Renaming just works perfect, it is powerful enough and there are other more important things to implement! Just my 0.02...

Yep, assume you posted http://ideas.blisshq.com/forums/21939-bliss/suggestions/2719682-the-condition-should-have-an-else-option- ? Thanks for posting that. I understand your use case and this seems like a valid feature.

Hi Dan, the problem with the current implementation is that is imposible to make an else.
I mean:
IF I want my track number to be 3 digit, with the first one to be the disc numer it will do fine if <disknumber> is set, but I will end with three digits if not.
If you include the else option it will be posible to mantain the three digits format.
Example:
<discnumber>?(<discnumber,1)<tracknumber> will always result in 3 digits numbering becasuse if discnumber is not set it will assume 1 for it.

I hope you understand what I am trying to say.

I am adding a new conditional token that, while it does not allow string comparisons as in your example, does check whether a preceeding token evaluates to some string, and if so uses a subsequent token.

See http://ideas.blisshq.com/forums/21939-bliss/suggestions/1336695-add-cdnumber-to-custom-file-folder-template for more.

Thanks for clearing things up. It sounds like the complete selector function will make Bliss do everything media monkey does (and more) automatically. I can hardly wait. Thanks for all the hard work.

Sorry for not being clear Mark. The 'selector' is an idea for bliss, it isn't part of the product yet. You're right, essentially the only selector right now is that which selects all files in a ancestor folder.

There is a nasty workaround of course: if you have the compilations in a separate parent folder you could point bliss at that with different rules. However, your library as-is may not be set up for this, or make the workaround too much effort.

Great news about the group token, this is an important peace I could not find in the docs.

As for Various Artists and Soundtrack compilations, I was trying to understand what the selector does (and what it may do in the near future)

You wrote about "the 'selector, rule' pattern. In other words, select a set of albums, and apply a set of rules to them.

Look at it this way: currently the only selector available is the music library location. It's basically 'for all albums in c:\music, find album art, organise music files in this structure'.

Imagine if the selector could be overridden, e.g. 'for all albums in c:\music that are compilations, organise music files in this structure'. Maybe the selector could be nestable too."

My question is can the selector pick out compilations and apply a rule to it now? Or is that a future feature? IF it can, this sounds like exactly what I need. If not, the only thing selector can do is apply rules to files in different locations. Sorry if I miss the target completely. It sounds like I can get this to do exactly what I need.

Not sure I understand what you mean by "How does bliss get these various artist (or soundtrack) albums into the required library location".

Do you mean how does it recognise compilations? This would be by a combination of things: common compilation album artist names, varying track artist names with the same album name (in the same folder), and the compilation tag.

Or are you saying the album is in a different location originally? Maybe I didn't understand the full scope of your MM script.

Regarding taking the first n characters, there is a token in bliss called the group token which does what you are doing in your example - http://www.blisshq.com/music-library-management-blog/2011/04/12/new-release-20110407-wikipedia-album-art-directory-grouping-vortexbox-ripping/ . Does that work for you?

You can break this thread if you want. However the second point I wanted to make was, is it possible to take the first letter from a tag to use in the file structure?

example: take the first letter of album artist, and create a sub directory with that letter.

Media Monkey does it like this: < Album Artist@1 >

You got the idea, however in the quest to reach (i wanna say bliss) the goal of ultimate automation. How does bliss get these various artist (or soundtrack) albums into the required library location.

Can bliss tag an album as various artists and then move it the proper location and then rename files appropriately?

Thanks for this. Specifically, are you trying to achieve different file structures for compilation/ various artist albums? If so, should I merge this idea with http://ideas.blisshq.com/forums/21939-bliss/suggestions/2290349-compilation-specific-file-org-pattern ?

More generally, I see what you are doing with the if...then conditional statements. However, if I may suggest an alternative...

In general I would like to avoid conditional statements - they are the source of bugs and are specific to file organisation.

An alternative is the 'selector, rule' pattern. In other words, select a set of albums, and apply a set of rules to them.

Look at it this way: currently the only selector available is the music library location. It's basically 'for all albums in c:\music, find album art, organise music files in this structure'.

Imagine if the selector could be overridden, e.g. 'for all albums in c:\music that are compilations, organise music files in this structure'. Maybe the selector could be nestable too.

The main advantage of this is that the same selector pattern can be used for every rule in the system. So you could also have compilation specific album art or genre rules. What do you think?

\Music\ $if(< Album Artist >=Various, Various Artists,
< Album Artist@1 >\< Album Artist),
\< Album >, $if(< Year >,< Year > \< Album >)\ ($if(< track# >,< track# > ) $if(< Album Artist >=Various, < Artist > - < Title > , < Title > ).ext

\Music\A\Album Artist\Album (2011)\ Album (1) Song.ext
\Music\Various Artists\Album (2011)\ Album (1) Artist - Song.ext

< Album Artist@1 > return the first letter of album artist