Yate Changelog

What's new in Yate 6.19

Apr 8, 2024

Settings vs. Preferences - Oh My:
When macOS Ventura was released, Apple automatically renamed the application Preferences menu item to Settings. As most of our user's are current on macOS, we've decided to bite the bullet and make the few UI changes and thousands of help changes to use settings.
If you're on a version of macOS which predates Ventura, you will notice that the Yate>Preferences menu item will now be named Settings.
Almost all references to Preferences will become Settings for all users.
This is a summary of the UI changes:
Preference Lists are now called Application Lists which actually makes more sense as it differentiates the lists from text lists created in actions.
Preference Sets are now called Application Sets.
The Indirect Preference List named variable is now named Indirect Application List. Named variable Indirect Preference List usage will still work as it is redirected at runtime.
The Preference Management action statement has been renamed to Application Settings Management.
The Fill Lists action statement has been renamed to Fill Application Lists.
The Preference List Item Functions statement has been renamed Application List Functions.
The Modify Preference Settings statement has been renamed to Modify Application Settings.
The Preferences category in action editor windows has been renamed Settings.
etc., etc., etc.
Multi Field Editor:
The Multi Field Editor has a new set of functions grouped under Credits.
These functions only operate on the Involved People or Musician credits fields. The source field is specified in the panel. The list of fields is ignored and is disabled.
The functions operate on all selected files even if the fields have different values.
The following functions are provided: Remove credits; Remove people; Remove credits for people; Add credits; Combine credits; Rename Credit and Rename Person.
As the functions will often to be used to modify files which have mixed values, a preview button is available which displays the current values for Involved People and Musician Credits in the Log Viewer. The preview is persistent and will automatically update. For additional information do a Help>Search Yate Help and search for Involved People/Musician Credits Preview.
When the Multi Field Editor is launched from the Involved People or Musician Credits function button, the Credits function is automatically selected and the source field is automatically set.
There is a new 🌐 button at the bottom left of the window. Clicking on the button will run the Action Updater. Actions targeted to the Multi Field Editor will always be listed (even if installed). This is a quick means of checking for new Multi Field Editor specific actions.
There are new Multi Field Editor actions available which extend the Copy functionality to UDTIs and named Comments.
Main Window Function Buttons:
The same preview functionality as in the Multi Field Editor is also available from a Preview item on the function button menu for Involved People and Musician Credits.
Metadata Archives:
The Yate Export and Import functionality works on individual files. The new Metadata Archive functionality works with archive files (.yatearchive filename extension). The functionality is implemented via actions.
If you open a .yatearchive file in the Finder, Yate will display the contents of the archive in a database viewer.
The actions are invoked by UI based menu items on the File menu on an Import/Export submenu. The supplied actions can also be accessed via other actions and the batch processor.
Functionality which requires the actions will prompt for their installation. The Help menu also has a new item which will install and/or update the actions.
Additional information can be found by doing a Help>Search Yate Help and searching for Metadata Archives.
Settings:
The Settings - Database - Appearance panel has a new control to set a default font size to be used.
The Settings - Database - General panel has a new control to repair .tsv files, incorrectly modified by Excel, when opened. Depending on the content of a cell, Excel may enclose it in double quote characters and escape double quote characters as if they were in a CSV file.
The Settings - File List - UD text column mappings panel has been renamed UD column mappings. These columns can now be mapped to UDTIs or named main window filters.
Settings - MusicBrainz - General - Append secondary types when importing Release Type will be initially enabled on new installs.
File to Tag Templates:
You may have filenames which specify a disc-track sequence as ddtt or dtt where dd or d is a disc number and tt is a track number. The token named ❨{Disc}Track❩ can handle this sequence. If exactly three or four decimal digits are present, the extraction will be split directed to the Disc and Track fields. If not, ❨{Disc}Track❩ is treated as ❨Track❩ .
Calculated Main Window Columns:
All Yate main window columns represent values in a track at the time the column is displayed. It is now possible to configure a column to represent true or false based on a calculated value.
The Settings - File List - UD column mappings panel now allows you to map one of three columns to a named main window filter. The filters are defined and saved in the main window's filter panel (Edit>Find).
When mapped to a filter, the filter is run whenever a value is required to display. The column will display ✓ if the filter matches or empty if it does not.
One example would be constructing a filter to test if the Lyrics field is non empty. If the filter is named Has Lyrics, the column will have the same name and will display the appropriate values.
Search Yate Help:
You can now create bookmarks to topics on the search panel.
The Discogs Wizard:
Previously only tracks which were part of an index set could be split into separate tracks for importing.
Any track can now be split by editing the title using {space} - {space} as a marker for split locations.
The MusicBrainz Wizard:
The MusicBrainz Release Type could be configured to contain all secondary release types. This release allows you to automatically extract two types to tags.
There is now an import setting for Live. It will be imported to a normalized UDTI named Live or a custom field of the same name if it exists.
There is now an import setting for Single. It will be imported to a normalized UDTI named Single or a custom field of the same name if it exists.
The Custom Panel Editor:
When dragging panel items, the cursor will change when the Shift key is pressed to change the insertion from top-left to bottom-left.
When dragging panel items, the cursor will change to reflect an invalid drop.
Edit Panel Preset Buttons:
When dragging a preset button, the cursor will change to reflect an invalid drop.
The Action Manager:
Every action editor window displays an icon on the window's header to the left of the action name. Right clicking on the icon will display a menu containing each path element in the Action Manager to the displayed action. Clicking on a menu item will open the Action Manager and will position to the clicked component.
The Action manager's table column header now has a context menu to autosize the columns.
Regardless as to how you resize the columns, the name column will occupy all space in the window unused by columns.
Mac Security & Privacy Accessibility setting:
Yate needs accessibility privileges in order to perform various tasks.
The application will now prompt you when it starts if for any reason, it does not have accessibility privileges.
Databases and Restricting Actions:
The db+ and db- keys can be specified in an Action Runtime Setting set to restrict the usage of the associated action in database files.
You can now also specify a setting named track only. When set to 1 or true the action will only be accessible in track databases.
Player Interfaces:
If you are use the File>Open File Playing In interfaces, the bundle on the resources web page in the templates section was updated on 2024-02-23. Changes were made to the VLC interface.
Player Interface Files (.yatepi) can now be installed from the File>Open File Playing In menu; via File>Open; by opening in the Finder or by dragging the files to the main window's file list area.
Action Statement Changes:
The Access Discogs and Access MusicBrainz statements can specify the name of an import set at runtime.
The Artwork to Folder statement can now specify the delimiter to be used when appending items to the filename.
The Copy/Delete/Move Non Audio File statements support inclusion and exclusion lists. In previous versions, elements in the lists had leading and trailing spaces trimmed. ie. only contained spaces were significant. This was somewhat limiting. All new statements of these types now preserve all spaces. Statements produced by earlier versions are not modified and act as they did prior to this update. The statements are identified by a ,trim lists suffix in their description. There is also an Update button to update the statements if you wish. Note that if a list item is visually empty, it will not be processed.
While all Extract IDs from Prompt Container statement modes, establish set row references (see Prompt from Container below), there is a new mode which only establishes the references.
The File Path Manipulation statement's Resolve Path function now resolves aliases as well as symbolic links.
The Get Artwork from Cover Art Archive and Get Artwork from Discogs statements now set named variable Action Error Text. They both also will now suppress the display of error messages if named variable Suppress Error Display is true.
The Get Info statement's Application Settings mode can now return the value of the Abbreviate Path setting.
The Get Info and Modify Application Settings statements can now return and modify the values of Discogs and MusicBrainz Artwork-Import All Artwork settings.
The Involved People/Musician Credits Functions statement can now rename credits and people and can specify a post function sort to be performed.
The List Manipulate statement's Identify Duplicate function has new Ignore filename extensions and Ignore paths options.
The List Manipulate statement's Intersection function has a new Fuzzy option.
The List Numeric Functions statement has a new Unicode String function. The function builds a string from the numeric values in the list.
The List to CSV statement can now operate on track variables.
The Map Metadata to Files statement now has a method to match for an explicit filename as well as metadata. The statement can now also use Album metadata when mapping with constructed metadata.
The Open Database statement:
can open a database as readonly.
can open a database as transient. A transient database has its associated files deleted as soon as opened. The database is automatically readonly. See the documentation for additional information.
can now supply alternate text for the database viewer's help button.
The Open Database Information and Is Database Open statements have been updated to return information on readonly and transient databases.
All Prompt category statements which have four configurable buttons now support escape sequences in the button names. If a button name contains an escape sequence and it resolves to be visually empty, the button is not displayed.
Previously the Prompt statement had an ignore when batched option. You can now specify Always, Only if Interactive, Only if Batched and Only if Batched & Verbose.
The Prompt statement's DB Status mode is persistent in databases opened as transient. ie. even after the action terminates.
The Prompt from Container statement:
There a new key named clearStateIfDisabled. If true, whenever a state checkbox is disabled, state will be set to 0.
There are new keys named rowReference and rowFixedReference. The keys' data is treated as a name of a named variable. The named variable will be set to the directed path to the row. rowReference moves when a row is dragged. rowFixedReference does not move when a row is dragged. The named variables are set whenever a Prompt from Container or Extract IDs from Prompt Container statement starts executing.
The promptValues key can optionally be a string. The string is treated as the name of a named variable who's content is treated as a list of strings. The list is delimitd by the default list delimiter (~). The promptValues item will be converted to an array in the container.
The Read Text File and Write Text File statement's help has a link to a new topic on binary file processing.
The Search MusicBrainz statement now returns keys for Live and Single.
The Set Indirect statement is now list aware. You can specify more than one destination field by separating the field names by the Default List Delimiter (~), newline characters (n) or commas.
The Supported Fields statement has additional presets.
The Substring statement has a new Integer Value of Unicode Character which returns the integer value of a character at the specified index.
Escape sequences can be specified in the Test Run Context note field.
Resource Actions:
Head on over to the Yate resources page to see new and modified actions.
Bug Fixes:
Settings - Export Sets under certain circumstances was not retaining column attributes. Further, the change detection was not perfect.
It was possible to drag the icon on an action editor's window header. If you did so, an error would be displayed.
The Debug statement was not always displaying unique values for fields in the Content for all Tracks section.
The Debug statement's active files display was incorrect when files were in different folders.
The Contents of Folder statement was not clearing the destination named variable on an error. The action test state was set correctly.
The Prompt statement's DB Status mode only worked on grabbed databases.
Main window and database filters when testing for boolean true did only worked with numeric values. ie. a string of true did not match as true.
The main window Preview toolbar button was only enabled when one file was selected.
The text markup link form ?? was only working if an action was running.
The Access Discogs statement was using the MusicBrainz setting for import all as opposed to the Discogs setting when determining how many artwork items to preload. This may have caused extraneous images to be downloaded (but not imported) when not necessary.
The Modify Application Settings statement was not escaping a named variable inserted to the value field from a context menu.
If a row in a Prompt from Container rows list was not an object, a crash could occur. By the documentation a row which is not an object is a separator row.
If you created a database file with preserve plist; and the plist had the correct columns but a different encoding; the plist file would not have the new encoding. Any changes to the export set or database creation settings will now cause the preserve plist setting to fail.
The log produced by Actions>Apply Track Metadata Changes was not line terminating some of the possible error messages.
The main window File Representation function's display was not displaying the underlying atom for MPEG-4 items where relevant.
The Extract IDs from Prompt Container statement's Set Container modes was clearing named variables after performing the function.
The custom background colour for newly created databases was not being exported.

