Best method for "firstname lastname" to "lastname, firstname"

[jcdrisco]

(03-08-2017 18:35)DavidHB Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 10:17)jcdrisco Wrote:  Thanks, all, for your responses. I have thousands of files and am looking for a way to do a batch change, supplemented by editing for special cases. I may try creating a composerSort tag from my current composer tag, batch changing that tag to reverse order, and then manually edit the exceptions.

My idea was at first very similar, but I came to the conclusion that it wasn't really worth the effort of developing and testing a script that would really only be used once. Rather, putting the effort into creating a workflow that would work as well for additions to the collection as for the initial bulk tagging process was what paid off for me.

Quite a bit of the effort was making sure that I was using a folder structure that would make it easier to work on sensible groupings of folders in the MP3Tag grid. The top layer of my folder structure is a set of very broadly-based Genres (Classical, Pop, Jazz, Folk, World etc.), within which there can be different sub-categories. So the second level division of the Classical genre (much the biggest in my collection) is by composer; in the other genres, artist is the second level.

All of this made it much easier to use the techniques I have already described. The process of making sure that composer names were consistent and creating the corresponding ComposerSort tags, for a collection of several hundred albums, was largely complete in a single evening. Errors and inconsistencies are easy to spot in the MinimServer browsing sequence, which identifies missing or mis-spelt names and the like. The standard workflow can then be used to go back and fix the errors, something that may not be quite so easy with a bulk tagging script.

David

I found scripts that might have worked by searching, but my limited experience with mp3tag made them difficult to apply. Some of my files already had ComperSort populated in the appropriate way, and I'm finding it is easier just to apply those throughout than learning the script. FOr others reference, as per your suggestion I indeed have added "Composer Sort" on the left side; am selecting all files from a particular composer; and am either typing in or selecting "lastname, firstname"