A reasonable use of albumartist would be:: <albumartist|<albumartist>|<artist|<artist>|No artist>> ..which uses the first of the following: Albumartist, Artist or "No artist". You can also move (rename) files across your filesystem to another directory by mixing path elements and ``<pattern>`` syntax:: /home/*username*/Music/<artist>/<album>/... Simple Renames -------------- Like tagging by filename, renaming by tags uses tag names enclosed by ``<...>`` to substitute values. To rename songs as their artist followed by their title, use ``<artist> - <title>`` (The file extension, .ogg, .mpc, and so on, is automatically added). Other common patterns include * ``<tracknumber>. <title>`` * ``<tracknumber>. <artist> - <title>`` * ``~/music/<artist> - <album>/<tracknumber>. <title>`` * ``~/music/<artist>/<album>/<tracknumber>. <title>`` You can also use tied tags to rename, e.g. ``<artist~title>``. Creating Directories -------------------- Note that if you use ``/`` (a directory separator) in your filename, you ''must'' start the pattern with a ``/`` (or a ``~/``, which expands to your home directory). To see why, consider what would happen if you tried to rename the same file twice with ``<artist>/<title>``. The first time it would go under ``Artist/Title.ogg``, the second time, ``Artist/Artist/Title.ogg``. When you specify the full path, this can't happen. If you don't use a `/` in the pattern, the file gets put in the same directory. Conditional Renaming -------------------- Consider the ``<tracknumber>. <title>`` pattern. When the file is missing a track number, you get a filename that starts with ., which isn't good. So Quod Libet lets you use ''conditional renaming'' to avoid that. To use conditional text, after the tag name (but inside the ``<...>``) put a ``|`` (a pipe). Then after the pipe, place all the text you want, including other tag names inside ``<...>``. That text will only be added when that tag isn't empty. To avoid the original problem, only display the track number, period, and space when the track number tag exists: ``<tracknumber|<tracknumber>. ><title>``. Quod Libet also lets you change the text if a tag ''doesn't'' exist: Use a second pipe. ``<tracknumber|<tracknumber>|00>. <title>`` will use the track number at the start of the filename if it exists, or *00* if it doesn't. Conditional tagging example --------------------------- Remember that the format for conditionals is ``<condition|<conditional tag>|<else tag>>``. You can also embed conditions inside each other:: /mnt/musik/<genre|<genre>/><artist|<artist>|Unknown>/<album|<album>/><tracknumber|<tracknumber> - ><title> Let's dissect this: * ``/mnt/musik``: A music partition * ``<genre|<genre>/>``: If there is a "genre" value, put the song into that folder (creating the folder if necessary). If there is no tag genre, skip this level in the folder hierarchy (note that the trailing slash of ``<genre>/`` is inside the < > that delineate the conditional "block". * ``<artist>|<artist>|Unknown>/``: If there's a tag artist, put everything into that folder, else put into a folder called "Unknown". Note that the trailing slash is outside the < > that delineate the conditional block, since we always want that folder level. * ``<album|<album>/>``: Album folder as needed, else skip * ``<tracknumber|<tracknumber> - >``: Prepend tracknumber if it exists * ``<title>``: The track title (or empty string) Nested Conditional example -------------------------- For songs that don't have a genre tag, perhaps we'd want to use the "language" tag and sort into that folder instead. But many songs would have a genre *and* language tag values, and those songs should only go into the genre folder (i.e. the language folder should be ignored) QL can do this, by expanding the ``<genre>`` conditional block from the expression above to ``<genre|<genre>/|<language|<language>/>>``. The pipe after the second ``<genre>/`` introduces what should be done if the first condition *isn't* met (i.e. no genre tag), but here instead of putting plain text, we introduce a second conditional block, ``<language|<language/>>``, which adds a language tag folder, if the song has a tag "language". The full expression now looks like this:: /mnt/musik/<genre|<genre>/|<language|<language>/>><artist|<artist>|Unknown>/<album|<album>/><tracknumber|<tracknumber>