New in Yate 6.18 (Jan 4, 2024)

Full Artwork Panels:
The Artwork edit panel and Custom Edit panel Artwork Full items both display fields which allow you to view and edit information about the selected artwork item.
You can now toggle the display of these fields on and off. The status indicator for the selected artwork item now has a context menu (displayed on left or right click). Hiding the fields maximizes the display space but allows but you still retain control to display the information if desired.
The same menu allows you to hide/show the Initial Values and Editing State Values controls. When you hide the controls, they are both disabled (ie. unchecked).
The context menu for the large image in full artwork panel items has a new context menu item named View Options. The displayed submenu has the previous two options and an item to control how artwork actions are displayed on the context menu: inline or in an Artwork Actions submenu.
Main Window Artwork Displays:
All main window artwork displays, with the exception of those in the optional Artwork column, now have a Get Info context menu item. The displayed popup presents the properties of the associated image.
Double clicking a main window non full information artwork image previously always caused the Artwork edit panel to be selected. It will now select the Artwork edit panel if associated with a preset button; alternately a custom edit panel which contains a full artwork item if it is associated with an edit preset button; alternately the Artwork edit panel will be mapped to a preset button and displayed.
Artwork Normalization:
Previous to this release, normalization was always based on Albums and treated the Media (CD Label) picture type as being per disc.
You can now chose Album, Folder or All Files as the source and you can optionally disable the special handling of the Media (CD Label) picture type.
This additional functionality is available in the UI and on the Normalize Artwork action statement.
Edit Panel Preset Buttons:
Every edit panel preset button has two associated menus. The right click context menu is a menu with all functionality and panel selection options.
The menu displayed when the current preset button is clicked, makes it easy to select an edit panel which is not on a preset button. (It also will not display hidden custom panels). The edit panel previously associated with the preset button will now be displayed at the top of the menu. Effectively the displayed item is a back. This provides an easy means of toggling between two panels using the same preset button. Remember that this menu is only displayed when clicking on the selected preset button.
Custom Panel Editor:
Previous to this release, link items were assigned to the first empty edit preset button or the last preset button. These links were intended to duplicate the links available on built in edit panels. The links are only displayed if any of the associated tag items exist and if the tag item is valid for the current file selection. The Custom Panel Editor's per grid item context menu will now display these links at the top in a submenu named Conditional Links.
The Custom Panel Editor's per grid item context menu has a new submenu named Unconditional Links. This submenu has an item for each possible edit panel.
When an unconditional link is clicked, the associated panel is placed on the currently selected edit panel preset button. ie. the link is in place. Using the new back logic on an edit panel preset button's left click menu, you can easily go back to the panel containing the link.
The Custom Panel Editor's Import menu now directly supports the copying of built in edit panels. Previously templates for the built in edit panels had to be downloaded from the resources page.
Main Window Field Function Buttons:
For those fields which are associated with a list, the function button menu items to add and remove list items previously were only displayed if the field had a common value for all selected files. This limitation has been removed. All selected files will be processed correctly even if mixed is the displayed value.
When a Multi Field Editor action is run from a function button's Multi Field Editor Actions menu, named variable Run from Function Button will be set to the name of the field associated with the function button.
Menu Items:
On various menus on/off menu items are displayed.
Some menu items modify the displayed title where it makes sense.
In the past other menu items identified the on state by a checkmark. The issue with this method is that there is no visual identification for the off state. Remember when Macs displayed a check mark and an x?
In order to make the state more identifiable, on will be displayed as a green circle and off as a red circle.
Preferences:
Preferences - File List has a new setting named Abbreviate file and folder paths. This is a display only setting which will use ~ notation for paths relative to the home folder. The setting affects: the main window status bar; the most recent files menu; the File Browser's Pinned Folders menu. The setting is initially enabled.
Preferences - Actions - General has a new setting named Treat container object item names as case insensitive. More information can be found in the new help topic named Container Item Names.
When importing and exporting preferences, File Browser pinned folders can now be specified.
File Browser:
If a folder in the File Browser panel is clicked when displaying a context menu, you can now pin or unpin the clicked folder. Previously you could only pin or unpin the currently displayed folder.
Action Statement Changes:
All Container statements can now optionally treat object item names as case insensitive.
The File Browser statement now accepts paths which start with a ~ sequence.
The Get Info statement can return the value of the new Treat container object item names as case insensitive setting.
The Modify Preferences statement can override the new Treat container object item names as case insensitive setting.
The Normalize statement supports new settings allowing for source selection and the disabling of per disc handling.
The Prompt from Container statement supports a new abbreviatePath item. When true and the getFile, getNewFile or getFolder key is set, paths relative to the home folder will automatically be abbreviated. ie. ~ notation will be used.
The Search Discogs and Search MusicBrainz statements can now save the results to a container.
The Stop Action and Post Process statement now allows folders after an #open marker. Previously only paths to audio files were permitted.
Bug Fixes:
The Discogs wizard's view changes panel's help button was not working.
The Set Action Test State statement was not logging named variable usage.
When preserving view attributes of a database plist file which requires rewriting, the appearance setting was not preserved.
The Custom Panel Editor was not clearing the panel's name and tooltip when Clear was performed.
The Get Containing Playlist from Apple App statement was clearing the destination even if a track was not linked.
The Discogs/MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statements were not unescaping n sequences in Involved People and Musician Credits.

New in Yate 6.17.2.2 (Dec 12, 2023)

New in Yate 6.17.2.1 (Nov 28, 2023)

New in Yate 6.17.2 (Nov 12, 2023)

New in Yate 6.17.1 (Oct 16, 2023)

New in Yate 6.17 (Oct 8, 2023)

Apple Apps:
You can now add to an Apple App playlist from the UI. The menu item is on the Apple Apps menu, the main window's context menu and a track database's context menu (where appropriate).
You can now extract names of the playlists which contain a track from the UI. The information is stored to a UDTI named Apple App Containing Playlists. You can choose to extract qualified or unqualified names. The menu item is on the Apple Apps menu and the main window's context menu.
You can elect to have an Apple App playlist displayed whenever tracks are added to it. There is a new Preferences - Apple Apps - General setting to control the functionality. The setting is initially enabled. Note that the setting is ignored if the Apple App is minimized or if you are batch processing.
Finder Tags:
The Preferences - General panel now has a button named Finder Tags. A panel is displayed which allows you to configure the automatic loading and saving of Finder tags.
The Finder Tags button is also present on the Preferences - Audio - Common panel, as the settings can cause file tags to be modified.
The Finder's tags are retained in a custom field named Finder Tags. The custom field can be created on the configuration panel.
You can optionally sort the tags before automatically saving.
A tag can be added automatically when saving a track that is loved.
A tag can be added automatically when saving a track that is disliked.
The loved and disliked settings ensure the presense of the appropriate tags and the removal of those that are inappropriate. Finder tags other than those named in the loved and disliked settings are not modified.
ReplayGain / Sound Check:
The ReplayGain and Sound Check settings are now in a new preference section named ReplayGain. It will initially appear at the botton of the list. Remember that preference sections can be dragged to different locations and that the list can be sorted.
The new ReplayGain section has additional settings used when creating Sound Check data. You can now select to use Album as opposed to Track replay gain values when computing the Sound Check data. You can also elect to ignore the peak value when computing the Sound Check data.
Other Preferences Changes:
Remove Zero Length Chunks (aiff only) has been moved from Preferences - Audio - Common to Preferences - Audio - ID3.
Export sets have a new Attrs column used to present a summary of the display attributes that you have set for the column. These attributes include alignment postion, crop position and the choice of a proportional font (default) or a monospace font. To edit the value, select a row and click in the column. A menu will be displayed with the configuration choices.
Export sets have a new special item named Extended Credits. The boolean column displays true if a track has a non empty Involved People or non empty Musician Credits field. Album databases accumulate the value as any other boolean field.
Export set OOB and Variable items can have a menu specified in the Qualifier column. You can now edit these menus in a multi line panel by hitting the Q button and selecting Edit Menu.
Preferences - Lists - Mappings now has an Always Append column. When enabled list items will always be appended. By default, list items are only appended if a field contains a multi value delimiter (;;;) or the Option key is pressed.
Database Viewers:
The table header's context menu has a new submenu called Configure Display Attributes. Right click on a column header and the attribute settings for the column will be displayed on the submenu. You can change the alignment postion, crop position and the choice of a proportional font (default) or a monospace font.
Album databases will now display ??? for boolean columns where the values differ.
The File Browser:
If an attempt to trash a file fails, you are given the choice of deleting the file.
Note that as when a file is deleted it in the File Browser, it will not be removed from the main window's file list. The loaded file's metadata will still be available but the file cannot be saved.
Edit Panels:
Most multi-item edit panels (All Tags, UD Text, UD URLS, etc.) now have a Show in Popup context menu item.
Create Move Action Wizard:
The produced action now supports path validation and pre-move error detection.
The produced action can now identify tracks in the same initial folder which would end up in different destination folders.
Selecting the produced action in the Action Manager and hitting the spacebar will display the action's configuration.
Action Statement Changes:
New statement Extract IDs from Prompt from Container. This statement allows you to get and set content from a Prompt from Container object while not displaying the panel. This can be useful when a panel need not be displayed but you want consistant or empty named variables whether the panel is displayed or not.
The Get Info statement:
Can now return a list of actions ... except those which are hidden.
Can now return an exact image of the Action Manager's display in a container in a variety of forms. The produced container can be used wherever container menus are valid.
The statement can now be used to get the value of various preference settings.
Can now return a list of the available system sounds.
The Finder Tags statement can now specify a delimiter as opposed to the previous hard coded delimiter of n. In order not to break existing actions, the default is n.
The Play System Sound statement can now use the built in system sound names when Runtime is specified.
The Preference List Item Functions statement can now clear individual lists, a runtime specified list and all lists.
The Preferences statement:
Can override the various Preferences - General - Automatically Process Finder tags settings.
The clear lists functions have been moved to the Preference List Item Functions statement. Existing statements have been modified.
The statement now only performs transient functions on the preferences.
The statement has been renamed Modify Preferences
The Prompt from Container statement:
Row based menus can now have submenus.
New key named multiLine. Has values which display an icon to enable a muli line editor. Inline editing can optionally be disabled. A second key multiLineSeq can be used to control what sequence displays as a neline character.
New key named rowDisabled which disables a row without testing criteria.
Container based menus can now specify criteria on the disabled and hidden keys. This enables the creation of menus which change while the panel is displayed.
Criteria items can now be based on the panel's optional checkbox as well as rows with anchors.
By default, Prompt from Container statements ignore row validation when the value is read only. The new text formatting code ! implies that validation is to occur even if the value is read only.
Row validation can now ignored if a value is empty and the row has a placeholder. The is controlled by the new ~ text formatting code.
autoSaveRowOnContinue, autoSaveRowOnExit and the new onlyExtractIDValues key support the saving of placeholders for empty value fields .
When autoSetRow is 1, ie. loading from runtime settings; and the mapped runtime setting set is empty or does not exist; default state and value settings can be specified in stateInit and valueInit.
Container based menus on panel buttons or in Prompt from Container statements:
Can now display icons.
Now support disabled.
The JSON multi line text editor's function button can now be used to create container menus.
The Copy Files, Rename Files, and Move statements:
Now have the ability to save a runtime preview to a track variable. This allows you to see the estimated resultant file paths. It can also identify certain potential errors and can also be used to verify that destination paths are consistent across all folders.
Now support escape sequences in all text fields.
The Sound Check statement now supports the selection of ReplayGain Track or Album metadata as the source and the option to ignore peak.
Deprecations:
The ?fb (File Browser Display Status), escape sequence. The functionality is now available in the Get Info statement.
The ?m3t (m3u File Encoding), escape sequence. The functionality is now available in the Get Info statement.
The ?om (Open Mode), escape sequence. The functionality is now available in the Get Info statement.
Bug Fixes:
All UDTIs not normalized by Yate were appearing as upper case in APE and WavPack files. This was a display only issue.
Various issues with keyboard shortcuts to non main window functions were corrected.
The Get Info action statement had a few UI issues.
If a rename template had advanced settings to compress spaces (but not underscores) it was possible that the first underscore was replaced by a space.
The action menu popup for the Stop Action and Run Batch Processor statement was not displaying hidden actions.
On some OS versions the Comments field on the Info editing panel was skipped when tabbing.
If an action was automatically run whenever files are saved and databases were configured to be automatically updated when saving files, the database update was not applied.
The Debug statement could omit the display of field data.
Applying database values to loaded files could have resulted in invalid 'red' change indicators.
A number of versions back, a change was inadvertently made such that diacritic characters were not being ignored when adding items to preference lists. This is technically a bug. There is a new resources page action named Rebuild Preference Lists. This action will rebuild all preference lists to correct any potential issues. The action is also useful whenever you make changes to the Natural Sort Exception Set.
Various issues with the Prompt from Container statement's selectOne key were fixed.
The Find panel in action editor windows was not showing Debug if statements were marked as debug but no Debug statements were present.
Sonoma only: ... and only some Macs. On our Mac Studio we saw the FileBrowser having a messed up display after opening a folder. Clicking in the File Browser fixed the issue. We could not reproduce the issue on any other Macs running Sonoma.
... and last but not least, the previous release was built with the latest Sonoma SDK. This caused a few action statements to have words cropped in their configuration panel. Hopefully we found them all.

