Bring me a green tagger button!

Is there an easier way to get the green tagger button on a MB release page other than copying “?tport=8000” to the tail of the URL in the browser? I suppose I could remember to type “?tport=8000” but I always have to look it up and select it from another page and copy and then paste it back onto the page with the missing tagger button. Exhausting.

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Click on “Lookup” in Picard?

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That works. That’s presuming you have something to lookup in Picard tho.

“Lookup in Browser”, that is.

Well, that is what you want the tagger button for, isn’t it?

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When I open Picard the first thing I usually do is go to Tools > Open My Collections in Browser. The green tagger button should work from then on.

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What have I been missing out on by not having a Green Tagger Button in the browser when I have nothing to lookup in Picard?

Is the absence of the Green Tagger Button why editing isn’t always quick and easy for me? Maybe we could create additional confusion for new users by awarding Experienced Editors The Green Tagger Button?

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Just start with a web look-up for any track or album loaded in the right pane of Picard, and the tagger button should be there.
If you don’t have any track or album in the right pane, just do a web look-up for any track or cluster in the left pane. Select one of the search results on the website, and the tagger button should be there again.
If you don’t have any file that you could load into Picard to look up, you can still get there using the search bar in Picard.
And if you don’t have Picard installed on your computer, rethink your question…

Starting from the webpage with tagger button that you just opened for a random item, navigate to the track/album you want to load into Picard, using the search field in the top right corner. The tagger button should still be there.

This only works for a limited amount of time though. If you haven’t done any web look-ups from within Picard and you haven’t clicked any tagger buttons in your browser for about 30 minutes, the website will “forget” the connection to your locally installed copy of Picard and the tagger button will no longer be there on new pages loaded in your browser (30 minutes is just an estimation, I have no idea about the exact amount of time it takes as I haven’t really timed it…).
Luckily, it’s very easy to resolve this: just do a web look-up for any item in Picard again, using one of the methods described above. This will open a new window/tab in your browser, where the tagger button is visible again. Now refresh the webpage where the tagger button is missing, and it will magically reappear :slight_smile:

And if all of this doesn’t work, I suspect you have an add-on or setting in your browser which interferes with the website.

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I know this is an old topic, but I’m with @chuck.kahn. I don’t spend tons of time on MusicBrainz, and every time I need the tagger I have to search this forum for the ?tport=8000 add-on. Then I use it and forget about it almost instantly. Is there an upside to not having the tagger button displayed all the time? Could it maybe be inserted to all pages automatically without the ?tport=8000 addition?

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I’m with @mfmeulenbelt and most other editors in the thread - just click the Lookup button in the program it is being used in. Makes no sense to always be there as most people using MusicBrainz are not tagging their music at that moment in Picard.

Would assume it would be a simple Userscript though.

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I don’t see why it couldn’t be somewhere? Most of the links on any webpage are for things you don’t need at that moment.

It would also be a good advertisement for Picard, with the right button text/mouse over.

If it was added as a permanent link I imagine it wouldn’t be where the green tagger button is though, but in the sidebar somewhere with the other links.

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Are you sure most people using MusicBrainz aren’t tagging their music with Picard? I think they are. But I’m not sure MusicBrainz should add this, but maybe a script would be nice as I too am always annoyed about how the green button disappears.

There was a script for the old MBS.
It was working also in the new MBS for some time before I abandoned it, as it became overly complex for such a simple task.

@chuck.kahn, maybe you can just add https://musicbrainz.org/?tport=8000 to your favourites / bookmarks?

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As a percentage of time I spend on MusicBrainz I have Picard open for only a small part of that. MB isn’t just used for tagging.

One reason you can’t just leave the ?tport=8000 on the end of every URL is because it changes. It is user definable in Picard. This is one of the reasons Picard has to put the link on the page in the first place. Trying to embed a button that is always on screen would be difficult as it would remove the ability for the user to change the port number.

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My default answer to this would usually have been, what @IvanDobsky pointed out above: Not everyone browsing MB is tagging (and the that button would just be a dead link) and even if Picard is running it might have the tagger button integration being disabled or listen on a different port than 8000 (either because it has been configured that way or because it automatically chooses a different port if 8000 is already in use).

But listen, friends of user scripts! Here is the MB auto tagger button script:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/phw/musicbrainz-magic-tagger-button/main/mb-magic-tagger-button.user.js

Install this script with your favorite user script manager and enjoy the tagger button showing up automatically if you have Picard running. It will even auto detect the proper port.

Some things to be aware off:

  • This has been tested only on latest Firefox with Greasemonkey and Violentmonkey. It might or might not work on other browsers. The code assumes your browser supports modern JS features.
  • Actually this hasn’t been tested properly at all. It works here for me, but might not for you. For now this is a proof of concept.
  • For detecting whether and on which port Picard is running this script performs HTTP GET requests on localhost against the ports 8000 - 8020. If you have a local web server or anything else running on one of those ports better make sure it doesn’t do something unexpected. Proper software shouldn’t, but if you have setup a local webserver to delete all your files whenever you open http://localhost:8000 don’t come complain here.
  • If for some obscure reason you have Picard running on a port outside of this port range it won’t work, you’ll have to edit the script for this. Or just configure Picard to run on port 8000 again.
  • Activating the tagger button requires an automatic page reload. The script tries to avoid page reloads unless necessary. Let me know if the reload happens in a situation where it causes issues.
  • Once the tagger button is displayed, it won’t go away even if you close Picard. I found no way to tell MB.org to forget about the tport parameter again.

UPDATE: Looks like cross origin restrictions in Chromium based browsers makes this non functional. But I have a working fix for this for a future Picard release, let’s see if we can get this in. See https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/PICARD-2126

Also doing a request against a local address that is not being listened on is stupidly slow on Windows. Don’t know why, but it can make this awkward to use unless your Picard runs on the default port (8000) or at least close by (8001 or so). Not sure there is a workaround.

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Linking the script homepage (no auto-install link), for convenience. :slight_smile:

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There is also a ticket about making the tagger button permanent: https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/MBS-1442

But it’s discussion is inconclusive. At the very least this shouldn’t be a default. But I could imagine a user option for that. For now I think my user script offers the best workaround. With the upcoming Picard 2.6 it will also work well on Chromium based browsers.

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