Export sets are used by the Create Album Database and Create Track Database action functions. The sets define what fields are to be placed into the CSV file. These fields include standard Yate fields and special fields.
Every export set item consists of a Field, a Header and optionally a Qualifying field. The Field defines which Yate or special field is to be included. The Header is the column header to be used.
Custom fields, OOB, Variable fields and User Defined Text Info fields may be marked as being a Yes/No value. Part of a Compilation, Skip When Shuffling, and a few other fields are by default Yes/No values. To force the display of these items to be interpreted as Yes/No values, select the checkbox in the item's Yes/No column. Note that when modifying values the Database Viewer forces all Yes/No values to be 1 or empty. empty is equivalent to 0 but ensures that unnecessary low level tags are not kept when files are written.
The Attrs column displays a summary of the possible column display attributes. To edit the attributes, select a row and click in the Attrs field. A menu will be displayed which lets you configure various display attributes for the column. This includes the text alignment, the crop position and the choice of a proportional font (default) or a monospaced font. If you hover with the mouse pointer on the Attrs column header, a tooltip describing the summary codes is displayed.
The Qualifying field can be used with UDTIs, UDURLs and UFIDs. With these item types the Qualifying field lets you specify which item you are mapping to. Having an empty Qualifying field is not valid. The Qualifying field may optionally be specified with a Comments item. Note that the default Comment does not have a qualifying name.
Qualifying values on OOB and Variable items have a different interpretation. Note that the qualifying field is ignored if the item is marked as being a Yes/No value. The qualifying field is used to define a popup menu which is displayed when a cell in the database is double clicked. When an item in the displayed menu is selected, it will overwrite the contents of the cell in all selected rows. The formatting of the menu specification is described in Export Sets Qualifier Menus.
Note that special fields are displayed in a separate section at the top of the field popup list. A special field is any field which cannot be edited or is not intended for both Album and Track databases. Special fields are read only unless specified otherwise. The following special fields are available.
- A/V
- Video for a file containing video, otherwise Audio.
- Actual Track Count
- This is the counted number of tracks in an album and does not represent the metadata value. This field is empty in track databases.
- Apple App PID
- This refers to a retained Apple App PID UDTI. If this field is contained in a Track database it will be accessed when Create Apple Playlist is initiated from the database's context menu.
- Artwork Count
- The number of artwork items in a file.
- Artwork Size
- If available, the width x height of a file's default artwork item.
- Average Rating
- The average rating of all tracks in a album. Note that ratings are exported with ✮ characters when the database file is encoded as UTF-8, otherwise they are exported as * characters. This field is only meaningful in Album Databases and will be empty in Track Databases.
- Audio Container
- The type of audio container. APE, AIFF, DFF, DSF, FLAC, MPEG-4, MP3, OGG, WAV or WAVPACK
- Bit Depth
- Bit Rate
- Channel Mode
- Creation Date
- As implied by the name.
- db
- The database linkages as displayed in the main window's db column.
- Disc Combined
- The Disc field as displayed in the main window. ie. n of m. Note that editing this field requires that you format as n of m or n / m. Any other format will clear the Disc Count field when applying changes.
- Duration
- This field will display the length of a track in ms in Track databases. It will display the total length of an album in Album databases. This field is based on the duration extracted from the audio stream. This differs from the Length field which is a user editable field. If a Duration field is present in a database the viewer's status bar will display either the total time or the sum of the durations of the selected rows.
- File Name
- The file name with extension.
- File Path
- The full path to a track. This field should always be present in Track databases. The field cannot be used in Album databases.
- File Tags
- The textual representation of a file's associated Finder tags. Note this field can be edited but it cannot currently be applied back to a file.
- Folder
- The full path to the album's containing folder. This field should always be present, along with the Album field, in Album databases. The field is redundant in Track databases.
- Folder Tags
- The textual representation of a file's containing folder's associated Finder tags. Note this field can be edited but it cannot currently be applied back to a file.
- Free
- The amount of free space in a track.
- Highest Rating
- The highest rating found on any track in the album. Note that ratings are exported with ✮ characters when the database file is encoded as UTF-8, otherwise they are exported as * characters. This field is only valid in Album Databases and will be empty in Track databases.
- Incomplete
- This field is only valid in Album databases. It is intended to assist in the identification of albums missing tracks. An empty value implies that no errors were found. The following error messages can be displayed, in decreasing priority:
- Missing Disc(s) if one or more discs are missing.
- Duplicate Track Numbers if more than one track on the same disc has the same track number.
- Zero Based if a track is numbered zero.
- Missing xx% (yy) where xx is the percentage of missing tracks and yy is the number of missing tracks.
- Linked PID
- The Linked PID property. Note that this property only exists when Yate is linked to an Apple App. If you wish to export a retained PID, use the Apple App PID special item described above. If this field is contained in a Track database it will be accessed when Create Apple App Playlist is initiated from the database's context menu. This item is only useful if a database is being created while a file is linked and PIDs are not being retained.