New in Yate 6.16.2.2 (Sep 27, 2023)

New in Yate 6.16.2.1 (Aug 21, 2023)

New in Yate 6.16.2 (Aug 7, 2023)

Preference File Backups:
The backup files previously stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Yate have been moved to ~/Library/Application Support/Yate/Backups. This is done once when this version is first started. While unlikely, it is possible that you will see a spinning ball at this time.
Prior to this version, when you updated the application a previous backup was renamed to Pre version Backup. This is done, so that the backup is retained outside the normal cycling of automatically generated backups.
The choice of the name meant that a list of all backup files did not sort into a single combined representation.
These version change backups now rename a backup file by appending Pre version to the affected backup file's name. This solves the sort issue.
These new version backups can now be directly imported as zip files. The previous variants had to be unzipped first.
Show Folder in File Browser:
All main window and database Show Folder in File Browser menu items, now display the File Browser if it is hidden.
Tag Mappings:
Certain players and other taggers may use an alternate mapping for the Set Subtitle field.
Preferences - Audio - MPEG4 now allows you change the default of SET SUBTITLE to DISCSUBTITLE. You can also specify that both mappings are to be read.
If you want to change the mapping for FLAC/Ogg files, simply add DISCSUBTITLE as a mapping for Set Subtitle in Preferences - FLAC/Ogg Mappings. You can set the write mapping by using the 1 button. Note that new installs will read both SET SUBTITLE and DISCSUBTITLE. The initial write mapping will be SET SUBTITLE.
If you want to change the mapping for APE files, simply add DiscSubtitle as a mapping for Set Subtitle in Preferences - APE Mappings. You can set the write mapping by using the 1 button. Note that new installs will read both SET SUBTITLE and DiscSubtitle. The initial write mapping will be SET SUBTITLE.
Crop/Scale/Square Artwork Panel:
When squaring the canvas you can now choose a custom colour for the fill function.
Action Changes:
The Crop Artwork statement can now also crop to square with a variety of placement options.
The Delete Files and Folders and Trash Files and Folders statements now support input in a multi line editor.
The Get Info statement has a new List of Finder Colour Tags function. The ?ft escape sequence is now deprecated.
The Get Info statement has a new List of File Browser Pinned Folders function.
The Manipulate Artwork statement can now specify a fill colour at runtime to use while squaring artwork.
The Prompt from Container statement now supports the T, S and W post processing codes previously only supported by the Prompt for Text statement.
New action statement named File Browser which can:
pin folders
unpin folders
force the File Browser to be displayed
force the File Browser to be displayed with a particular folder.
hide the File Browser.
Escape Sequences:
There is a new escape sequence ?fb which lets you determine if the File Browser is currently displayed. It inserts 1 for displayed, otherwise 0.
There is a new escape sequence ?fa which inserts 1 if the fanart.tv API key has been set, otherwise 0.
Resource Actions:
There are new actions to manage preference backups and the File Browser's pinned folders.
Bug Fixes:
Patched a few alignment issues when inserting Prompt from Container items in the multi line editor.
When preloading Discogs releases, if a release returned as a search result did not exist, the posting of error messages could loop, requiring a force quit.
The Show in AppleApp Playlist functionality was creating the Yate-Work playlist but it was not automatically displayed.

New in Yate 6.16.1 (Jul 17, 2023)

Main Window Function Buttons:
The Multi Field Editor Actions submenu items now support the display of the Edit/Locate/Run popup menu.
It seems as if function buttons can display a number of unwanted actions if you have many actions associated with the Multi Field Editor. You can now restrict the menu to display only those actions which explicitly support the associated field, as opposed to all actions valid for the field. The function button menu has a new Only Show Explicitly Supported Actions / Show All Actions menu item.
The Action Manager:
The search mechanism has been updated so that you can search any column in the Action Manager. There is a new column selector and the retained searches update the column selector when required.
The navigation control in the search bar has a new ⬇︎ button which selects all matches for the displayed search test.
Database Viewers:
The context menu now has an Open With menu item. Previously you had to do a File>Open With.
The View Options panel is now a modal window. This is so that you can see the proper effect of changing the background colour.
Action Changes:
The Multi Item Field List Enumerator statement can now save the list to a container. This avoids the issue with a single list item which is empty.
When editing JSON for the Prompt from Container statement in a multi line editor, there is a new control which displays a menu allowing you to insert all valid object items.
The Prompt from Container statement can now automatically load and save values to action runtime settings or named variables. See the Auto Loading and Saving topic in the statement's documentation for additional information.
Bug Fixes:
When a File>Open panel is displayed, you can no longer drag files into the main window.
Forced preference resets optionally called when an application preference level mismatch was found, did not work on Ventura. All preference resets are now handled by calling out to an OS external command.
Fixed an issue where the CCE opened with only one or no rows displayed. This is a result of having fixed the font sizing in v6.16. We can only make this issue happen on the Sonoma beta ... but evidently it could happen on earlier OS versions as well.

New in Yate 6.16 (Jul 2, 2023)

Renaming and Moving Files:
If any advanced setting is enabled, the default Preferences - Rename - Settings - Space handling is not performed.
Default values can be established for the advanced settings.
The Create Move Action Wizard now supports the overriding of the default exception Name, general exceptions and replacement sets.
The Create Move Action Wizard now allows you to defer the specification of a base path until the action is run.
Rename templates now have an advanced settings panel.
These settings enable:
The removal of characters not permitted by Windows.
The ability to trim leading spaces and underscores.
The ability to trim trailing spaces, underscores and periods.
The ability to compress sequences of multiple spaces and/or underscores to a single space or underscore.
The ability to specify that rename transformations should be applied at the start of an IfDup sequence.
Settings can be saved as default values for new rename templates.
Main Window Edit Panels:
The All Tags and UD Text edit panels can display items with a JSON value in the Container Viewer.
Main Window Filters:
When filtering on named UDTIs, UD URLs or Comments, the name match is now case insensitive. This allows for common names written to audio files with different case requirements.
If Statements:
One of the most confusing things related to the parallelism of Yate actions is that the if-else-endif construct often does not reflect the ability to isolate a single condition across files.
File availability statements can be used in conjunction with comparisons which return results to track variables. However, these statements are confusing to many users and require the manual resetting of the available files.
There is a new variant of the if-else-endif construct in this release. You can continue to test the action test state or you can now test a track variable.
The new track variable form allows for the execution of the if and else components based on a track variable being true or false and automatically manipulates and restores the set of available files.
See the if statement documentation for additional information.
Setting the Action Test State When Exiting an Action:
The Break, Exit, Exit Grouped, Exit Repeat, Next File and Restart Repeat Forever statements can optionally set the action test state to true, false or toggled, if the statement is executed always or the specified condition is met.
Other Action Statement Changes:
The deprecated statements: Linked to Apple App Test, Modified Test, Set Variable to Action Test State and Test Property have been removed. Current uses of the statements have been replaced with appropriate alternatives.
The Add Item to Query Database no longer forces you to enter a meaningless key for keyless databases.
The Copy Metadata Between Files statement now supports the use of the UI based settings defined in the Copy Metadata configuration.
The UI based Copy Metadata functionality and the Copy Metadata Between Files and Transfer Metadata statements can now exclude User Defined URLs and named Comments as well as User Defined Text Items.
The Date Functions statement has been enhanced to ease the ability to scan dates where the formatting is not known:
With the exception of the Y M D format, day components can be followed by a suffix which is appropriate for the number. ie. st, nd, rd, th.
Abbreviated symbolic months can be followed by a period. eg. February, Feb and Feb. are all valid.
The supplied date format will be ignored if an unambiguous date of a different format is encountered. For example: Jan. 10, 2021 and 31-01-2000 will be parsed correctly for all date formats.
The Extract Bracketed Text statement now has a balanced setting which forces balanced sequences of bracket delimiters.
The Extract Data from Container statement's use of the secondary list delimiter (:) can be overridden by placing a non empty value in named variable Container Secondary Delimiter.
The Format Numeric statement has a new As Decimal Number mode. Useful when a non integer representation of a number is required for use in an expression.
The List Item at Index/Sublist statement can now force per file processing when the source list is in a named variable and the destination is a track variable.
The Open URL statement can now do a POST, PUT and DELETE.
The Open URL statement can now generate fixed callback (redirect) URIs.
The Prompt from Container statement has a new showSpaces key which causes a row's Value column to display centered dots for spaces.
The Prompt for Text statement has a new means of identifying which menu item was hit when the text field is read only.
The Re-Encode statement can now encode and decode Base64.
The Set Container Object Item statement has been renamed to Set Container Item. The statement can now set array items and additionally can insert array items.
New action statement named Show / Hide Columns.
The Test File Type statement previously modified the action test state based on any file matching the specified types. You can now also select that all files must match and that no file must match.
The Test Run Context statement has a new mode which always fails. It's a quick way to terminate an action and identify a location in it.
The User Defined Fields statement can now specify that the specified name field is not to be automatically trimmed.
The Zip/Unzip statement can now zip a single file.
Escape Sequences:
The ?ps sequence will return the text last issued by a Prompt Status statement.
Resource Updates:
The Yate and the P Word and Renaming and Restructuring Files and Folders documents have been updated.
The Yate and the P Word Snippets download has been updated.
Many other resource actions have been updated and a few interesting new ones have been provided.
Bug Fixes:
The token editor was not always displaying centered dots for spaces unless it was formatted or reloaded.
The token editor was not restoring spaces for centered dots when copying or cutting text.
The Compare Date statement's falls in and not falls in functions did not always return accurate results. As the dates being compared can be placed in any order, the modes test for overlap.
The Compare Numeric statement's text field was not always displayed when not comparing against a track variable. This only occurred if the statement was clicked on after already created.
The Open URL statement's callback mechanism expected a ? immediately after the URI. It will now also accept /?
The Prompt from Container statement was using the Columns setting for popupValues if a row had an empty array as the value. The Columns setting should only be used if popupValues does not exist in the row.
The main window filter mechanism was not selecting the appropriate files when there were no matches made.
Changing the font size was not working in the Combined Credits Editor.
A few escape sequences were not properly hooked into the action editor's context menu Escape Sequence Description item.
The context menu for the Artwork editing panel table had an extraneous menu item named Artwork Actions.

