MusicBrainz Picard/Documentation: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:26, 20 February 2010

Products > MusicBrainz Picard > Picard documentation

MusicBrainz Picard documentation

You will need to download MusicBrainz Picard first.

Start with opening individual music files or directories by dragging them into the left-hand pane. Picard will read the metadata from each of the files and unless they have been tagged before, the files will be deposited into the "Unmatched files" folder. Files that have been tagged before and contain MusicBrainz track identifiers will open up in the right-hand pane as a part of its release.

Once Picard finishes processing the files, press the "Cluster" button. Picard will attempt to group the files into album clusters by examining the metadata and clustering files that appear to belong to the same album. Files that are not matched into album clusters will remain in the "Unmatched files" folder.

Lookup & querying MusicBrainz

Automatic lookup

Select the cluster or file you want to lookup and use the "Lookup" button in the toolbar.

Picard will query MusicBrainz with your existing metadata and attempt to find the best possible match.

Scanning (fingerprinting) files

Instead of using release-oriented and metadata-dependent lookups, Picard can try and tag your files 1-by-1 based on their audio fingerprint. If you select a set of files in the left-hand pane and click "Scan", Picard will find PUIDs for your files and query MusicBrainz to find a track that matches them.

To learn more about the process by which PUIDs are used by Picard to tag your files, find out how PUIDs work.

Manual lookup

If you want granular control over how your files are being tagged, or the above methods provided inaccurate results (or no results), the alternative is to manually lookup and choose the correct release(s) for your files.

Select the cluster or file you want to lookup and use one of the lower "Lookup" buttons in Picard. This opens the MusicBrainz website with a list of possible matches for your files along with details on what sets them apart, you can also disregard the lookup results and manually search for the appropriate album using the search box. Once you've found the correct album, click on the icon in the album title and Picard will load that album and its tracks into the right-hand pane for you to drag clusters/files onto.

Matching files & saving

The tracks in the right-hand pane will start out with a musical note icon, and as the tracks become associated with your files the icons will change to one of the following:

a small rectangle ranging from red to green indicates the quality of the match, where red is a bad match and green is a good match
a red error triangle means Picard encountered an error (e.g. permission error), click the file and read the status bar in the bottom of the Picard window to see the error
a green check mark indicates the track is up to date and saved

You can drag whole directories, multiple files or album clusters onto albums and Picard will attempt to match the dragged files to the album. Any track that doesn't match up well enough, will be added to an "Unmatched Files" sub-folder specific to that album. You can drag files out of this folder and into the right slots in the album to fix up the files that Picard couldn't get right.

Once you've finished matching up your files to albums in the right-hand pane, select a track or an album and click on the 'Save' button to save that track/album. Depending on your settings this may move the track to a new directory and/or rename the track according to its metadata. Take a look at the options dialog to fine tune your settings.

Once a file is in the right-hand pane the metadata that will be written by Picard can be viewed and edited if necessary. Right click the file and click "Details" to view and, if necessary, edit the metadata. Remember to re-save the file(s) if you edit the metadata!

Once you've saved an album and/or want to remove it from view, right click the album in the right-hand pane and click 'Remove'.

Picard configuration and options

See Picard Documentation/Options.

Isn't there more to MusicBrainz Picard?

Yes there is!

Picard is very flexible and can be customized using scripts and plugins to do things such as:

rename and reorganise your collection using the functions provided in the scripting language
customize how Picard applies the MusicBrainz metadata to your files
encapsulate scripting, download cover art, and add other functionality to Picard

