Batch Editing

When you’re ready to play some music, you may know exactly what you want or you might prefer to browse through your collection until something stands out. Either way, a well-organized library will get you there much quicker than one long list of filenames or a teetering stack of paper can.

Instead of locations, forScore gives you vectors—different ways of finding things, whether it’s a particular piece or a general category. These vectors are based on metadata, so properly tagging your music is key. This task may seem daunting at first, but a little bit of work up front really pays off. As long as you use the right tools for the job, it’s not as time consuming as it might seem.

For instance, forScore’s Batch Edit feature lets you apply common metadata to many different files at once. There are two ways to do this from the Scores menu, the Bookmarks menu, or while viewing the contents of a setlist in the Setlists menu:

• Tap the circled arrow button next to any item to show the metadata panel, then tap the “+” button on the right-hand side of the menu’s navigation bar to select additional files to edit.
• Tap the “Edit” button on the right-hand side of the menu’s navigation bar, then tap to select the files you want to change. Choose “edit” from the options at the top of the list to open the metadata panel with all of your selected items loaded up and ready to tag.

Now any changes you make will apply to all of the selected files, saving you lots of time and typing. The metadata panel works similarly whether you’re editing one piece or several, but since some fields let you enter multiple values (composers, genres, tags, and labels) these work a little differently in batch edit mode. Instead of switching between checked and unchecked, the blue boxes next to each field switch between a check mark or a plus icon. If checked, your changes will replace any existing values. If the box shows a plus symbol instead, the values you type in will be appended to each item’s existing values.

Whether you use one metadata field or all of them, forScore leverages a little bit of data entry to transform your list of files into a detailed, cross-referenced map of your entire collection, ready to help you find what you’re looking for no matter where you start from.