New in Yate 6.15.0.1 (Apr 30, 2023)

New in Yate 6.15 (Apr 21, 2023)

Lyrics:
Unfortunately, our latest lyrics provider has decided to cancel the service.
If you have subscribed to the API, you should cancel your subscription.
As we have no alternate provider at this point in time, all functionality related to the downloading of lyrics has been removed.
If possible, support will be provided via actions in the future. Check the web resources page under Actions.
Rename Templates:
The Category token added in v6.14 was not available as an IfExists and IfExists+ token.
Cleaned up a number of the token submenus.
Properties which do not have a related value have been removed from the Properties submenu. For example Has Video does not have a meaningful value. Older templates which might have contained the removed tokens will still work and display correctly.
The IfExists and IfExists+ submenus now only supports items which have a value to insert. For example Has Video is no longer available as it is intended to be used as a boolean test. Older templates which might have contained the removed tokens will still work and display correctly.
Both the IfExists and IfExists+ submenus no longer list properties which always exist. Older templates which might have contained the removed tokens will still work and display correctly.
The IsTrue and IsFalse menus now allow you to test boolean properties such as Has Video and test for particular audio types.
There is a new Properties token named Sample Rate kHz. As an example, for a sample rate of 44100, Sample Rate will insert 44100 while Sample Rate kHz will insert 44.1.
Create Move Action Wizard:
At times it is advantageous to move files as opposed to renaming them. Renaming always preserves the original folder structure and simply changes names. Regardless as to how many files are in a renamed folder, they always remain together. If the rename metadata differs on audio files in the same folder, the results may be unpredictable. Moves, however, can put different files in different folders, creating the folders if required.
While rename templates can be directly accessed in the UI, moves can only be performed by an action. The Create Move Action Wizard is accessed by selecting a single rename template in Preferences - Rename and then hitting the blue action button. The wizard steps you through a number of questions. Based on your answers a specific move action will be created. The action is placed on the File>Rename>Actions menu making it as easy to access as any rename template.
The wizard can also be started from the Actions menu.
Move information can be found by doing a Yate>Search Yate Help for the Create Move Action Wizard topic.
Artwork Panel Actions:
Ever wanted a quick way to save an artwork item to back.jpg or cover.jpg? Artwork Panel actions let you do so.
Actions can now be marked in the Action Manager as being associated with artwork panels.
These associated actions are run from an artwork item's context menu.
The actions are only available to be executed when a single artwork item is selected or displayed.
Samples are provided on the resources web page.
Action Statement Changes:
The Create M3U statement now standardizes the supplied folder path so that the ability to write relative paths can handle folder specifications with relative references.
The Re-Encode statement has a new function named Remove HTML & Sequences. All & sequences are replaced by the associated character values.
The Re-Encode statement has a new function named Add HTML & Sequences. Ampersand, less than, greater than, double and single quote are replaced with & sequences.
There is a new statement named Refresh Files. Only files which have been externally modified will be refreshed.
The Artwork to Folder statement can now implicitly specify a .jpg or .png conversion.
The Artwork to Folder, Crop Artwork, Indexed Artwork and Manipulate Artwork statements support interaction with a selected artwork item.
Escape Sequence Changes:
There is a new escape sequence ci. All following UDTI escape sequences ^ and * treat the UDTI names as case insensitive.
There is a new escape sequence cs. All following UDTI escape sequences ^ and * treat the UDTI names as case sensitive. This is the default.
There is a new escape sequence sa which is used to detect the availability of a selected artwork item.
The is a new escape sequence yc. Many actions require a stub audio file for various reasons. Yate itself requires these files and generates them when required. This sequence generates a stub file and inserts the full path to the file. The file is only generated if required (ie. if it does not already exist). The file can be moved, manipulated or deleted. The file is created at ~/Documents/Yate/Yate clip.mp3.
File Properties:
There is a new property named Is Externally Modified.
Yate Transformations:
You can now access the Transformations menu when inline editing fields in the main window's file list editor.
You can do the same while inline editing a database viewer cell.
List Editing:
You can now edit a preference list via the function button to the left of a main window control associated with a list. This is the same as opening Preferences; selecting Lists and navigating to the appropriate list.
Markup Sequences:
The new markup sequence will display subscript text.
The new markup sequence will display superscript text.
Mac Keyboard Substitutions:
There's a new Configure Substitutions button in Preferences - General - Basic.
You can use the displayed panel to override Mac text substitutions consistently across all Yate text fields.
You can force specific settings for: Smart Copy/Paste, Smart Quotes, Smart Dashes and Text Replacement.
You can also disable the auto insertion of a period after typing two spaces.
Bug Fixes:
The Move and Move non Audio statements' delete empty parent folder could fail to delete the empty parent folder.
The Actions by Icons and Actions by Groupings uncategorized submenus were not being sorted.
The Old Mac version had many multi line text fields where vertical scroll bars were always displayed.
Some markup sequences were missing from the markup sequence context menu.

New in Yate 6.14 (Mar 21, 2023)

Preference Changes:
AIFF files consist of a sequence of chunks. It is perfectly valid to have a chunk size of zero. However the Music application seems to stop reading data from files when a zero length chunk is encountered. This can potentially lead to a file being tagged but the metadata will not appear in the Music application. The Preferences - Audio - Common - Remove zero length chunks (AIFF only) setting will remove these items whenever a file is written.
If for any reason you have a workflow where you do not want to link files dragged into Yate from an Apple app, you can do so by setting the Preferences - Apple Apps - General - Do not link when dragging from an Apple app option. When the option is enabled, dragging from an Apple app is treated the same as when dragging from the Finder. Note that when the option is set, no auto importing will occur.
Yate v6.13.2 introduced the ability to display a submenu when selecting an action from a menu. The submenu allows you to edit, locate or run the selected action. The submenu was displayed if the Option key was depressed. It seems as if this interfered with some users' keyboard shortcuts. Preferences - General - Advanced has a new setting which allows you to specify any modifier sequence to display the submenu.
In the Discogs and MusicBrainz preference panels you can specify a track database. If you enable Use track database and leave the path empty, the default track database specified in Preferences - Database will be used.
All settings which are related to the editing state have been moved to a new preference section named Editing State. If this was not done the settings would have been on three different panels.
The File List Preserve the Editing state setting has been renamed to Update the Editing state when selecting files. This flips the previous value but retains the intent. New installs have the setting disabled as changing the editing state on selection changes, limits some reversion functionality.
There is a new setting to automatically copy the initial state to the editing state immediately before a file is saved. This gives you a recoverable set of values. You can select to never do it; do it on the first save; or on all saves.
The filename field in the M3U preference panel can now contain escape sequences to insert metadata. These sequences are available on the field's context menu. Note that the escape sequences are only evaluated once per folder.
It can be difficult to determine if a filename or path component is too long for an underlying filesystem. The new Preferences - Rename - Settings - Automatically truncate path components setting attempts to remove some of the burden. When set, filenames and path components will be reduced to fit within 255 bytes based on the system's representation. Note that due to encodings, a truncated component may be less than 255 characters. Bytes were chosen as a unit as APFS is based on UTF8 characters, HFS+ is based on UTF16 characters, etc. The setting errs on the side of caution. It is possible that extra characters can be manually entered when editing a path component in the Finder. This setting is also used by the following action statements:
Copy Files
Create Symbolic Links
Export Metadata
Import Metadata
Import Metadata from Audio File
Move
Rename Templates:
You can now include a Category token in a rename template which maps to the field of the same name.
The IfLength and Truncate tokens now always work on a number of characters as opposed to UTF16 units. In order not to break existing templates, negative lengths will be negated. eg. a length of -5 will be treated as if it was 5.
The Editing State:
The editing state is now always preserved when saving or refreshing a file. This used to depend on the value of the now renamed Preferences - File List - Preserve Editing state setting.
Action Statement Changes:
The Preferences statement can override the new Automatically truncate path components setting.
The Preferences statement can override the new Copy the Initial state to the Editing state when saving files setting.
The Truncate statement now always works on a number of characters as opposed to UTF16 units. In order not to break existing actions, negative lengths will be negated. eg. a length of -5 will be treated as if it was 5.
There is a new Exchange Initial and Editing States statement.
There is a new Copy Initial State to Editing State statement.
Debugging:
The runtime debug configuration panel has a new Auto display Debug statement setting. When enabled, an action editor window containing the calling Debug statement will be opened and the Debug statement will be selected, whenever the debug panel is opened.
Menu Standardization:
The following menus (and their possible main window context menu analogs) now support a modifier key sequence to open a function submenu.
Actions>User Defined
Actions>Actions by Icon
Actions>Actions by Grouping
File>Rename>Actions
Edit>File to Tag>Actions
Artwork>Search for Artwork>Actions
Artwork>Search for Artwork>User Defined
Artwork>Search for Artwork>Default Search
database context menu>Run Action
The initial modifier sequence is the Option key which was used for the action submenus introduced in v6.13.2. The sequence can be configured via Preferences - General - Advanced - Modifiers to display function submenus.
The function submenu can contain items to edit the item in a preference template editor or an action editor window; locate an item Preferences or in the Action Manager; set or clear a default artwork search template; apply a template or run an action.
Any other previous modifier sequences to perform the same functions are no longer used.
Other Menu Changes:
The Edit menu has new Exchange Initial and Current States and Copy Initial State to Editing State menu items.
MusicBrainz:
The MusicBrainz Release Type data was constructed using a slash (/) as a delimiter to separate multiple types with the primary always being first. A comma (,) will now be used as the delimiter as there is at least one secondary type which contains a slash (/).
Bug Fixes:
The Discogs and MusicBrains option named Auto add files had a potential vulnerability. If insufficient files in an album were selected, the algorithm would automatically load files in the same album. However, depending on the order of events, additional files in the same folder could be loaded even if there were now sufficient files.
The Create M3U action statement's filename field was only being unescaped once.
The Copy Non Audio Files statement's inclusion field was not linked correctly causing values to be lost when an action was saved and reloaded.
Fixed a potential crash when a remote host could not be contacted.