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-<small>[[Products]] > [[Picard Tagger| Picard]] > Picard Documentation</small>
+<small>[[Products]] > [[MusicBrainz Picard]] > Picard documentation</small>
+== MusicBrainz Picard documentation ==
-This page discusses Picard 0.9.0+, the next generation [[Picard Tagger|PicardTagger]].
+:''You will need to [[MusicBrainz Picard#Download|download MusicBrainz Picard]] first.
+Start with opening individual music files or directories by dragging them into the left-hand pane. Picard will read the metadata from each of the files and unless they have been tagged before, the files will be deposited into the "Unmatched files" folder. Files that have been tagged before and contain MusicBrainz track identifiers will open up in the right-hand pane as a part of its release.
-==Quick start for the impatient==
+Once Picard finishes processing the files, press the "Cluster" button. Picard will attempt to group the files into album clusters by examining the metadata and clustering files that appear to belong to the same album. Files that are not matched into album clusters will remain in the "Unmatched files" folder.
-Before you can use it, you have to [[Picard Download| download Picard]]. See those instructions, and come back where when you have Picard downloaded and running.
+=== Lookup & querying MusicBrainz ===
-We have a quick start guide that shows you [[How To Tag Files With Picard|HowToTagFilesWithPicard]]. Also, a [[Picard Screencasts| screencast]] on how to use Picard is available.
+==== Automatic lookup ====
-If you've never used Picard before, please read the guide or the remainder of the page for it to make sense to you!
+Select the cluster or file you want to lookup and use the "Lookup" button in the toolbar.
-==Basic Picard Documentation==
+Picard will query MusicBrainz with your existing metadata and attempt to find the best possible match.
-This tagger takes an album approach to tagging, whereas the [[Classic Tagger| old tagger]] required the user to work with one track at a time and check to see if the tagger correctly identified the track. The amount of time spent reviewing the old tagger's suggestions will probably equal the amount of work the user has to do to find the right albums in the new tagger. More details on this thought later -- first let's explain the basic new operations.
+==== Scanning (fingerprinting) files ====
-Start with opening individual music files or directories by dragging them into the left-hand pane. The tagger will read the metadata from each of the files and unless they have been tagged before, the files will be deposited into the "Unmatched files" folder. Files that have been tagged before and contain the [[MusicBrainz]] track identifier will be opened up as releases in the right-hand pane.
+Instead of using release-oriented and metadata-dependent lookups, Picard can try and tag your files 1-by-1 based on their [[Audio Fingerprint|audio fingerprint]]. If you select a set of files in the left-hand pane and click "Scan", Picard will find [[PUID]]s for your files and query MusicBrainz to find a track that matches them.
-Once the tagger finishes processing the files, press the "Cluster" button (white square with 'clusters' on them). This will cause the tagger to attempt to group the files into album clusters by examining the metadata read from the files and clustering files that appear to belong to the same album. Files that are not matched into album clusters will remain in the "Unmatched files" folder. In future the tagger will automatically cluster the files when it has finished reading the metadata from the files.
+To learn more about the process by which PUIDs are used by Picard to tag your files, find out [[How PUIDs Work|how PUIDs work]].
-This is where the magic currently ends -- from now on you will need to look up album clusters or individual files by selecting the cluster or file and clicking on the "Lookup" button. This will open a web browser window where you can browse/search for the appropriate album using the [[MusicBrainz]] web-site. Once you've found the right album, click on the 'tagger' icon in the album title: [[Image:mblookup-tagger.png]] . Once you click on this link, the tagger pops up and loads that album into the tagger.
+==== Manual lookup ====
-Now you can drag tracks from the "Unmatched files" folder or from the clusters onto tracks in albums. Dragging a file to an album 'tags' it to that album and you should see an icon in front of the track:
-* a green check mark indicates the track is up to date and saved.
-* a small rectangle ranging from red to green indicates the quality of the match. red -> bad match, green -> good match
-* a blue ? indicates an unmatched file.
-* a red error triangle means the file has an error. See the status bar in the bottom of the picard window to see the error.
-* a red-and-white "No entry" sign means that Picard doesn't have permission to write to that file, so that it can't save any changes (to correct this, look into the permissions on the file system and directory holding the file)
-* a musical note icon, or no icon, means that no file is associated with that track
+If you want granular control over how your files are being tagged, or the above methods provided inaccurate results (or no results), the alternative is to manually lookup and choose the correct release(s) for your files.
