Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
Rejection of "ignore the" patch (split from the Evil_G unsupported build thread)
lalittle:
--- Quote from: GodEater on June 13, 2007, 02:40:02 AM ---Again, you're not getting it. If you plug your rockbox DAP into your PC - it becomes a drive letter. You point your tagging app at it, say tag these files here please. At no point then are your "original" files touched during the tagging process. At the end of the process, you unplug your DAP. You can even un-install the tagging app used. Your original files are still virgin, untouched on your PC's hard disk.
--- End quote ---
AH! You're right -- I was misunderstanding. Now I get what you're saying.
Yes -- pointing the application at the handheld's drive would indeed eliminate this particular issue (as would having this done entirely "within" the Rockbox via a plugin.)
I guess this comes back to the general work-flow concept -- the idea of whether you do this entirely from within Rockbox, or with an external program. Personally, I still prefer the idea of having the capability of doing the entire process on the Rockbox unit itself. I like the idea of it being entirely self-contained, and not requiring another application. To me, even if it takes longer to do it this way, it actually simplifies the process.
On a related note, would the re-writing of the files with the new tags cause any issues with the database, or does the database simply rely on the folder/name of the file?
Thanks again for the clarification, as well as the discussion in general.
Larry
Llorean:
Both doing it in Rockbox or on with an external app would require you to re-initialize the database. It can't use the sort tags until it's included them in the database, and the database doesn't support updating tags on existing entries.
jurrie:
After having read the entire thread today I would like to add the following points/observations:
* The database feature is inherently dependent upon the data associated with (and by way of tags, provided by) the content supplied by the user. The database purist would point out that if you want to use the database you need to populate it with proper data, and; if you're not willing to provide meaningful data then you shouldn't use the database (or expect it to be accurate). Having come from a DAP which provides content navigation exclusively through a tag-fed database, this seems second nature to me.
Realizing that not everyone is willing to ensure accurate data content and that these same users expect full database capabilities, some have suggested utilizing Rockbox's plugin capability to bridge that gap. While the intent seems noble, there are issues with some of the implementation suggestions, which leads to....
* Suggestions have been made in this thread that "there should be a Rockbox plugin to add sorting tags to audio content which falls into certain categories" (i.e. add sorting tags for artist, album, title content which contain leading articles). Rockbox is DAP (or DMP, if you prefer) firmware, where the 'P' stands for "Player". As such, I would argue that this MysteryPlugin should not alter the player's content in any way. A more appropriate solution would appear to be that the MysteryPlugin would instruct Rockbox's database (via some new API) to update the sorting attributes associated with selected content.
This suggestion would yield the following benefits:
* media content is unaltered
* more efficient (reading/writing large content files could be expensive, both in terms of CPU and power)
* the database wouldn't have to be completely rebuilt; only selected entries are updated
* plugin actions (possibly faulty) could easily be undone by regenerating the database
and the following cons:
* if the database is rebuilt, sorting information would be lost, hence the plugin would have to be re-run
Please note that the plugin could interfere with sorting attributes previously associated with (provided by) the content. The database's "update sorting attribute" API may wish to have a "force" parameter to override previous associations. Similarly, one may envision a database setting which would prevent explicit sorting settings from being overwritten.
Edit: include cons
lalittle:
--- Quote from: jurrie on June 13, 2007, 03:47:29 PM ---I would argue that this MysteryPlugin should not alter the player's content in any way. Â A more appropriate solution would appear to be that the MysteryPlugin would instruct Rockbox's database (via some new API) to update the sorting attributes associated with selected content.
--- End quote ---
Forgive me, but I'm unclear what this means. How does it "update the sorting attributes"? Could you clarify the details on what the process would involve? I agree that it seems like a better idea to not alter the files, but I'm unclear how your suggestion would work.
Thanks,
larry
Llorean:
I don't understand how it's a better idea not updating the files?
Better in what sense: Surely the files on your device aren't the primary copy of your music collection. That's generally a bad enough idea that you shouldn't be using an alternate firmware in the first place. Meanwhile, altering the files on the device allows the tags to be used by other programs (as there are programs that do support them), and insures that should you need to re-initialize the database you won't have to re-run the plugin.
The only advantage updating the database alone offers is "not having to change the files" which, in the end, isn't a very significant advantage. It just means that the information isn't available to any other part of Rockbox, or any tool that you use on your computer to keep your player in sync (or play your music, if you use your DAP as an external HD and play it with a PC tool to save battery in the case of those DAPs where this works).
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