New in Yate 6.13.2.2 (Mar 5, 2023)

New in Yate 6.13.2.1 (Feb 24, 2023)

New in Yate 6.13.2 (Feb 23, 2023)

Preference Changes:
The Force lowercase filename extensions setting has been moved from General to Rename.
The Retina determination setting has been moved from Artwork to General - Advanced.
The Unique Value Generation Mode has been moved from Actions to General - Advanced.
The Actions, Artwork, Databases, Lyrics and Rename panels have been divided into a number of tabs to make it easier to see the settings.
Various other cosmetic changes.
The Main Window Toolbar:
The Apple toolbar mechanism has a variety of issues across our nine supported versions of macOS.
We've made a number of changes which hopefully now gives us a consistant implementation. Note that large toolbar icons are still not supported on Ventura.
The Action Manager:
The Action Manager has a new Grouping column. Groupings can now be assigned to actions via clicking in the Grouping column of a selected action or via the Set Grouping context menu item.
There is a new context menu item named Edit Runtime Settings. It allows you to edit or create a runtime settings set with the same name as the selected item.
Accessing Actions from Menus:
Previously the Actions>User Defined menu was the only means of running an action from a menu.
There is now an Actions>Actions by Icon menu which displays a menu of icon items and the actions associated with them as submenus. Submenus are sorted by priority and name.
There is now an Actions>Actions by Grouping menu which displays a menu of grouping items and the actions associated with them as submenus. Submenus are sorted by priority and name.
Typically when an action is selected on any of these menus, it is run. If the Option key is held when an action is selected, a popup menu will be displayed. The popup menu allows you to select to edit the action; locate the action in the Action Manager or run the action.
The menus are also available on the main window's context menu and as toolbar buttons.
For more information do a Help>Search Yate Help for the Accessing Actions from a Menu topic.
Importing and Exporting Actions:
When exporting actions from the Action Manager, you can now specify that you do not want an action's grouping, icon or priority metadata to be exported.
When actions are imported manually (as Overwrite) or via the Action Updater, existing Priority and Grouping metadata and icons will be retained. Only values of no priority and no grouping or default icon will be overwritten.
Lyrics:
It appears that Happi.dev has gone the way of APISEEDS.
The lyrics functionality is now provided by a new service. Some steps must be taken to provide access as in both previous implementations. View the help for Preferences - Lyrics which provides links to the setup/configuration procedure.
The Combined Credits Editor:
The list of credits has been updated based on the latest documented credits lists from Discogs, MusicBrainz and Roon.
AcousticBrainz:
In 2022 AcousticBrainz stopped collecting data. As the API is still supported, the functionality has not yet been removed. However, all AcousticBrainz functionality is now deprecated.
Action Statements:
In order to describe some previously undocumented functionality the Artwork to Folder Icon statement has been renamed Artwork to Icon.
For the same reason the Remove Folder Icon statement has been renamed Remove Icon.
Bug Fixes:
Yate >Import Built In Items>Import Actions was importing built in genres.
Fixed the cropped Current column header in the File List - Toolbar Action Icons panel.
It seems as if the Import Metadata and Export Metadata toolbar icons were swapped ... for about ten years.
The Chapter Editor was not working with certain encodings.
The Chapter Editor was sometimes displaying centered dots for spaces when first opened, even if the option was not enabled.
The following action statements at times showed a bogus disclosure button: Open URL, Is Custom Field Defined, Load Artwork Viewer, Pause, Is Action Defined, Lookup Credit.
The Call Applescript statement was reporting incorrect escaping of some fields when they were correct.
The Prompt from Container statement was not registering its named variable usage.

New in Yate 6.13.1 (Jan 10, 2023)

New in Yate 6.13.0.1 (Jan 5, 2023)

New in Yate 6.13 (Jan 3, 2023)

Windows with Custom Coloured Backgrounds:
The main window and database windows support custom coloured backgrounds.
Due to some changes required for Ventura, these colours are now stored in a different manner. Depending on when you last set the background colour, you may lose it. If this is the case you will have to reset the colour.
Action Editor Windows:
You can now quickly search for particular statement types by right clicking on a statement in the Functions column. There are Find Next, Find Previous and Find All menu items.
Preferences - Database:
You can now specify a default Album database.
Menu Changes:
File>Database:
There is a new Find in Default Track Database menu item. The function will open the default track database, if there is one. It will then locate the first selected track in the database. Unlike the Find in Database command, only the default Track database is positioned.
There is a new Find in Default Album Database menu item. The function will open the default album database, if there is one. It will then locate the first selected track in the database. Unlike the Find in Database command, only the default Album database is positioned.
These two new menu items are also available on the main window's context menu.
Yate>Reset Built in Items:
Reset functions on the menu used to be changed from Reset to Import by holding down the Option key. This methodology has been removed. There is now a Yate>Import Built in Items menu.
The Reset Built in Items menu restores the item type to its content when Yate was first installed. ie. the built in items are restored and all others are removed.
The Import Built in Items menu imports the built in items. No items are removed. For most item types, you will be asked to overwrite or create copies of existing items.
Field Changes:
The Seller field is now capable of being associated with a preference list.
Main Window:
The main window's default sort now treats the Album field as case insensitive as opposed to as in the Finder. This results in a better grouping when the Album values only differ in alphabetic case.
When dragging files to the dock icon, or doing a Finder>Open With and there is a default action; only the new files are selected when the action is run.
The Discogs and MusicBrainz Wizards:
The search panels now group albums and artists as case insensitive.
Droplets:
Due to Gatekeeper becoming stricter yet again on Ventura, droplets did not work.
This has been fixed in a manner which avoids any Gatekeeper issues.
Droplets can no longer be renamed as the name provides access to the configuration.
The Direct prefix is no longer applied to the name of droplets which directly open Yate without loading files. These droplets now have a different icon.
Existing droplets on an OS version prior to Ventura, will continue to work.
Opening files by URLS:
There are now URL types to have Yate preview a file or to have it forward a file to a player via the Open With mechanism.
Debugging Actions:
The Debug statement can now display information on open databases, defined containers and initial files.
The Debug statement can now conditionally be displayed based on the action test state or the new action debug state being true or false.
The action debug state offers a means of having a test condition which does not require the test state to be modified.
The value of the debug action state can be set to true or false when closing a debug panel at runtime.
The Debug statement can be used to set or clear the action debug state as opposed to displaying the debug panel.
Compare Date, Compare Numeric and Compare Text statements can be configured to modify the action debug state as opposed to the action test state. This enables the configuration of complex scenarios controlling the conditional display of a debug panel.
Additional information can be found by doing a Help>Search Yate Help and entering Debugging Actions.
Escape Sequences:
There are lots of Yate escape sequences. While there are context menus to insert the various sequences, it may be difficult to remember at some point what a displayed sequence is. If a field's context menu has an Escape Sequence Description... item, you can do the following. Position the insertion point in the text field then select Escape Sequence Description... from the context menu. A summary of the first escape sequence which is at or after the insertion point will be displayed.
The ?ad escape sequence will return the path to the default album database.
The ?vn escape sequence will insert the character Yate uses to display a visual representation of a newline character.
The ?vt escape sequence will insert the character Yate uses to display a visual representation of a tab character.
The action debug state can be examined programmatically via the ?ds escape sequence.
Action Statement Changes:
Access Query Database statement functions Save Row to Named Variables With Prefix and Set Row from Named Variables With Prefix, now allow the prefix to be omitted.
The Date Functions statement now accepts symbolic months when parsing a date. Abbreviations and full months are supported. The statement also has new functions to convert a number of ms to a duration and vice versa.
The Enumerate Fields, Roles and Extensions statement and the Extract Preference Set statement have been merged into a new statement named Get Info. The new statement can additionally return a list of picture types; a list of containers and a list of named variables.
The Extract Data from Container statement can be configured to automatically normalize newline sequences and fold Unicode characters.
The Fill Lists and Standardize on List Items statements now support the Seller field.
The Load Artwork Viewer statement can now load artwork at a specific index in an audio file.
The List Manipulate statement has a new Sublist function.
The Make Numeric statement has been renamed Format Numeric and has a number of new somewhat esoteric modes. Additionally a destination other than the source can now be chosen.
The Open Database Information statement now returns information on all open databases (UI and query).
The Open URL statement's Get Data as Artwork mode now supports the specification of a picture type.
Prompt statements display [cancels] text if it seems as if the statement always cancels the action. An Ask statement will display a visual indicator if a true or false button is missing.
The Prompt from Container statement:
There are three new keys: clearOnDeselect, selectAtLeastOne and placeholder.
The per row help can now be deferred to a named variable accessed at runtime as opposed to creation time.
Per row help is now activated by the spacebar as opposed to the help button. This allows the help button to be consistent across all statements.
The statement can now display a first time usage sheet.
Additional row items are preserved when dragging.
The Read Database Sidecar File and Open Database for Querying statements now return additional information in the prefix-qualifiers named variable for export set special fields.
The Re-Encode statement can now remove prompt markup sequences.
Remove List Item at Index is now Remove List Items at Index and can optionally remove more than one item.
The Stop Action and Open/Close Files statment has been renamed to Stop Action and Post Process. The statement can now run an action after closing and opening files.
The Substring statement has two new functions used to extract and locate Unicode composed characters.
The User Defined Fields statement can now elect to remove an item if the source variable is empty when saving a track variable to the value.
The Version statement's version number format has changed yet again. It can now be #.#.# where each number is in the range of 0-999. Having 1.10 be the same as 1.1 was simply not working.
Forcing an ID3 Version:
There is now a means to force a particular ID3 version on a per file basis. Do a Yate>Search Yate Help and search for Forcing an ID3 Version.
Resource Actions and Documentation:
For those of you not using the Action Updater, the Repair Files from Audio File Health Check Log action has been updated as of 2022-11-01.
The Help menu's Download Audio File Health Check Repair Action item has been renamed Install Audio File Health Check Repair Action. As the name implies it downloads and installs the action.
While caches are cleared each time resource actions are modified, some Mac browsers are obsessive about caching. The Action Updater is the best method of updating actions already installed.
Yate and the P Word has had minor updates.
Preloaded Actions:
The preloaded actions have been updated. All of these action's have a description which can be viewed in the Action Manager.
To update these actions do a Yate>Import Built in Items>Import Actions.
Limiting Action Execution from Databases:
The old method of renaming actions as: database name>>remainder of name is now deprecated.
You can now create a runtime settings set with the same name of the action. In the set create an item named db+. The value of the item is a comma separated list of database names which can run the action. This method is better as it does not require the action to be renamed and works with multiple databases. You can also create an item named db-. All databases referenced in the item will not display the action in the Run Action menu. If both db+ and db- exist, db- is ignored. If neither exist, all databases can run the action.
Database Viewers:
After running Look for Duplicates, the produced Results column is now autosized.
Bug Fixes:
The Container Viewer was not displaying lines correctly when the value contained a carriage return (not newline) character. The display was being truncated.
The Container Viewer's multiline editor was not resizing properly.
The Indexed Artwork statement's picture type menu was missing one item at the end.
The Reload context menu item was not always being enabled in the Beatport Importer
Some Prompt statements with a Status mode generated by older versions of Yate were displayed as Flush User Log. This was a display only issue.
The spacing of the Open Mode icons in the toolbar on Ventura was not adjusted correctly.
The Action Manager's sort by name functionality was doing a case insensitive sort as opposed to as in Finder. This messed up the order of the actions in the Yate and the P Word Snippets folder.
The Make Numeric (now Format Numeric) statement's As Unicode Character Value function was not properly handling all Unicode characters.
The Preference Management statement was not operating silently as expected.
The database viewer's Look for Duplicates length test was only enabled if a Duration column was present. It should also be enabled if a Time column is present.

