Foobar2000:Encouraged Tag Standards

2006-01-06T20:30:40Z

Bassbins: /* ALBUM ARTIST */ spelling

== Disclaimer ==
The guidelines described in this document have been agreed upon by a group of foobar2000 users and titleformatting scripts authors. Adherence to these guidelines is not required to be able to use foobar2000, though some components or pre-made titleformatting scripts may require or enforce the use of a particular tag.

== Discussion and comments ==
You can leave comments about this page on the [[Foobar2000_Talk:Encouraged_Tag_Standards|Talk page]]. However, real discussion, proposals for new tag-standards, and decisions should happen in the [http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=31530 forum-thread], because more people will notice it there and be able to give input.

== Codesnippets and foobar2000 versions ==
The codesnippets are meant for use in Foobar2000 v0.8. Because of the new field-remappings introduced in v0.9, they do not work with current beta-versions of foobar2000. Once v0.9final gets released this page will be updated with compliant v0.9 code.

== General Tag Construction ==

* Use an easily understood English field name.
* Prefix album-related information with "ALBUM ", ie. "ALBUM ARTIST", "ALBUM SUBTITLE".
* Avoid use of non-alphabetical characters. For serial fields (for a bad example, FIELD1, FIELD2, etc.), merely enter them in the order that you wish them to be read in.
* Try to avoid the use of underscores. Spaces are easier to type, more legible, and as easily useable in Tagz. Spaces are also preferable to no spaces.

== Overview of Current Recommendations ==

FIELD NAME [format] (component)

* ALBUM ARTIST [e.g., Various Artists, The Foobar Collective] (none) ''Notes'': Field name is ALBUM ARTIST, with ''no underscore''. Tag should exist if and only if an album is by multiple artists, and be contained in every track. Track-specific artists should be entered in the ARTIST tag, never in the TITLE tag. [http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Encouraged_Tag_Standards#ALBUM_ARTIST (more about this standard)]
* FIRST_PLAYED and LAST_PLAYED [2005-03-22 19:00:00...] ([http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=20719 foo_playcount]) ''Notes'': These two tags use underscores instead of spaces - reason for this was to make it consistent with the already existing PLAY_COUNTER-tag. Any amount or type of data may be placed after the time. Compliant TAGZ code shall use $substr() instead of $right() when extracting substrings from this field. ''See also'': [http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Tips_%26_Tricks#Standardize_my_PLAY_DATE_and_PLAY_TIME_fields Standardize my PLAY_DATE and PLAY_TIME fields] [http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Encouraged_Tag_Standards#FIRST_PLAYED_and_LAST_PLAYED (more about this standard)]

=== ALBUM ARTIST ===
''Basics'':
*the tag-fieldname used for declaring and describing albums/split-EPs or split-singles which contain various artists is "ALBUM ARTIST" (separated with space, not underscore)
*tag should only exist if an album contains various artists. It should NOT be created when an album does not contain various artists.
*the tag can contain the overall artist of an album(like i.e. "the foo-bar collective"), multiple artists(i.e. with split-EPs) or if an album does not have a clear overall artist (for example with compilations) just "Various Artists". Simply said: you're free to enter whatever you like as long as it describes the overall album-wide artist(s).
*every track in a V.A.-album has to contain this tag with the same value
*the track-specific artist should be entered into the ARTIST-tag
*the TITLE-tag should only contain the track-title

''Reasons for this standard'':
*it solves all issues regarding albums which contain multiple artists with just one tag
*it is already in widespread use
*sortable and searchable with low effort
*keeping the ARTIST-tag trackspecific allows to find tracks in V.A.-albums as well when searching for a certain artist (DB-friendly)
*keeping the TITLE-tag title-specific allows sorting and searching of V.A.-albums by title (DB-friendly)
*allows meaningful determination and display of V.A.-Albums with a minimum amount of code
*avoids resource-hungry and unsafe "guessing" of V.A.-albums via the filepath
*easy to remember and type in manually
*does not disrupt existing systems when the ARTIST- and TITLE-tag are already track specific (easy transition)
*can coexist with additional directory-based sorting and marking
*can be used for split-EPs and split-singles as well

''Code snippets'':

// check if an album is V.A.
$if(%album artist%,$puts(album_is_va,1))

// For sorting by artist in an album-context replace %artist% - %album% with:
$if2(%album artist%,%artist%) - %album%

// singlemode display without %album artist%-support
[%artist% - ][%album% - ][%title%]
// singlemode display with %album artist%-support
// note: if your display supports both, albummode and singlemode, then you
// may want to use the above version instead in singlemode - depends on taste
[$if2(%album artist%,%artist%) - ][%album% - ]$if(%album artist%,[%artist% - ])[%title%]

// How to easily integrate %album artist% into an albummode-display:
// in the albummode-column, replace %artist% with:
$if2(%album artist%,[%artist%])
// in the title-column, replace %title% with:
$if(%album artist%,[%artist% - ])[%title%]

=== FIRST_PLAYED and LAST_PLAYED ===
''Basics'':
* the tag-fieldname used for storing info when a song was played the first time is "FIRST_PLAYED"
* the tag-fieldname used for storing info when a song was played the last time is "LAST_PLAYED"
* tags contain date and time in the following format at the beginning: "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS" (with 24hours-format)
* additional info may be appended after the above info

''Reasons for this standard'':
* the [http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/musepack/klemm/www.personal.uni-jena.de/~pfk/mpp/sv8/time.html APE-dateformat] (derived from ISO) is internationally neutral
* sortable
* easily readable and recognizable
* format can be verified with TAGZ
* can be included in formatting-strings without reformatting it (pro for amateur tagz-coders)
* choosing a new fieldname avoids confusion with the existing ambigious play_date tag
* field name is easy to understand/recognize/remember and short enough to type in manually

''Code snippets'':

// verify tag-format (we check the pos. of the first dash and ":")
// using $len for verification is strongly unrecommended!
$if(
$and($strcmp($strstr(%last_played%,-),5),$strcmp($strstr(%last_played%,:),14))
,$puts(last_played_is_valid,1)
)

// disassemble the timestamp for later reformatting or calcuations
$puts(last_played_year,$substr(%last_played%,1,4))
$puts(last_played_month,$substr(%last_played%,6,7))
$puts(last_played_day,$substr(%last_played%,9,10))
$puts(last_played_hour,$substr(%last_played%,12,13))
$puts(last_played_min,$substr(%last_played%,15,16))
$puts(last_played_sec,$substr(%last_played%,18,19))

// display only the date of last_played (without reformatting)
$left(%last_played%,10)

// display only the time of last_played (without reformatting)
// the use of $right is strongly unrecommended!
$substr(%last_played%,12,19)

The above code-snippets can be used for FIRST_PLAYED as well (just replace last_played with first_played).

== Obsolete and Deprecated Tag Standards ==

=== PLAY_DATE and PLAY_TIME ===

Deprecated tags produced by old versions of foo_playcount. Default format DDMMYY for PLAY_DATE and HHMMSS (24hr) for PLAY_TIME. See [http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Encouraged_Tag_Standards#FIRST_PLAYED_and_LAST_PLAYED FIRST_PLAYED and LAST_PLAYED].

Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase - User contributions [en]

Foobar2000:Encouraged Tag Standards