Brainstorming Picard future Ideas

[nullhawk]

PICARD-2315

nullhawk Happy to help, and happy to brainstorm (though it might be better to just iterate via email.

The wizard idea was certainly one I had, though Aerozol will undoubtedly also have ideas on this.

But before we start to think about what to do to Picard, my first advice would be to encourage you to get some perspective by installing MP3Tag and MediaMonkey free versions (and any other Picard alternatives you fancy or that others recommend) and see how their tagging functionality works, what their strengths and weaknesses are for both novice taggers, experienced taggers just using these tools for the first time and experienced taggers/users, looking at both functionality and the UI. I would encourage you to start a personal log, and take each tool step by step documenting your experiences (screen shots and your thought processes) as you go so that when you have become an experienced user you can look back and still see how it felt to be a novice user.

These tools also have other functionality that Picard doesn’t have. For example, from a functionality perspective, MediaMonkey does several things that Picard doesn’t do - it is a media transcoder, it is a media library and it is a sophisticated player. I doubt that we would ever want Picard to be all of these, but perhaps some things might be worth considering.

As for a means of communication, why don’t you think about that too. If we want to do wireframing, what is the best way to generate and share wireframes? Would Github discussions be a good place to share ideas (and if so do we want to ask someone to create a Picard-Futures repo just so that there is somewhere to hold these)? (I am happy to have the occasional Skype video call too, as a means of getting to know each other better and perhaps to chat about specifics if we think it would help, but I would like to keep things open so that others can contribute if they wish, and I think that documenting these open discussions is also a good thing to do. (I have experiences of other open source projects and cliques and factions and politics, and Metabrainz is free of these (or free-er than other projects at least) and I do not want to be the one to introduce them!! But I am happy to be guided by more experienced or more official Metabrainzers on any of this.)

(The only thing I would say is that we should stop polluting this ticket by continue to discuss digressions here. )

Hi @Sophist, I am continuing the discussion here, as you suggested. I will be exploring MP3Tag, MediaMonkey, and other related tagging software, and will use this thread to share all my findings. Please add your views to it.

[Beckfield]

If you’re in the linux realm at all, you should include Puddletag. It’s similar to MP3Tag, but some significant differences.

[Sophist]

Just so people can get a feel for how this discussion came about, please read the [PICARD-2315 ticket[(https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/PICARD-2315) linked to above.

If I ever find the time, I will look at all the open PICARD tickets and post a list of relevant ones here so that we can all get onto the same page.

And in case people haven’t realised it, the reason that we have moved this here is because everyone is welcome to join in if they have anything they would like to contribute.

[nullhawk]

Sure, I will add that too in my list

[IvanDobsky]

A few small thoughts to add to this mission.

It is very common to see new users pop up in the forum who have thrown their whole collection of digital music into Picard in one hit. 10,000 tracks or more. Yeah, technically Picard can handle it, but it will make errors. Picard needs a human head to make ultimate choices as to which version of a release to select.

An important hidden step for those identifying in massive bulk is to find the Options\Metadata\Preferred releases page. Adjusting this generally makes their lives a little easier.

-=-=-

Somewhere out there in the wild internet must be blogs or forum posts that are driving people to attempt to bulk identify so much in one go. It may be worth tracking those down and seeing how they are using Picard.

-=-=-

On a beginner’s page lets hide the “Submit AcoustID” parts. I spend too much time in the AcoustID database and you can see where people are hitting this button as part of a discovery phase and associating fingerprints to the wrong tracks. If you have a heap of misaligned tracks on the right hand side of Picard you don’t actually realise the damage you are doing by hitting that button as there is no loud GUI response from it.

-=-=-

A related bonus item… one use you see common for Picard is to not actually truly use the database in its natural form. Some users don’t care that their actual track was found on Now 25. What they want are all their tracks labelled with the Original album and or Single details. They want original release dates, not actual release dates. While this is not really part of this “beginner’s wizard” mission it is worth taking note of this very common use of Picard.

Note - these are not requests, just observations from reading forum posts… Just some idle feedback…

[twodoorcoupe]

Just for fun, if you choose to design a wizard, it might be helpful to play around with Picard’s executable commands. You can find the list in the docs.

These let you tell Picard to execute actions like loading files, clustering, looking up, saving, etc… from the command line.

This way, you could start very quickly with a very simple UI and just a few essential buttons that run these commands and then iterate from that.

The cool thing is that even if Picard is already running, opening Picard again with new executable commands will just send them to the instance that is already running, like this:

Maybe there are better ways to do this, but I think it’s useful for making early proof of concepts, as you don’t need to touch Picard’s code at all.

[dpr]

@IvanDobsky

one use you see common for Picard is to not actually truly use the database in its natural form. Some users don’t care that their actual track was found on Now 25. What they want are all their tracks labelled with the Original album and or Single details. They want original release dates, not actual release dates. While this is not really part of this “beginner’s wizard” mission it is worth taking note of this very common use of Picard.

I have this wish. If it were documented so where, it would be helpful. I think there have been requests to add this to the database in the past, but then it would have to be populated.

[Echelon69]

As a joke ;):

Have Picard ask a few questions before launching. For example: what is MBID for?

If the user does not respond or it is incorrect, let Picard run in the Light/Minimal version.

[nullhawk]

Beginner’s Experience with Music Tagging Software

Introduction:

In this post, I’ll share my experiences as a beginner using four popular music tagging software: MP3Tag, MediaMonkey, Puddle Tag, and compare them with MusicBrainz Picard. I’ll explore their user interfaces, basic tagging features, and overall usability from the perspective of someone new to music tagging.

MP3Tag:

As a beginner, MP3Tag impressed me with its straightforward interface and intuitive tagging process. The layout was easy to navigate, and I could quickly locate and edit metadata for my music files. While the GUI was cluttered, it still provided efficient tagging functionalities.

MediaMonkey:

MediaMonkey offered a similar beginner-friendly experience, with a clean interface and simple tagging options. I appreciated the ability to organize my music library and edit metadata within the same application. However, I found the tagging process to be slightly less intuitive compared to MP3Tag, as some features were tucked away in menus. Overall, the GUI was very impressive.

Puddle Tag:

Puddle Tag provided a unique beginner’s experience with its minimalistic interface and focus on simplicity. While it lacked some of the advanced features of MP3Tag and MediaMonkey, I found it to be an excellent tool for basic tagging tasks. The drag-and-drop functionality made it easy to add files. Additionally, the tagging process was straightforward.

Comparison:

Overall, as a beginner, I found MP3Tag and MediaMonkey to be the most user-friendly tagging software, offering intuitive interfaces and easy-to-use features. Puddle Tag provided a simpler alternative for basic tagging tasks, although it lacked some advanced functionalities. MusicBrainz Picard, while more challenging to learn initially, offered powerful tagging capabilities once I became familiar with its workflow.

Next, I’ll delve into the intermediate features and functionalities of these music tagging software.

@Sophist
Also, please share your views on whether the current format is suitable, or if any additional sections need to be added. @twodoorcoupe As for the discussion about the wizard, I am considering creating a new thread to separate it from the ongoing discussion