Editing Music Database

The first thing you will need to do before you can start browsing your albums is to set up your Music Database. You will need to configure your music sources via the Options window , and once these have been set up you can then use the Import options on the toolbar to load your initial music database, and to susequently update it incrementally.

=== Shared and Personal Databases ===
Each  user of muso (on the same machine) can specify in the Options  whether  to use a personal database, or a shared database (available to  all  users). This is not an either/or preference, you can switch between them if you wish, it will retain both.

[[File:Dbc.PNG]]

=== Importing Music from External Sources ===
[[File:Import.png|right|Import menu|right]]
You can import music into Muso from the following sources:
* '''The file/folder system''', via a folder scan (you set your source folders under Options / Music Sources / Music Folders) - the scan will read most common media tags - see [[Attribute Mapping]]
* '''LMS''' (Logitech Media Server, previously known as Squeezebox Server) - the source library for Squeezebox devices
* '''iTunes''' 

After importing from an external source, muso can save the changes automatically or let you review them on the database edit screen first, depending upon an Option (Configuration / Importing / Preview Changes After Importing). If you choose to review, cancelling the database edit screen will throw away the imported changes (which will be highlighted on the edit screen).

Muso automatically makes database savepoints as you go along, or you can add savepoints manually. Then you can revert your database to an earlier savepoint. This is all via the File / Savepoints menu option.

Importing from any external source will pull in all the  track attributes it can, but in some cases some attribute editing may be required in the muso database.

=== Database Edit View ===
Track editing is made easy in the Music  Database page, which provides a detail grid of tracks and their attributes. 

[[File:Dbv.PNG]]

If you do edit attributes in muso and subsuquently re-import from your external source, it will retain your edited attributes unless you  turn on the "LMS is Master" option and re-import from Squeezebox Server (LMS) - this option indicates that LMS data takes precedence and will overwrite anything in the muso database (even if it has a value in muso and is blank in LMS).

It is important to note that while in the database edit view, all edits you make are 'buffered'. If you make a mess of the edits, you can throw them all away (revert) by hitting the 'Cancel Changes' button. If you want to save (commit) them, use the 'Apply' or 'Write & Apply' button (the latter saves to the Muso database AND writes tags to the files).

=== Edit Tracks Window ===
You can edit directly in the grid but much more powerful is the  ability to select multiple tracks (via control-click or shift-click or control-A to select all visible tracks) and choosing the "Edit Selected  Tracks" option. 

In the Edit Tracks window: 
* attributes with a light blue background are those which do not have the same value in all the selected tracks (though any common prefix is shown followed by ...), 
* attributes with a pink backround are those that you have edited which will be written back to '''all''' the selected tracks (those you do not edit explicitly will  be left alone)
* attributes with light grey text on a white background show the displayed text in ''some'' of the selected tracks, the remainder being ''blank''.

=== File metadata (tags) ===
Editing the attributes in the muso database does not ''automatically'' write any meta-data back to the files themselves - this data is private to muso, but you can choose one of several options to write tags to the files if you wish to do so:
* 'Write & Apply' from the database view will save your edits and write tags to the files
* 'Write Static Tags' from the album context menu re-writes tags for the specific album
* 'Write Tags' options from the database view writes static and/or dynamic tags for selected tracks
* The main menu option File > Export > Dynamic attributes will write dynamic tags to all tracks
NB. 'static' tags are the standard tags like artist, album, track name etc, whereas 'dynamic' tags are those which persist the play count, rating and last played information (to extended tags PLAY_COUNT, RATING, and LAST_PLAYED respectively).

Many users will prefer to get the external source  tagging correct before importing into muso (directly from files  or from Squeezebox Server/iTunes) - or if they are not correct after importing, editing the tags externally and re-importing.


WIKI PAGE TO BE COMPLETED