I am cautious about adding yet another option, task to Jaikoz as everytime I add a new feature it increases the perceived complexity (even though you don’t have to use the new option). When exactly do you want it to ak for your input ?
Ah, for any particular song just select the Changes tab at the bottom and it lists all pending chnages for the song.
Because its not editable so adding it could be confusing but people have requested it. It is visble for the selected song on the Summary tab, or if you have View/Show View Pane enabled it is a column in the View Audio Tab.
Again these checkboxes are shown on the Summary Tab.
Oh, so you know about the Changes tab, surely this is easier than scrolling horizontaly through the columns i the Edit Pane, but if you want the Original value that is what the View/Show View option is for.
Can’t you just use the scrollbar, sorry I never use Mouse click-wheel so Im not that sure about this.
[quote=paultaylor][quote=RobertR]I think, having the possibility to force Jaikoz to individual matching would help.
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Possibly but I think most would prefer Jaikoz to check groups first, after all are all 7000 files really from different albums, Im sure you have at least some partial albums in there.
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Yes, of course, 2 songs of an artist that may appear on the same or different album. How to tell if it is from original album or Greatest Hits or Anthology or or or…? I need an option to tell Jaikoz NOT TO USE grouping feature. It produces false results in current state, but with adding one little optional switch, it could do better! May be you don’t need that option, but I do.
Yes, I see, it doesn’t seem to bee a big Jaikoz problem, and there are ways to work around it with Jaikoz. None of them is very easy (especially having to delete metadata to force Jaikoz matching via AcousticID, while you could easily add a function for that is… well, thank you), but it may work, but i won’t try. Jaikoz is not and will not be the right tool for that, I understand.
I understand the complexity problem. But Jaikoz is already full of different options that need a lot of fine tuning for many users and far away from “one-click-easy-to-use” software, so the decision is already made - it is a power user tool and nothing for beginners. So I think most of the already experienced Jaikoz users will handle the complexity.
I imagine dialog boxes with different choices like in “match all songs to one album” where the user can choose which metadata should be applied to one song, exactly when Jaikoz needs this information in the matching process. So when Jaikoz thinks that there are 10 matches to one song, it presents me with the options, and with the click of ONE button (so there has to be one button for each possible match, no radio boxes or similar because it needs more clicks) it takes this metadata and continues with the process and asks me again when there is the next multiple match.
Yes, as you already know, I know the changes tab and have my problems with it - problems are discussed below.
OK, seeing the logical break with not being editable. I think this is self-explanatory and users don’t need to be “protected” from confusion, but this is your decision. I would welcome the length column too. I will try the View Pane, too, but normally I am working in Edit View, and I need the information there. Switching takes clicks and confuses.
Yes, I know they are there. So technically, it is no problem to show them. But I would appreciate to have also checkboxes in the columns, not only the tabs. Because only relevant information is if ID is present or not. The ID string takes far more screen space and has almost no additional use in column view except telling me “present” or “not present”. In some very seldom cases, when you really need to compare the strings manually or copy/paste them, you would have the option to show the strings, still. Just let the user choose which display option he likes by making it possible to show/hide the columns as it already is with all the columns.
So, the “Show View” option is “Original Value View”? Maybe you should rename it… but the problem persists: I cannot compare original and new values of more than one file simultaneously and I have to click-click-click. And why would I have to scroll horizontally? It would also be possible to expand one file to two rows - first row original values, second row new values - could be colored differently to support the user.
Different solution (I think easier to code, but not so powerful) would be letting the user choose, which values and in which order the Changes tab displays.
Of course I can use the scrollbar. But same problem: one click moves down one pixel. Should do at least a row (three I think would be optimal). Only dragging the slider or clicking the bar, not the buttons, is acceptable fast. But not very exact. I think, if you can fix the scrolling speed of clicking the up/down button, my mousewheel problem will also be solved. Please keep in mind: Even if you don’t use a standardized feature, many users will and expect the UI behaviour as they are used to it from other programs. Mouse wheel was a great invention that makes scrolling in multi-page documents or spreadsheets a lot more comfortable. It is a bit like having touch controls (inverted if you are not on Mac OS X Lion and above, but similar), and you don’t want to tell me, that touch controls (dragging webpages on an iPad etc.) aren’t an easy and comprehensive way of navigating.
Yes. That is, what I am already doing. But multiple column/file selection via shift or ctrl keys is not very persistent. One false click (without ctrl button pressed) and the selection is lost. So selecting 10 files out of 100 took me time, and with a false click it is lost and I have to do it again. This way it also requires me to first do a check on all displayed files, which ones I do not want to get changed and then closing them, and then going on working on the remaining files. Let’s say I find another file to leave untouched, I have to do at least three clicks (and one hovering selection followed by waiting on “Save” in context menu) again which interrupts my workflow.
Again: my proposal is to have one additional column with a box I can uncheck for each file I don’t want to save. This could also be combined with the “Status” column with the floppy symbol. In case I click it, it changes to a closed padlock or something, or the file row gets greyed out, and when saving the files, those files stay untouched.
Sorry for my late answer, I hat to do the most important exam in my life the last weeks.
And again: Jaikoz is great, I just want to help to improve it and make it even better. I think every developer needs feedback if he is not just developing for himself. You are used to your program since years and know how to deal with it, so you easily miss minor glitches. In Germany, we have the word “Betriebsblindheit”, which describes people not seeing problems because they were always there and they got used to it. I think it translates to “organisational blindness”, and in case this happened to you, perhaps my ideas can help.
Right, sorry I might be missing your point but how would not grouping and only match songs individually work any better.
Deleting all metadata is very easy, just
Select All Edit/Delete
I dont really agree, for many users simply clicking Autocorrect/Save is perfectly good - Jaikoz can work very well for beginners, but having extra options makes people think it is too difficult for them. The extra options are there for some situations for some users, just because they are there they do not need to be used.
Okay what I could do is just have a preference for automtaic matching which says something like Ask me when Jaikoz cannot decide so I will look into this.
Yes I think I will add this.
It is visible at the same time as edit pane, and automaticaly scrolls/sorts as you move in the edit pane.
Could do this, though it doesnt seem that useful, you could always just narrow the width of the other columns , dont have to display the whole value. I suppose the issue is that these are kind of read only again.
Why not, multiple rows are displayed in View and Edit,so why cant you
see multiple rows at the same time, that is wthe whole point.In fact Ive never seen another application that does allow you to do this !
Because of the large amount of potential metatdata that can be added , I dont see how it would be possible to display all on screen at one time
Chnaged fields are highlighted a different colour
Cannot see this would be terribly useful
I think thiis possibly a Java bug , I will look into more detail.
Yes I see this could be useful, I’ll consider it.
Thanks for your input and I’ll try and make some of your ideas a reality.