- Lowest Rating
- The lowest rating found on any track in the album. Note that ratings are exported with ✮ characters when the database file is encoded as UTF-8, otherwise they are exported as * characters. This field is only valid in Album Databases and will be empty in Track Databases.
- Love
- A value of 1 for loved, -1 for disliked, 0 for neither or ??? for a mixed value in an Album database.
- Modification Date
- As implied by the name.
- Movement Combined
- The Movement and Movement Number as dispayed in the main window's Movement column.
- OOB
- OOB for Out of Bounds is used when you want a field in the database which is only written to external to Yate. Yate creates these fields as empty.
- Position
- The symbolic position of a track in an album. This field can be edited.
- Rating
- The rating of a track in a Track database. Note that ratings are exported with ✮ characters when the database file is encoded as UTF-8, otherwise they are exported as * characters. This field is meaningless in Album databases. This field can be edited.
- Sample Rate
- As implied by the name.
- Size
- The size of an audio file.
- Stream
- The audio stream type.
- Time
- The calculated total display time, (hh:mm) of the album in Album databases or the display time of the track in Track databases. If a Time field is present in a Track database the viewer's status bar will display either the total time or the sum of the durations of the selected rows.
- Track Combined
- The Track field as displayed in the main window. ie. n of m. Note that editing this field requires that you format as n of m or n / m. Any other format will clear the Track Count field when applying changes.
- Video Size
- The width x height of a file containing track.
- Yate Album ID
- A unique identifier that can be generated to help match content to Album databases.
- Yate Track ID
- A unique identifier that can be generated to help match content to Track databases.
If you want to synthesize data not contained in a field or special field, place the data in any of the track Variable fields. When a database is first written, the contents of the Variable fields will be written as expected. However, after initially writing the database, all Variable columns are treated as OOB columns.
You can drag and drop items to change the order of the columns in produced database files.
Export items are saved in sets.
To create a new set click on the + button under the leftmost table. You can choose from a new empty set or from a list of canned templates. You can also create an export set based on an existing database. If you prefer to remove things rather than add them, you can choose the All Unqualified Fields canned set, This set adds all fields except Variables, Unique File Identifier, User Defined Text Info and User Defined URL.
To delete a set, select the set you want to delete and click on the - button under the leftmost table.
To duplicate a set, select the set you want to duplicate, and click on the ❐ button under the leftmost table.
To rename a set, select the set and click on the ✎ button under the leftmost table.
Export Sets can be exported in a variety of ways. Select one or more sets in the table and click the ⇒ button under the leftmost table. A menu will be displayed which can contain the following items:
- Export as Export Set
- This will export one or more sets so that they can later be imported, This is a smart export. All Custom Field accesses are exported in such a way that they can be conditionally remapped when imported.
- Export Sidecar File
- This is useful if you want to associate an externally produced database file (CSV/TSV) with the appropriate field mappings. A .plist file will be created. Note that the created plist file is never marked as being standalone. If you wish to create a plist file for a standalone database, simply open it in the Database Viewer. This function is only available when a single Export Set is selected.
- Export as Empty Database
- This might be useful if you want to populate the database in a different application. The database is not marked as being standalone. The Database Viewer will process all columns according to their type in the export set. Depending on the fields in the export set, the database might be able to interact with files open in the main window. (ie. if it's a Track or Album database). This function is only available when a single Export Set is selected.
- Export as Standalone Empty Database
- This might be useful if you want to populate the database in a different application. The database is marked as being standalone. The Database Viewer will treat all columns as editable and will not allow any interaction with files open in the main window. This function is only available when a single Export Set is selected.
- Export as Action
- You can automatically create an action which will build one or more databases. For each selected set, depending on the contained fields, you will either create an Album, Track or Stand Alone database. If a Yate Track ID or Yate Album ID field is present in any of the sets, a Database ID statement will be included to produce the referenced IDs if they are missing. Note that a prompt will be issued at runtime for each database name.
To create a new export set item, click the + button under the rightmost table. Choose the field or special field that you want to add. A default name for the header.
To remove export set items, select one or more items and click the - button under the rightmost table.
To modify the header of an export set item, select a single set in the table and click the ✎ button under the rightmost table. Alternately you can directly edit the header by double tapping on the header field.
To change the field associated with an export set item, select a single set in the table and click the F button under the rightmost table. Alternately you can directly edit the header by double tapping on the field name.
To change an export set item's qualifying value, select a single set in the table and click the Q button under the rightmost table. You can choose to edit the field or pick from a few convenience names. Alternately you can inline edit the qualifying value.
The width of the two tables can be adjusted by dragging the border that separates the two tables.
Click here for additional information on the Create Album Database and Create Track Database action functions.