New in Yate 6.12 (Oct 28, 2022)

Running Actions from the Multi Field Editor and from Function Buttons:
We've supplied many simple text manipulation actions over the years which were essentially extensions to the Multi Field Editor. In the future, this type of action will be supplied to be run from the Multi Field Editor.
The Multi Field Editor is now extensible via actions which can extract which fields are currently selected.
There is a new Multi Field Editor panel named Actions which lists appropriate actions and allows you to run them.
An action is denoted to be used in the Multi Field Editor by setting the Association (formerly Menu) column in the Action Manager to M.
Fields which have function buttons with a Multi Field Editor... item will now have a Multi Field Editor Actions submenu. Selecting an action from the submenu is identical to running it from the Multi Field Editor with the associated field. To the action, it looks as if it was run from the Multi Field Editor. Note that the selected fields in the Multi Field Editor will not be modified and the Multi Field Editor will not be displayed if it is closed.
The Test Run Context statement can now test if an action was started from the Multi Field Editor, or a function button.
Named variable Run from Multi Field Editor will be set to 1 if the action was run from the Multi Field Editor or a function button.
The set of effective fields selected in the Multi Field Editor can be extracted by an Extract Preference Set with a Supplied Fields Set function. Note that when an action is launched from a function button, the button's associated field will be extracted.
The Multi Field Editor's Actions panel enables the following from its context menu.
A listed action's description, if any, can be displayed. Hitting the spacebar has the same effect.
A listed action's resource help, if any, can be displayed.
A listed action can be opened for editing.
You can open and position the Action Manager to a listed action.
More information can be found by doing a Search Yate Help with a topic name of Running Actions from the Multi Field Editor.
A set of sample extensions named Multi Field Editor Bundle 1 can be downloaded from the Actions section of the resources web page. If you display the new actions panel, you will be asked if you want to install the bundle.
Action Manager:
New action and folder icons under a Functions sub menu. The menu includes icons for all wizards, importers and associations.
The Menu column has been renamed Association.
Debugging Actions:
The Debug statement's runtime configuration panel has been enhanced.
You can now specify fields to be displayed at runtime.
You can now specify UDTIs to be displayed at runtime.
You can now specify that Action Runtime Settings should be displayed at runtime.
Settings now persist forever.
You can save settings which can later be restored.
Loved/Disliked:
By popular demand the order of values when clicking on the Loved checkbox is now ... (not Set), Loved then Disliked.
There is a new Preferences - File List setting named Disable Disliked in the Loved checkbox. When enabled, the checkbox will only cycle between ... (not Set) and Loved when clicked. If a track is marked as Disliked, it will still display correctly. The setting only controls what happens when you click on the control.
Yate Transformations:
The Sort and Sort Excluding First transformations now remove duplicates.
Markup Sequences:
There is now a Link markup sequence. Do a Help>Quick Reference>Prompt Markup Sequences for more information.
Preferences:
Again ... by popular demand ... all tables display item counts.
Rename Template Editor:
There is a new IfVariousArtists token. This token is used to test if the file's Album Artist field contains Various Artists (case insensitive). If the Album Artist field contains multiple items separated by the multi value delimiter, true will be returned as long as one of the items is Various Artists.
Action Runtime Settings:
The default action runtime settings set was named Action Runtime Settings for historic reasons. The entire benefit of the current implementation is that separate sets can be maintained for each action. For this reason the default action runtime settings set is now named the name of the initially run action.
Escape Sequences:
The at escape sequence used to return the text specified on a Version statement. It now returns the descriptive text of the action. An action's description is the first non empty content in a Comment, Force Grouped, Tooltip or Version statement. A search for a description is terminated at the first enabled statement which is not one of the preceding statements or an Empty Line or Constrain Execution to a Single File statement.
The a2 escape sequence returns the descriptive text of the initial action. at returns the descriptive text of the current action.
The a3 escape sequence returns the version number of the initial action. av returns the version number of the current action.
Action Statement Changes:
The Comment, Force Grouped, Tooltip and Version statement's text fields now support the inclusion of markup sequences from the context menu.
The Copy Non Audio Files statement
The statement no longer returns an error if the source and destination folders are the same. This is to be consistent with the Move and Copy Files statements.
The statement now supports escape sequence handling in all text fields.
The Enumerate Fields and Extensions statement
The statement has been renamed Enumerate Fields, Roles and Extensions.
There is an additional enumeration named Formatted Fields.
There is an additional enumeration named Plain Text Fields.
There is a new function which allows you to display a filtered list of credit roles as displayed in the Combined Credits Manager.
There is a new function which displays all fields mapped to preference lists.
The Extract Preference Set statement has a new function named Supplied Fields Set which returns the effective set of fields supportd by the action. See the online help for more infoemation.
The Fill Lists statement can now specify the source fields in a named variable.
The Is Query Database Open statement now sets named variable Query Database Modified to indicate if the query database has been modified.
The Map Action Runtime Settings statement now implies the name of the initial action if no set is specified.
The Move statement supports the ability to change the move to a copy at runtime. If the Allow runtime override setting is enabled and named variable Override Move to Copy is true, the override will occur.
The Move Non Audio statement
The statement supports the ability to change the move to a copy at runtime. If the Allow runtime override setting is enabled and named variable Override Move to Copy is true, the override will occur.
The statement can now specify the same track variable for the source and destination. This is to make it easier to rename non audio files.
The statement now supports escape sequence handling in all text fields.
All Prompt statements other than Prompt from Container will now display the resource help if the Option key is pressed when clicking on a help button.
The Prompt statement now has a Popup Window mode. It displays the specified prompt in a popup window. The action is resumed as soon as the window is dismissed by clicking outside the window or by hitting the escape key.
The Prompt for Fields statement can now specify that exactly one field be selected.
New Prompt for Text statements no longer create a Multi Line Editor button by default.
Query Database statements now force all keys to be Unicode UNFC to avoid issues when copying files and updating databases between drives using a different name encoding.
The Re-Encode statement can now re-encode to Unicode UNFD.
The Scanner statement has new functions:
Scan Unsigned Integer
Scan Unsigned Integer or Hexadecimal.
New statement named Sort Container Array. The statement sorts an array component by string items or at a supplied item in an object.
The Sort Form statement has two new convenience functions.
Sort Multiple Items treats the source as a list delimited by the multi value delimiter. Leading and trailing spaces, empty items and duplicates are removed and the list is sorted in ascending order.
Sort Multiple Items Excluding First is the same except that the first list item remains first.
The Standardize on List Items statement can now specify the source fields in a named variable.
New statement named Supported Fields. This statement provides some guidance to the Multi Field Editor to determine if the specified fields are appropriate for an action, or function button. The statement is optional. If not specified, the Multi Field Editor assumes valid for all fields.
The Test Run Context statement can now test if an action was started from the Multi Field Editor, or a function button.
Other Multi Field Editor Changes:
The Sort Form function supports the new modes added to the Sort Form action statement.
Bug Fixes:
If you had an old Mac (and required the OM version) and were running a patched version of macOS >= 10.13, the v6.11 update process looped.
The Append to Values menu item on the function button to the left of the Involved People and Musician Credits fields, displayed a text field which accepted rich text. This could look a little weird when pasting text from a browser.
The Is Database Open statement's documentation did not describe how named variable Database Status was set.
The main window's db column was erroneously showing some files as having Beatport track IDs. The column's display logic no longer looks for IDs in filenames, only in the well defined places. The Beatport Importer will still attempt to extract the IDs from filenames if they cannot be found in a well defined location. ie. only the display has changed.
After inserting a regular expression sequence [^set] from the context menu, ^se was selected as opposed to set.
Doing a Find in an action editor window did not always provide access to all warnings.
The Enumerate Fields and Extensions statements Numeric Fields function was not returning Playlist Delay or Rating.
The Enumerate Fields and Extensions statements URL fields function was not returning Commercial Information Webpage or Official Artist/Performer Webpage.
The Test Run Context statement's Started Action modes were not always working correctly.
The Prompt statement's Flush User Log and Ignore if Batch settings were incorrectly entwined. If you are using any of these modes, you should open the action, check the value and resave it.
The Set User Defined Text Item statement was not displaying 'only if empty' if the value was zero. Only the statement's display was incorrect.
The Set User Defined Text Item statement was trimming leading and trailing spaces in the name at runtime. While this is more than likely benign, it is not correct.
You could not delete a Rating on the All Tags editing panel.
The Container Viewer's Copy Name/Index context menu item was using the selected as opposed to the clicked row.
When an action finished, the last mapped Action Runtime Setting set was not unmapped.