.. _RenamingFiles: Renaming files ============== Basic Syntax ------------ Quod Libet allows you to rename files based on their :ref:`tags`. In some cases you may wish to alter the filename depending on whether some tags are present or missing, in addition to their values. Quod Libet allows _pattern_ syntax for this interaction, as well as plain text. A pattern is some text surrounded by angle brackets, typically containing tags. A common pattern might be:: . You can use a ``|`` to only insert text when a tag is present:: . > You could also specify literal text to use if the tag is missing by adding another `|`:: |No Album> - A reasonable use of albumartist would be:: <albumartist|<albumartist>|<artist|<artist>|No artist>> ..which uses the first of the following: Albumartist, Artist or "No artist". You can also move (rename) files across your filesystem to another directory by mixing path elements and ``<pattern>`` syntax:: /home/*username*/Music/<artist>/<album>/... Simple Renames -------------- Like tagging by filename, renaming by tags uses tag names enclosed by ``<...>`` to substitute values. To rename songs as their artist followed by their title, use ``<artist> - <title>`` (The file extension, .ogg, .mpc, and so on, is automatically added). Other common patterns include * ``<tracknumber>. <title>`` * ``<tracknumber>. <artist> - <title>`` * ``~/music/<artist> - <album>/<tracknumber>. <title>`` * ``~/music/<artist>/<album>/<tracknumber>. <title>`` You can also use tied tags to rename, e.g. ``<artist~title>``. Creating Directories -------------------- Note that if you use ``/`` (a directory separator) in your filename, you ''must'' start the pattern with a ``/`` (or a ``~/``, which expands to your home directory). To see why, consider what would happen if you tried to rename the same file twice with ``<artist>/<title>``. The first time it would go under ``Artist/Title.ogg``, the second time, ``Artist/Artist/Title.ogg``. When you specify the full path, this can't happen. If you don't use a `/` in the pattern, the file gets put in the same directory. Conditional Renaming -------------------- Consider the ``<tracknumber>. <title>`` pattern. When the file is missing a track number, you get a filename that starts with ., which isn't good. So Quod Libet lets you use ''conditional renaming'' to avoid that. To use conditional text, after the tag name (but inside the ``<...>``) put a ``|`` (a pipe). Then after the pipe, place all the text you want, including other tag names inside ``<...>``. That text will only be added when that tag isn't empty. To avoid the original problem, only display the track number, period, and space when the track number tag exists: ``<tracknumber|<tracknumber>. ><title>``. Quod Libet also lets you change the text if a tag ''doesn't'' exist: Use a second pipe. ``<tracknumber|<tracknumber>|00>. <title>`` will use the track number at the start of the filename if it exists, or *00* if it doesn't. Conditional tagging example --------------------------- Remember that the format for conditionals is ``<condition|<conditional tag>|<else tag>>``. You can also embed conditions inside each other:: /mnt/musik/<genre|<genre>/><artist|<artist>|Unknown>/<album|<album>/><tracknumber|<tracknumber> - ><title> Let's dissect this: * ``/mnt/musik``: A music partition * ``<genre|<genre>/>``: If there is a "genre" value, put the song into that folder (creating the folder if necessary). If there is no tag genre, skip this level in the folder hierarchy (note that the trailing slash of ``<genre>/`` is inside the < > that delineate the conditional "block". * ``<artist>|<artist>|Unknown>/``: If there's a tag artist, put everything into that folder, else put into a folder called "Unknown". Note that the trailing slash is outside the < > that delineate the conditional block, since we always want that folder level. * ``<album|<album>/>``: Album folder as needed, else skip * ``<tracknumber|<tracknumber> - >``: Prepend tracknumber if it exists * ``<title>``: The track title (or empty string) Nested Conditional example -------------------------- For songs that don't have a genre tag, perhaps we'd want to use the "language" tag and sort into that folder instead. But many songs would have a genre *and* language tag values, and those songs should only go into the genre folder (i.e. the language folder should be ignored) QL can do this, by expanding the ``<genre>`` conditional block from the expression above to ``<genre|<genre>/|<language|<language>/>>``. The pipe after the second ``<genre>/`` introduces what should be done if the first condition *isn't* met (i.e. no genre tag), but here instead of putting plain text, we introduce a second conditional block, ``<language|<language/>>``, which adds a language tag folder, if the song has a tag "language". The full expression now looks like this:: /mnt/musik/<genre|<genre>/|<language|<language>/>><artist|<artist>|Unknown>/<album|<album>/><tracknumber|<tracknumber> - ><title>