[Rhythmbox-devel] Missing tags, how to deal with

["Jonatan Magnusson" <jonatan pnx se>]

Hi,

Songs with bad or incomplete tags can be a real problem in Rhythmbox. I've
recently had at least two problems with that:

A friend I've tried to convince of rhythmbox's superiority to xmms have
had problems with "lost songs". All songs with no tags end up in the
Unknown artist and Unknown album categories. That is not where a newbie
user look for them so to my friend these songs were simply considered not
playable by rhythmbox.

The second problem I've had is with albums that are new to me so I'm not
familiar with in which order the tracks are supposed be played back. The
track number tag is often missing from songs and then rhythmbox play them
back in what looks like random order?

The first problem must be solved through better tagging. However the user
is not nagged enough to go and do that as it is now. Perhaps if we could
put a criteria for automatic playlist for missing tags ([Title] [is
missing]) there could be a list of songs that needs tagging in the source
list. This list could be created automatically and be visible only if it
contains one ore more entries.

Also, the songs with bad/incomplete tags could be displayed with a
different color or an icon indicating the problem. Then at least it won't
go unnoticed if an album is being played in wrong order.

Lastly, I think a fallback to sorting by filename alphabetically is
reasonable. It's not a sexy solution, but it would solve the problem in
90% of the cases. If the user selects an album with no track numbers but
rb is confident that it has guessed the order the user could be asked if
he/she wants it to write this order to tags. Since this dialog only
appears when he/she has clicked an album he is quite certain to be
available at the computer and the inconvenience would make him/her write
the tags for the good of the world.


-- 
Jonatan Magnusson <jonatan pnx se>
Phoenix Data