New in Yate 6.11 (Sep 2, 2022)

macOS Support:
The standard Yate release is built on the latest macOS version using the latest development environment. Starting with Ventura it will no longer be possible to build applications for 10.10 through 10.12 with this configuration.
In order to maintain support for these older OS versions, users on 10.10 through 10.12 will now require the Yate OM (old Mac) build. Previously this build was only required if the hardware was so old it was missing certain instructions used by required components. The OM build is functionally identical. Activation and Deactivation may require the built in manual processes.
If you are running macOS 10.10 through 10.12 you must update to this release. Once Yate is built on Ventura, the standard release will not run on these versions.
When you update, this release will detect the OS version and will automatically start a second update to the OM version if required. This will only happen once and will not affect subsequent updates.
Older Version Support:
Yate imports most of its content from previously exported plist files. When importing the files, the content is re-encoded if necessary. We have moved the lowest supported version many times over the years.
Prior to Yate v6.11 the lowest supported version was 3.1
As of Yate v6.11, the lowest supported version is now v4.0
Exported audio metadata files are not effected by the change.
Removing all Tags:
File>Save Selected Files>Completely Remove All Tags does as the name implies. Where possible the entire tagging container will be removed from the audio files. Where not possible, all tags will be cleared. Tags which have been configured to be aotomatically written whenever a file is saved will not be written. The implementation sets the Editing State prior to clearing the tags and saving the files. This means that you can do an Edit>Revert to Editing State and restore the files even after they are saved ... unless you again change the editing state,
Main Window Sorting:
There is a new Sort by Folder item on the Sort menu. It sorts by path to folder ascending followed by the default sort.
Preferences Changes:
Preferences - Audio - Common:
There are now two possible values which can be written when auto setting the File Type field on a file load. Filename Extension is the old behaviour which sets the field to the unmodified filename extension. When Extension or Stream is chosen, MPEG-4, OGG and Opus files will have the field set to the audio stream type (AAC, ALAC, Opus or Vorbis). Other audio types will have the field set to the filename extension in upper case.
Preferences - General - Advanced:
Preferences - Audio - Common's Multi Value Delimiter setting has been moved here.
There is a new option to minimize sticky database windows when automatically opening them at startup.
Preferences - Rename:
All settings associated with renaming have been moved to this section.
Preferences - General - Basic's Invalid character substitution setting has been moved here.
Preferences - General - Basic's Rename space handling setting has been moved here and renamed to Space handling.
Preferences - Audio - Common's Rename substitution setting has been moved here and renamed to Multi Value delimiter substitution.
The Multi Field Editor:
Trim functionality:
Additional character sets are now available. A custom list of characters can also be provided.
The effective character set can be inverted to allow easier removal of unwanted characters.
The All non alphabetic characters setting has been removed. Use Alphanumeric, Inverted for the same effect.
Audirvana and APE files:
The pre-installed APE mapping now contains additional read only aliases for Disc, Disc Count and Track Count.
When using Audirvana the following mappings should be the write (default) APE mappings:
Disc must be mapped to DISCNUMBER
Disc Count must be mapped to DISCTOTAL
Track Count must be mapped to TRACKTOTAL
These definitions will only be present for new installs of Yate unless you do a Yate>Reset Built in Items>Reset|Import APE Mappings. If you've changed the out of the box APE mappings, you can manually create the mappings.
Doppler Music Player:
The Doppler music player is now supported. The extended file attribute which tells the player to update its library can automatically be written.
The support must be enabled via Preferences - Audio - Common - Set Doppler refresh attribute.
If the preference setting is not enabled, the first time you do an Edit Info With>Yate in Doppler, you will be prompted to enable it.
Audio Properties:
There is a new property named Xattrs which displays a list of the correctable attributes fixed by the File Maintenance statement which are present.
The Xattrs property can be searched in the main window filter panel.
Debugging Actions:
Changes to the Debug statement's configuration are retained during a session. A new session is started whenever an action is run from the UI or the Batch Processor.
The default configuration is only applied when a session is started.
The appearance of the debug configuration panel has been modified.
Action Statement Changes:
When editing JSON text in a multi line editor you can now request to view the text in the Container Viewer.
The Add to List statement can now replace one or all existing items if the only if the not already in list option is enabled and case or diacritic insensitive is enabled.
The Copy Files, Create Symbolic Links, Export Metadata, Import Metadata, Import Metadata from Audio File and Move statements all support transformations. The Convert multi value delimiter sequences transformation is now a popup with three values:
None:
No transformation is applied to multi value delimiter sequences.
Setting:
The Preferences-Audio-Common-Rename Substitution setting controls the transformation.
Named Variable:
The named variable Transform Multi Value Delimiter is interpreted the same as the Preferences-Audio-Common-Rename Substitution setting and controls the transformation. This is useful when you want a different transformation for path components and a referenced rename template.
The File Maintenance statement can now also clear the Doppler extended file attribute.
New Prompt statements do not automatically get a Copy button.
All prompt statements which have configurable buttons can now specify that a button should be segmented. A segmented button has a title (with an associated function) and a menu disclosure.
The Prompt for Text statement:
The configuration Menu item insertion mode has been renamed Insert/Append from Comma Separated.
When Insert/Append is selected the delimiter is read from named variable Prompt for Text Append Delimiter. If the named variable is not defined or is empty, a comma will be assumed. The named variable is cleared by the Prompt Reset mode.
The Prompt from Container statement:
A display only menu can be associated with a row. When valueIsPopup has a value of 1 and value is -2, the popup menu is only presented for informational purposes. The value is not modified when a menu item is selected.
When appending menu items, the popupDelimiter key sets the delimiter to be used. If the key is omitted or empty, a comma will be assumed.
When the panel closes the selected table row is always returned. Previously it was only returned if a single row selection was being forced.
You can configure the panel's checkbox (above the buttons) to exit immediately.
The Save statement has a new setting named Completely remove all tags. Where possible the entire tagging container will be removed from the audio files. Where not possible, all tags will be cleared. Tags which have been configured to be automatically written whenever a file is saved will not be written.
The Save Variables and Restore Variables statements have been redesigned to work with a container as opposed to a named variable. The statements are now far more efficient. There is no longer a need to specify only a single file's track variables should be saved due to the increased efficiency. Variables are now always saved on a per file basic. With Restore Variables you can now specify that you want to restore all variables which were saved, independent of the variable numbers.
The Scanner statement modes to scan from or up to a set of characters now supports the addition of canned character sets. The effective character set can be inverted.
The Trim statement now supports additional character sets. A custom list of characters can also be provided. The effective character set can be inverted to allow easier removal of unwanted characters. The All non alphabetic characters setting has been removed. Existing actions with the setting have automatically been changed to Alphanumeric, Inverted.
Escape Sequences:
There is a new escape sequence sp which inserts a single space character.
Named Variables:
Named variable Prompt Menu Item Reference is now used wherever Prompt for Text List Selection was used.
Prompt Menu Item Reference more clearly identifies what is stored.
Prompt for Text List Selection is now treated as an alias of Prompt Menu Item Reference.
Prompt for Text List Selection still works but is replaced at runtime with Prompt Menu Item Reference.
Deprecations:
Specifying Yate in a Clear User Defined Items by Source statement is now deprecated. Use a Yate Database IDs statement to clear the Yate Album ID and Yate Track ID tags. This Yate Database IDs statement can remove the tags even if they are defined as custom fields.
Usage of the Prompt for Text List Selection named variable. Use Prompt Menu Item Reference instead.
Bug Fixes:
APE tags were not saving Track and Disc counts when merging numbers/counts and padding was off.
The custom field presets for Track Position, Yate Album ID and Yate Track ID had incorrect values for APE mappings. This only affects you if you created the custom fields using the presets. To fix the issue and to ensure that all APE and WV files are read correctly, make the following changes: First re-apply the preset to any of the three mentioned custom fields that you may have implemented. After fixing the custom field definitions edit the APE mappings so that they look like:
-Track Position TRACK_NUMBER_TEXT
Track Position Track Number Text
-Yate Album ID YATE_ALBUM_ID
Yate Album ID Yate Album ID
-Yate Track ID YATE_TRACK_ID
Yate Track ID Yate Track ID
Yate uses a number representation which is not localized. The decimal separator is always the period. The Version statement was formatting the version string in a localized manner. This caused some version strings to use a comma as the decimal separator which later caused issues.
Expansion tooltips for the Action Manager's Name column were displaying poorly in dark mode.
The Prompt from Container statement:
The validation of items which preferred a row setting over a column setting, were ignoring the column setting for string types.
Expansion tooltips for the Value column were displaying poorly in dark mode, if the cell contained an image.
Expansion tooltips were always appearing justified to the left edge of the table for cells containing an image.
The selectedRow key was documented as being written to the container object. However, it was being written to the columns object. To fix the issue and to not break any existing actions, the key is now being written in both locations. Accessing it from the columns object is deprecated.
Changing the font size in a Debug panel always redisplayed the text using the default configuration, as opposed to the current configuration.
Custom fields with multiple items did not have a Rearrange button when Choose Value was selected. They also were missing the sort menu items on the Yate Transformations menu.

New in Yate 6.10.5.3 (Aug 24, 2022)

New in Yate 6.10.5.2 (Jul 29, 2022)

New in Yate 6.10.5.1 (Jul 27, 2022)

New in Yate 6.10.5 (Jul 7, 2022)

New in Yate 6.10.4 (Jun 29, 2022)

New in Yate 6.10.3 (Jun 22, 2022)

New in Yate 6.10.2.1 (Jun 14, 2022)

New in Yate 6.10.2 (Jun 9, 2022)

Rename Templates:
IfExists constructs always treated 0 as does not exist for various numeric fields such as Track, Disc, etc. From now on custom fields which are declared as being Yes/No fields will be handled the same.
There are new tokens named IfTrue and IfFalse to logically test the value of a track variable.
Year Field Formatting:
Version 6.10 changed the default value for the Preferences - File List - Do not enforce formatting of the Year field to be initially on. The setting only affected the display of the Year field and manual edits in the field. Actions and importing metadata can set any value.
In order to retain the current functionality and to add the ability to force the truncation of the Year field when saving files, the setting has ben modified. It is now named Format the Year Field and can be set to Never, Display as YYYY or Display and Save as YYYY. The effective previous value is preserved.
XML Files:
Yate can now open XML files in the Container Viewer. All open modes and Finder Open With are supported.
Action Statement Changes:
The Prompt From Container statement supports new items to force and maintain a single selection from a list of items.
The Make Numeric statement has a new function to return 1 for true or empty for false.
The Test Value of Boolean in Container statement will now work on String items.
Resource Action Changes:
There is a new action named GetSongBPM which uses the API provided by the GetSongBPM.com site. The action extracts various metadata from the site's database of over six million songs.
Documentation Updates:
The Renaming and Restructuring Files and Folders document has been updated.
Bug Fixes:
When using an Open URL statement to get data and the url was malformed, Yate could hang.
The Compare Text statement's fuzzy test mode was not hiding the trim options which are effectively always enabled.
When the Container Viewer was saved as a property list a beep was always issued.
Saving the displayed contents of the Container Viewer as a property list was creating an invalid file if the container contained a NULL.
File>Open from Clipboard could not load plist files.
Fixed a bug introduced early in the v6.x cycle which caused various flow control action statements executing Grouped-Once to fail.

