Beatport is an online music store specializing in electronic music.
Yate allows you to search the Beatport database in order to extract metadata and artwork for individual tracks. The functionality can be accessed via an action statement named Access Beatport and interactively via the Beatport Importer.
Note that if all your tracks have an associated Beatport Track ID, the action statement is far more efficient than the importer.
The Beatport Importer is opened by the Actions menu's or main window context menu's Beatport Importer item.
The first time you run the importer, the options panel will automatically be displayed. The options panel allows you to configure how you are going to search and what metadata you wish to import. On the panel you can elect to continue showing the panel when the importer is started or to hide it unless manually opened. More information on the options panel can be found here. If the option panel is not displayed when the importer opens, searching for metadata will start immediately.
The importer window presents a tree view of the files selected in Yate's main window. Note that changing the file selection in the main window will update the contents of the importer window. The window can display the following columns (note that not all columns are initially displayed):
- empty ... represents state
- This column coloured status indicator. Grey implies not yet searched. Green implies a search has completed. Red implies an error occurred while searching.
- Identifier
- This column displays a filename or full path on track lines.
- Import
- This column contains a check mark if the item has been marked for import.
- Status
- As the name suggests, this column displays status information.
- Score
- The score is a number assigned by Yate's weight algorithm which is used to determine which match is best. Larger implies that according to Yate's criteria, the match is better than one with a smaller number. Matches are sorted by descending scores. A track matched by a Track or Stem ID has a core of 1000. Rejected matches have a score of 0.
- Title
- This column displays the contents of the Title field in a track or the title metadata in a potential match.
- Mix Name
- This column displays the contents of the Description field in a track or the mix name metadata in a potential match.
- Release
- This column displays the contents of the Album field in a track or the release metadata in a potential match.
- Artists
- This column displays the contents of the Artist field in a track or the artist metadata in a potential match.
- Remixers
- This column displays the contents of the Remixer field in a track or the remixer metadata in a potential match.
- Time
- Displays the actual duration of the track or the reported duration in a potential match. You can flip the display format via the context menu between a number of milliseconds or a MM:SS display.
- Release Date
- For a track the Release Date (or Year if empty) field is displayed. For a match the release date metadata is displayed.
- Track ID
- The column displays a Beatport Track ID which is associated with the item.
- Release ID
- The column displays a Beatport Release ID which is associated with the item.
A disclosure triangle may appear to the left a row's Identifier column data. This allows you to expand the view to include all potential matches which have been found for a track.
The table header's context menu allows you hide/show any column except Identifier, Import and Status. You can also drag and drop columns to rearrange them. At any time you can reset to the out of the box column layout by selecting Default Column Layout on the table header's context menu.
Most columns can be sorted. When sorting the order of matched tracks is not changed. Only the order of the source files is changed.
After downloading the list of potential matches for a track, Yate will optionally mark the track with the highest score for import. This depends on your options. There is no guarantee that this is the correct match. You should always examine the choices automatically made for accuracy. The Release ID column can be used to determine inclusion in a common album.
The font size can be adjusted via the Font menu. You can autosize a single column or all columns from the column header's context menu. Often columns which become too large are difficult to manage. From the same context menu, you can downsize a column or all columns.
The window's context menu can contain the following functions:
- Mark for Import
- You can use this function to override Yate's choice. Note that marking a match for import will unmark any previous choices. You can also double click on an match item to have the same effect.
- Unmark for Import
- Manually remove the import status from an item. You can also double click on an item to have the same effect.
- Reload
- This is only valid on track rows. All selected tracks will be reloaded. This is useful if you want to change options or if a network error has occurred and you want to try again.
- Show Track on Beatport
- Open the Beatport web page displaying information about the track associated with the currently highlighted item.
- Show Release on Beatport
- Open the Beatport web page displaying information about the release associated with the currently highlighted item.
- Display Filenames in the Identifier Column
- Display Paths in the Identifier Column
- Select to display full paths or filenames in the Identifier column.
- Display Time as MM:SS
- Display Time as Milliseconds
- Select to display Time column values as a number of milliseconds or a MM:SS format.
- Display Track Metadata for Tracks
- Display Import Metadata for Tracks
- Track columns can display the contained metadata (what is) or the metadata associated with a match marked for import (what will be).
- Enable Automatic Column Sizing
- Disable Automatic Column Sizing
- You can elect to have Yate automatically resize columns at various times when the display changes.
- Enable Text Colouring
- Disable Text Colouring
- Versions of the Importer prior to v6.1 did not have the empty/state column. Test in the table was coloured to represent state information. You can use these menu items to enable or disable text colouring. When enabled, rows in the table are colour coded as follows: File/track items display blue when a match associated with them has been marked for import. They display red when no match information is yet loaded or can be found. They are displayed black when potential matches have been downloaded but no match has been marked for import.
- Expand All
- Collapse All
- Expand or collapse all items which display a disclosure triangle.
The standard Edit Find functions are supported in the Importer. Edit>Find>Find (⌘F) will highlight all files which are not marked for import. Edit>Find>Find Next (⌘G) will highlight the next file which is not marked for import. Edit>Find>Find Previous (⇧⌘G) will highlight the previous file which is not marked for import.
The options can be displayed at any time by the Options... button. If you change the search criteria on the options panel, downloading will be attempted again for tracks with no matches.
When you have made your track-match selections you can press the Import button to finalize the import process. Note that the Import button can be pressed at any time, even while metadata is still being downloaded. Only tracks already marked for import will be processed.
When import is selected, Yate will attempt to download artwork, if the items have been marked for import on the options panel.