-You can also drag whole directories, multiple files or album clusters onto albums and the tagger will attempt to match the dragged files to the album. Any track that doesn't match up well enough, will be added to an "unmatched files" sub-folder specific to that album. You can drag files out of this folder and into the right slots in the album to fix up the files the tagger couldn't get right.
+Select the cluster or file you want to lookup and use one of the lower "Lookup" buttons in Picard. This opens the MusicBrainz website with a list of possible matches for your files along with details on what sets them apart, you can also disregard the lookup results and manually search for the appropriate album using the search box. Once you've found the correct album, click on the [[Image:mblookup-tagger.png]] icon in the album title and Picard will load that album and its tracks into the right-hand pane for you to drag clusters/files onto.
-Once you've matched up your tracks to albums you can select a track or an album and click on the save button to save that track/album. Depending on your settings this may move the track to a new directory and/or rename the track according to its metadata. Take a look at the options dialog to fine tune your settings.
+=== Matching files & saving ===
-Once you've saved a file, or otherwise want to get rid of a track or album, select the track and click on the delete button in the toolbar.
+The tracks in the right-hand pane will start out with a musical note icon, and as the tracks become associated with your files the icons will change to one of the following:
-==Scanning (fingerprinting) files==
+* a small rectangle ranging from red to green indicates the quality of the match, where red is a bad match and green is a good match
+* a red error triangle means Picard encountered an error (e.g. permission error), click the file and read the status bar in the bottom of the Picard window to see the error
+* a green check mark indicates the track is up to date and saved
+You can drag whole directories, multiple files or album clusters onto albums and Picard will attempt to match the dragged files to the album. Any track that doesn't match up well enough, will be added to an "Unmatched Files" sub-folder specific to that album. You can drag files out of this folder and into the right slots in the album to fix up the files that Picard couldn't get right.
-Instead of using the above release-oriented and metadata-dependent lookup; Picard can try and tag your files 1-by-1 based on their [[Audio Fingerprint|AudioFingerprint]]. If you select a set of files in the left-hand pane and click "Scan", Picard will calculate an [[Audio Fingerprint|AudioFingerprint]] for your files and query [[MusicBrainz]] to find a [[Track]] that matches the [[PUID]] located from this fingerprint.
+Once you've finished matching up your files to albums in the right-hand pane, select a track or an album and click on the 'Save' button to save that track/album. Depending on your settings this may move the track to a new directory and/or rename the track according to its metadata. Take a look at the options dialog to fine tune your settings.
-To learn about the process by which PUIDs are used by Picard to tag your files, read [[How PUIDs Work|HowPUIDsWork]].
+Once a file is in the right-hand pane the metadata that will be written by Picard can be viewed and edited if necessary. Right click the file and click "Details" to view and, if necessary, edit the metadata. Remember to re-save the file(s) if you edit the metadata!
-==Picard configuration and options==
+Once you've saved an album and/or want to remove it from view, right click the album in the right-hand pane and click 'Remove'.
-For documentation on Picard's options menu, see [[Picard Documentation/Options]].
-==File re-naming, scripting and customization==
+==Picard configuration and options==
+:''See [[Picard Documentation/Options]].
+==Isn't there more to MusicBrainz Picard?==
-It is possible to customize the way Picard operates on your audio files in several ways
-* [[Picard Scripting|Scripting]]
-** Rename and reorganise your collection using the [[Picard Scripting#Functions|functions]] provided in the scripting language.
-** Change/customize the way Picard applies the MusicBrainz [[Picard Tags|metadata]] to your files.
-* [[Picard Plugins|Plugins]]
-** To encapsulate scripting, download cover art and add other functionality to Picard.
-==Isn't there more to Picard?==
+Yes there is!
+Picard is very flexible and can be customized using [[Picard Scripting|scripts]] and [[Picard Plugins|plugins]] to do things such as:
-Probably, yes! - this documentation is unfortunately not complete. Please [http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/PicardDocumentation?action=edit help out]!  In any case, Picard is actively developed. See [[Picard Development]] for more information on the development process.
+* rename and reorganise your collection using the [[Picard Scripting#Functions|functions]] provided in the scripting language
+* customize how Picard applies the MusicBrainz [[Picard Tag Mapping|metadata]] to your files
+* encapsulate scripting, download cover art, and add other functionality to Picard
-[[Category:To Be Reviewed]] [[Category:Picard]] [[Category:WikiDocs Page]] [[Category:Products]]
+[[Category:Picard]] [[Category:Products]] [[Category:WikiDocs Page]]

MusicBrainz Picard/Documentation: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:26, 20 February 2010

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