Write ratings back to files

[mcosby]

I love the ratings feature, but recently found a huge flaw in it for me. I took my SD card out of my phone temporarily, GMMP made a scan and found no media (thus erasing its database) and when I put the card back in all my ratings were gone!

It looks like since then you've added the ability to read ratings from files - could you please add the ability to write ratings to files, too, so that my ratings don't go away any time the database does a full rebuild?

[GoneMAD]

i had writing to the tags 80% working back when i was still doing the 1.4 beta but ran into some problems:

1) m4a does not have a rating tag and i havent been able to find a way to store ratings in the file yet

2) writing to a playing file ends playback or causes skips in playback for a few of the filetypes

3) writing tags in general is slow so that had to be accounted for

Most likely all of this can be solved, but the alternate solution i added was much easier and good enough for now. Editing files without the users explicit intent is generally bad practice.. so the write to tag setting would be off by default anyway.

Prefs -> General -> Backup -> Backup/Restore stats. This saves playcounts and ratings to a file that can be restored

[paoboy]

Hi,

I really miss the ability to save the ratings to the song file. This could let me use the ratings on every player/system and not limited to gonemad.

I fully understand the problems you mentioned but maybe the save task can be launched manually in a time where the phone is idle (i.e. not playing music) since this needs be run once in a while...

An alternative could be using the exported xml file to perform a batch import in a tag editor, but I can't figure out how to do it. Any suggestion?

[GoneMAD]

pref -> general -> backup -> backup stats. Its writes an xml file to /storage/gmmp/ I think its just named stats.xml

[paoboy]

Sorry, I was unclear...
I do know how to export the stats, I don't know how to import it into a tag editor...

but the best would always be able to save it inside gonemad
please!

[GoneMAD]

oh uh yea you would have to write some script or software to do that.. im not aware of any existing software that lets you setup batch tagging with data in an xml

[paoboy]

By the way, do you have any plans about adding at gonemad the ability to save the ratings into the song files?
I agree with your comments above, writing to the file right at the moment of setting/changing the rating of a song might be a bad idea. Instead I was thinking about a sort of batch sync of the files with the stats, a command issued by the user.
This way, unaware users are not affected.

[GoneMAD]

yup.. i thought i implied it in my original response

"Most likely all of this can be solved, but the alternate solution i added was much easier and good enough for now. Editing files without the users explicit intent is generally bad practice.. so the write to tag setting would be off by default anyway."

I know how to do it.. like you said something like a batch sync or just write to the file once its not in use anymore.. its just a low priority task atm.

Things are typically prioritized by how often i get requested for something.. and then there are just some decisions i make myself for things i want to get done

[paoboy]

Oops... I got it wrong the first time... sorry

I'm glad to hear that. Take your time, and go on with the awesome work you are doing.

I think gm is one of the best pieces of software around in the android world.

Thanks a lot for your effort!