FR: File metadata HOT!!

[Scoox]

I would like Everything to allow users to add metadata to files. This could be in the form of a single user-editable field, or even better, any number of fields, which could then be shown as columns in the search results pane and sorted just like the other fields.

I guarantee that anyone who is involved in music production on a Windows machine is right now screaming for a tool to manage their audio sample collection. That includes me. Most high definition audio samples are .WAV files. Although WAV files may contain metadata (e.g. tags), there is no standard such as ID3 for MP3 files, which means that metadata written by one application may be meaningless to other applications. In summary, no standard, no use.

This is how I currently use Everything to manage my media collection. I have several Gigabytes of audio samples which I have named in a special way, for example:

HiHat 11000SMF000N0M0D0F Rock hihat 2013-06-28-001011 High frequency boosted.wav
Instrument Tags Name TimeStamp Notes.Extension

The Tags part describes the quality of the sound (timbre, frequency content, envelope, etc) but it is not easy to decipher by humans, so I use Everything's RegEx filters to "decode" this, thus providing a fast way to search for all audio samples that have similar sonic qualities.

This method works, but it presents two problems:

1) Often times I need to change/add/remove a tag to a file. Since the tags are part of the file name, it means the file needs to be renamed, therefore any projects that use the file will report broken file references, which need to be restored manually one by one.

2) File names are very long.

The following approach elegantly deals with the above two problems:

HiHat 2013-06-28-001011.wav
Instrument TimeStamp.Extension

In this case the file contains a short, meaningful name ("HiHat") and an ID to make it unique (in this case a time stamp). The remaining information (tags, notes, etc) is then stored as metadata in a separate monolithic database file (e.g. Metadata.db next to Everything.db) that Everything can search using the same syntax used for searching file names. Ideally the database file should be human-readable, this way users could easily edit and backup its contents. Using this approach file names are much shorter and metadata can be modified while file names remain unchanged, thus addressing the problem of broken file references.

To take this one step further, it should be possible to TAG ANY FILE TYPE. Music producers often save instrument plugin presets as .FXP files, which cannot be played by a multimedia player, yet they are used to produce a certain sound when loaded into the correct software, thus it makes sense to also be able to tag these. It is then up to the user to device a suitable tagging scheme, all Everything needs to be able to do is provide users with a way to add, edit, remove and search tags to each file.

Multiple file tag edits should also be possible, much the way Winamp does, when multiple files are selected in Everything.

Finally, Everything could have a built-in audio player so that when a file is clicked it gets played back if it is an audio file. This perhaps could be implemented as a plugin.

The features herein suggested would instantly be **LOVED** by thousands of music producers. Personally I'd be happy to pay for this. I have tried every commercially available audio sample management tool and they are all crap, so much so that Everything does a much better job even though it's not designed for it!!

So there it is, file tags. Massive thanks for Everything!

[void]

I will look at metadata in a future release of Everything.

I have already given it some thought for filelists and in the db design.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[Scoox]

This could be good!

[Scoox]

Just bumping my own thread, I wonder if there have been any developments regarding metadata. This feature would be killer among audio and video producers. Thank you!

[reelismism]

Heya, a video producer here that feels the same!

[PolySaur]

Hi. I actually joined this forum so that I could pass on some thoughts about this very same thing, as well.

First of all, I find this to be an amazing tool as is. With the additions recently for image viewing, etc, it just keeps getting better and better. Kudos to the team for the needed capability Everything delivers.

I echo (or "ditto") this threads focus and conviction.

I use Windows (version => 7) and specifically, if a Window's file "tags" (or programmatically called System.Keywords) were searchable via Everything, that would be a tremendously powerful addition.

I think many other properties (in this Windows page/list below) could also be searchable, but I use the "tags" field the most, so would enjoy that addition above any other specific one.

Here's the ENTIRE Windows property reference page at Microsoft:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... s.85).aspx

Thanks!

[faroe2k9]

I bump this thread as well.

Please make it possible! We love your program. We gonna love it even more with this feature!