Bruji

Hi,

I've been trying out the great demos, and I have a few questions.

In CDpedia, I've tried importing from a very large iTunes library (5000-10000 albums). Obviously, I can't import much because of the 25 item limit.

Do you have any info about how well CDpedia handles a collection that large? Any idea how long it will take to import from iTunes?

Is there a maximum number of playlists CDpedia can see? I apparently have way too many playlists, and CDpedia couldn't see newly created ones, even though I confirmed it's looking at the correct iTunes library xml file. I was able to import from some older playlists, but I would like to know why my newly created playlists weren't appearing in CDpedia's import dropdown.

When I import from iTunes, is there a way to import the whole library? The first item in the dropdown is "####!####" - is that the whole music library? If I import that, will it automatically exclude things like podcasts?

After the first import, what's the best way to get new items I've added to iTunes into CDpedia?

If I update info in iTunes (for example, fix a typo), will Refresh from iTunes copy that info into CDpedia?

Can you explain the best way to deal with the collections you get when you import? Do you just import, select the items in the new collection, drag them to the library, and then delete the collection? It seemed like I ended up with a lot of extra collections I didn't need.

Also, in DVDpedia, is there any way to have multiple cover images for a single entry? If I grab a TV episode from TheTVDB, I get a nice screen shot from the episode, but it would be nice to also be able to show the cover image for the series.

Thanks!

Thank you for trying out CDpedia.

The 25 item limit blocks the editing/adding feature. So you can import your collection for testing out the speed of sorting, searching and launching. You won't be able to open any item for edit, but you can tell how well CDpedia will behave with that many albums. Our test database goes up to 10,000 albums and most functions are perfectly fine. Things like creating a new smart collection can take a few seconds as all the albums have to be crossed checked. You do start to get quite a slow down if you don't have an SSD drive with a collection that large.

The import should take about 2 minutes for that many albums. The new iTunes does keep a "####!####" collection that is all the items in the library. But the second item should be "Music" that in the case of CDpedia would be the same import (or very close, I get one DVD/music song that is not part of Music playlist, simply because it was original released as a DVD single). Podcast will be ignored as well as movies and other items.

You can also export from iTunes via the "File -> Library -> Export Playlist" menu and use the XML saving option. You can then drag and drop that file to CDpedia dock icon to import. This would solve the non appearing playlists, but I think the issue is iTunes take a while to update the XML file in the background. CDpedia should pick up the changes overtime open the Import menu, but do try restarting CDpedia as well.

Updating from iTunes is an area that I want to improve for CDpedia. Unlike DVDpedia there is no automatic skipping of already added items. What most users do is create a smart collection in iTunes that is "added after the last date imported into CDpedia". Then after actualizing CDpedia, updating the date in the smart playlist. You could have an additional playlist that is "edited" so that you know what items need to be updated for typos changed.

The refresh from iTunes is about track matching, it does it in the background once a week and keeps the notes icon in sync. The note icon lets you know what tracks you have in iTunes. Of course not very useful if all the info came from iTunes then all tracks are matched, but useful when you have albums that are not ripped to iTunes or partial rips.

The best way to do the import is once happy with the import to select "File -> Include Collection in Library" (dragging achieves the same outcome) and then remove the collection. That is the way I use it. There some users that like to keep the imported collections around so they know what they imported and when.

Multiple images in the cover well is a feature request I am looking at for a future version. In the meantime you can link any type of item into an entry by drag and drop. So you can link additional images and then under the "links" tab in the edit window you can even have DVDpedia move them into it's data folder to manage, with the move button. You can then see them with the link button on the toolbar or by clicking the name on the details pane. There are users that have gone further and modified their details templates to show any linked images.

Hi Conor,

Thanks so much for your quick and helpful reply.

I just bought a bundle, and I am enjoying the pedias immensely. I was even able to offer a recommendation on another forum today (http://ask.metafilter.com/314048/How-do ... rowse-them).

As it happens, the CDpedia import took considerably longer (more like half an hour - possibly due to lots of large original cover art?), but that was fine - I just was hoping it wouldn't take days.

I'm very happy with the way CDpedia is working, but I'm looking forward to any enhancements you're able to make in importing from iTunes.

One more question: is there a way to get Pocketpedia to ignore "The" in artist names, so "Dave Brubeck" and "The Dave Brubeck Quartet" appear next to each other?

Thanks again for these great products and your outstanding support here in the forums. I've had a very enjoyable few days exploring all the well thought out features of your products.

Kristi

Glad to hear you are enjoying CDpedia and thank you for supporting all the Pedia development, as well as spreading the word about our programs. This is the most helpful of all and very much appreciated.

Covers are the heavy objects in any process, high resolution covers would indeed slow the whole thing down considerably. I am missing half the covers in my collection and it's considerably smaller.

In the preferences (Menu command: CDpedia -> Preferences -> Fields) you will find a field called "Sort Artist". Check this field to enable it and then you can change the sort of the "The" artist, by copying the artist field and removing "The" in the sort artist field. You only need to do this for those you want to change the default ordering. If there hundreds of The albums, let me know and I can give you an SQL command that will do the trick for you.

Quick guess would be something like this in the Terminal program: