Clementine: Ability to disable tag editing in playlist

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From Nickollai on June 10, 2010 21:00:17_

Click by selected song in playlist starts tag editing. For me it is unwanted behaviour because it causes random and wrong tag editing when I do not want to edit tags.

_Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/clementine-player/issues/detail?id=392_

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From john.maguire on June 10, 2010 14:51:53_

Don't click then.

Status: Invalid

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From Nickollai on June 10, 2010 17:35:14_

Don't click then.

It is not solution and not always possible. People do not work only with good input devices, sometimes device may not work well or user can not move cursor or click accurately by some reason.
Now probability of tag corruption with clementine is high.

P.S. Does fixing this issue require a lot of manpower, will it make codebase much bigger?

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From john.maguire on June 11, 2010 16:37:36_

I think it is an unnecessary option. We cannot and should not add an option for every tiny thing.

The probability of tag "corruption" is very low. Even if a user does accidentally start editing a tag, they still need to actually type something after clicking.

Which input devices do you have in mind?

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From Nickollai on June 11, 2010 22:36:03_

I think it is an unnecessary option. We cannot and should not add an option for every tiny thing.

Agree about "every tiny thing", but this is not one of them: clementine is _player_, not tag editor, normally most users use clementine for playing, tag editing with player is very rarely operation, no need for making it default behaviour. Player is good for changing 1 or 2 tags in several tracks, when we need to edit hundreds of songs specialized tag editor will be much better.

Which input devices do you have in mind?
Touchpads of laptops, nettops. Any unusual for user or partly broken device.

P.S. In player tracks are moved in playlist, selected (sometime several songs) or deselected very often. In clementine before any click in playlist user should check that he will not click by already selected track.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From himynameiszacHandiamapirate on June 12, 2010 00:12:06_

Having shouted the merits of this player from the tops of towers, in particular due to the fact that it IS an incredibly competent tagging program, I must respectfully disagree with the idea of switching off the ability to edit. I have never, ever accidentally changed a tag in the manner spoken of, not even on a net/notebook. If a tag is accidentally clicked twice, the option to edit does come up, but clicking anywhere else on the screen will remove that tag's focus, without altering it. Surely the idea of clicking elsewhere (or just hitting escape to cancel an edit) is simple enough to circumvent idle retagging?

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From Nickollai on June 12, 2010 00:24:09_

I have never, ever accidentally changed a tag in the manner spoken of

Because you have different mouse settings:

If a tag is accidentally clicked twice, the option to edit does come up

My DE uses one click for opening files, not double. It is default in KDE4.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From himynameiszacHandiamapirate on June 12, 2010 01:16:48_

My DE uses one click for opening files, not double. It is default in KDE4.

I'm still not following. So... when you single-click a file in the playlist... what happens? If it starts a song playing, I could see that being a problem if hit by accident, but would that also set off an edit-able tag? And if so, doesn't what I just said about clicking away/hitting escape still apply? A click (single or double) shouldn't cause text to be altered, either way, unless other keys are also being pressed... in which case you hit escape and no harm has been done.

I dunno. Perhaps the undo/redo buttons could also be made to apply to metadata changes? That would help, if possible, without adding another option to the program...

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From 2sabio on June 12, 2010 02:17:08_

I will be second for "Clementine is player and not tag editor".
IMO "Edit track information" in context menu is perfectly enough for that matter.
And 'in-place' editing - leave it to EasyTAG, Picard and others.

Even though I might be accurate enough not to break any tags - it annoys me a lot that I should care about that and hit Esc now ant then.

I also don't see the reason for "Edit tag "Title" being in the context menu - what for? Full-featured tag editor menu item is just right above.

Besides, it messes up with F2 hotkey.
After (right-)clicking in Title column (and closing menu) F2 will edit Title field. After (right-)clicking in Album column F2 will edit Album field.
'Modal' hotkeys you cannot predict - are bad.

So I vote for tag editing in "Edit track information dialog" only.
And that menu item could have F2 shortcut!

P.S. I would suggest to layout that dialog fields a bit differently too, in a more natural and compact way, IMO:
Title
Artist
Album
Track | Year | Genre
Comment

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From stovocor on August 12, 2011 13:23:24_

I will be next for the "Clementine is not a tag editor" fraction.

A few minutes ago I wanted to delete a song from the playlist using the delete key. I did not recognize Clementine entered edit mode so I deleted the title information of the track. There was not even a possibility for undo. And it was not the first time this happened.

Basically I do not want to pay attention to any key I press inside Clementine because this could corrupt my data. So please disable tag editing in playlists and move it into a submenu entry.

[dowcet]

I just discovered that this was actually addressed! Tools > Preferences > Behavior > uncheck "Enable song metadata..." option.