New in Yate 6.10.1 (May 27, 2022)

New in Yate 6.10 (May 19, 2022)

The Year Field:
The Preferences - File List - Do not enforce formatting of the Year field setting is now initially enabled in new installs.
This build turns the setting to enabled. If you want the old behaviour, change it in the preferences.
Ten years ago almost everyone used iTunes and the old default value made sense.
The Discogs and MusicBrainz Wizards:
You can now search by barcode.
To search by barcode enter a UPC/EAN barcode in the ID field with a letter U (case insensitive) anywhere in the field.
All characters which are not decimal digits will be removed before issuing the search.
Plist files:
The Container Viewer can now save its content as a plist file.
File>Open and Finder Open With can now specify plist files. The files are opened in the Container Viewer. You cannot use this mechanism to import Yate plist files.
plist files dragged to the main window are expected to be Yate plist files and will not be opened in the Container Viewer ... unless the Option key is down which forces their display in the Container Viewer.
The Container Viewer:
When saving files you can now save as JSON (compressed or not) or a plist file (XML or binary).
Copying Metadata:
The UI based Copy Metadata>Copy Configured functions can now specify exclusions for UDTIs. Excluded items are not copied or removed. As an example this is useful to copy all UDTIs except for an Apple App PID.
MusicBrainz Earliest Recording:
The previous implementation always attempted to match titles and artists. The new implementation also supports only searching by title.
As the functionality is performed by an action, a second action will be imported for the title only menu item.
Action Editor:
Debug statements are easy to locate as they are displayed with red text and can be selected by the Find panel making them easy to delete. There are also context menu items to disable Debug statements.
Often while debugging an action you might introduce non Debug statements for debugging purposes. There are new context menu items to mark statements as being debug statements. These statements will be displayed with red text and will be identified via the Find Panel's Debug search. The marked statements will also be affected by the Enable / Disable Debug context menu items.
Action Manager:
The Log Action Usage function has been renamed Log Action & Debug Usage. It will now log any action which contains a Debug statement or any statement marked as debug.
Resource Action Changes:
The Apple Music set of actions has new imports related to artist artwork.
The UI for the Sync Files suite has been completely rewritten. All options are now presented on a single panel. The previous versions issued far too many questions. There are additional syncing options including the ability to convert only selected file types and to copy others. The utility is now at v5.0.
Two new template mapping are provided for Roon. One which is the older Roon custom panel with recording fields and associated named variables added (Roon+). The second is a custom panel which only contains the recording fields and associated named variables (Roon Rec Info). View the Roon Mappings online help for the download links.
There is a new Compare Apple App Track List to Disk set of actions. The following items are identified: tracks in iTunes/Music which are not on disk under the specified root folder; tracks under the specified root folder which are not in iTunes/Music; tracks on disk which cannot be added to iTunes/Music. This is done without reading or writing any audio files.
There is a new Create Database Utility action which allows you to configure various settings and then runs the batch processor to produce a track and/or album database, create Yate Track and Album IDs and save folder.jpg files. Everything is optional and is intended to simplify the creation of the databases.
The Musician Credits to DB action now handles all credits: built in and in custom fields. The action can optionally produce a track inclusion column when a single album is selected.
There is a new action named Split FLAC using Cue File and XLD. All cue files in a selected folder are used to split their referenced files into multiple tracks.
There is a new Update Files from Track Database set of actions. The actions are run from within a track database and update files (loaded or not). One action updates based on selected rows in the database. The other action uses a Modified column to determine if a file needs to be updated. Once a file is updated, the Modified column is cleared.
Escape Sequences:
?pm returns the current state of the preserve modification date/time when saving files setting.
New Action Statements:
There is a new action statement named Create Container from XML. A container is created from the supplied XML source.
There is a new action statement named Get Tracks from Apple App Playlist. The statement extracts the paths of tracks in the specified playlist. Specifying Music will extract the paths of all tracks.
Action Statement Changes:
The Clear statement can now be used to clear a list of named variables.
The Contents of Folder statement can now optionally return hidden files.
The Copy Metadata Between Files statement supports a list of UDTI exclusions in named variable Transfer UDTI Exclusions.
The Create Album/Track Database statements can now specify which export set to use at runtime.
All container statements which can enter JSON text in a multi line editor will now give error messages and position to an error. We've written our own parser just to handle errors.
All container statements now return error text in named variable Container Error.
All Prompt statements: The Continue-Always button mode is changed to Exit which is functionally identical. Continue-Always can no longer be selected. If you edit an action which used Continue-Always you will be notified that changes were made and you'll have to save the action.
The Compare Numeric statement's compare against zero mode has been removed. The default for new statements is now compare against text with an empty text string which is equivalent to zero. This removes the need to change the mode in order to enter a compare against value
The Debug statement can now open and position actions to the calling Debug statement, from the call stack at runtime.
The Extract Data from Container statement has two new modes. You can extract the directed path of a specific row by matching data. You can extract the directed path of all rows containing a specific key. These modes can be used to avoid having to reference array items by their absolute index ... which might change over time.
The Extract Preference Set statement has new modes to extract the names of all Export Sets; those Export Sets valid to use when creating an album database; those Export Sets valid to use when creating a track database and a list of all actions.
The Indexed Artwork statement now supports per file indexes and has a new mode which returns an index matched based on the picture type and/or description.
The Involved People / Musician Credits Functions statement has a new mode called Combine Credits. The credits across all files are combined such that they are the union of the individual credits.
The MusicBrainz Earliest Recording statements now supports matching by title only.
The Open Database for Querying statement now sets named variable prefix-DB Type to one of track, album, or standalone.
The Preferences statement now allows you to change the value of the preserve modification date/time when saving files setting.
The Prompt statement's User Log mode can now specify an alternate location for the file.
The Prompt for Fields statement now supports Menu buttons.
The Read/Write Plist File statement can now write XML or binary plist files. When reading it sets named variable Read Text File Encoding to XML plist or Binary plist.
The Repeat For statement will now assume an adjustment value of 1 if it is omitted.
The Scanner statement's bracketed functions now support a single delimiter to be used as the left and right delimiters.
The Search Discogs and Search MusicBrainz statements can now search by barcode.
The Split Field statement has been renamed to Split.
The Test File Type statement can now specify Vorbis and Opus for additional granularity in OGG files. The file types you are interested in testing can now also be specified at runtime via a list in a named variable.
The Test if File Exists statement now sets named variables describing if the item was a folder and if it was hidden.
The Transfer Metadata statement has adjusted return status codes allowing for more granularity. It also supports a list of UDTI exclusions in named variable Transfer UDTI Exclusions.
Prompt from Container statement:
You now open the get file panel for rows which support it clicking on the icon to the right of the Value field.
The display of popup rows has been changed to use a custom control which works as expected. The built in controls which were used in the past did not. Potentially editable popup rows now display a down triangle for the icon. Non editable popup rows display an up-down arrow icon.
Popup menu items can now optionally be Objects as opposed to Strings. The following keys are processed: name, hidden, disabled
Rows can provide a help key which supplies per row help.
Rows can provide a getPathPrompt key which is used as a prompt when a get path/folder panel is displayed.
Each row can now be disabled based on multiple tests against the state or value of different rows.
The Prompt Window Size named variable read and written by the statement now also identifies the width of the Name column.
The valueIsPopup item is now a Number as opposed to a Boolean. Older items will work correctly. The valueIsPopup key now distinguishes between popups which take indexes as values; editable text based values and non editable text based values.
The popupEditable key is no longer required although it is still supported ... for now.
The valueRO item has new settings providing additional granularity.
The statement now supports Exit and Menu buttons.
Bug Fixes:
The Artwork to folder.jpg statement was displaying as Artwork to folder Icon. The statement executed correctly as only the display was incorrect.
It was possible to open the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards when an action was running.
All multi line text displays now attempt to preserve the position when inserting from a context menu. Far less jumping around.
The Add Item to Container Array statement's Items in List mode was not handling the delim field correctly. It was losing focus after each character.
Directed paths produced by the Container Viewer were not always escaped properly for use in an action.
The Contents of Folder statement had issues with folder paths ending in a space and filenames containing backslash characters.
The Export to Apple App statement was cancelling batch processing on a error.
The Logical Set statement was only accepting numeric values. true is now recognized as 1. false previously worked as intended.
The Prompt statement was enabling Show Step Info when selecting Alert or Critical Alert.
The Prompt for Text statement was not always giving the text field the focus when the panel was first displayed.
The Preferences - Export Sets Yes/No column was cropped on Monterey.
Yet more tweaks to the writing of the status bar from within an action to force the display faster.
The Play Sound statement was not saving the correct sound when edited.
Various sort as in Finder functionality was not always as in the Finder. This manifested mostly with 16 bit Unicode characters.
The Involved People / Musician Credits Functions statement's Remove Empty Credit function was not working as expected.
The Prompt from Container statement:
The statement would never show the context menu if the State column was hidden.
Rows which were editable popups were not editable if the menu was empty.
Setting a menu name to empty was not hiding the menu item as documented.

New in Yate 6.9.1.1 (Apr 29, 2022)

New in Yate 6.9.1 (Mar 18, 2022)

New in Yate 6.9.0.2 (Mar 18, 2022)

New in Yate 6.9.0.1 (Mar 14, 2022)

New in Yate 6.9 (Mar 8, 2022)

The All Tags Editing Panel:
There is a new All Tags editing panel.
The panel is a multi item panel such as UD Text, UD URLs, etc.
The panel displays all values for any given tag in use by one or more files. If you have 10 files selected, you're more than likely going to see 10 Title tags.
While the panel's context menu shares many of the menu items found on other multi item panels, there are a few new ones.
Show Containing Edit Panel will display a submenu of other editing panels which contain the item. Clicking on a panel name, will cause the panel to be displayed.
Common UDITs are normalized in Yate so that a single name can be used to refer to them regardless of the audio file format. If you select a UDTI, there is a File Representation item which pops up a panel describing the real storage name for each audio format. This is also available on the UD Text editing panel.
Add New item type is replaced by Add New Item which will display a long menu of the types of tags which can be created. All tag types except Unhandled can be created.
As the add new menu can be quite large there is an Add Favourite item which displays a user configurable menu of tag items.
When adding a new item or editing an existing item the edit panel may have a disclosure button which is context sensitive to the item being edited.
You can elect to enable a sub list of referencing files for each tag. Many of the context menu items adjust their meaning if one or more file references are selected as opposed to a tag item. For example doing an Edit with one or more file references selected only edits the value for for those files as opposed for all files.
The All Tags editing panel has its own find panel activated by Edit>Find or Command+F when the panel has the focus. The find panel has the following options.
You can optionally include the Description column's content in the search.
You can optionally include the Type column's content in the search.
You can specify that the searches are to be exact or the default of case, diacritic and width insensitive.
You can specify that searches should be wrapping or the default of linear.
There is a Log button which logs all matches and displays the results in the Log Viewer.
The Edit>Find>Find Tag With Content function will now display the All Tags panel if it is not already visible and will activate the All Tag panel's find panel.
When you're in the main window entering Command+F activates the filter panel unless the All Tags panel has the focus. Foreseeing possible issues, the filter panel has a new Search All Tags button which will display the All Tags panel if it is not already visible and will activate the All Tag panel's find panel.
Action Statements:
There is a new Read/Write Plist File statement which reads or writes the file using a container.
The Extract Data from Container statement has new tags to identify read data as being a date (=) or data (?). These two items can be read by the new Read/Write Plist File statement but cannot be edited. The types will be displayed in the Container Viewer.
The Extract Preference Set statement
New function named Current Preference List Names to Default. Produces a key-value list of current preference list names to default names.
New function named Default Preference List Names to Current. Produces a key-value list of default preference list names to current names.
New function named Names of Preference lists. It returns a list of the current names of all preference lists.
New function named Indirect Preference List. Named variable Indirect Preference List contains the name of the preference list whose contents is to be extracted.
New function named Lists to FieldsA key-value list of preference list names as keys with values of those fields associated with them.
New function named Fields to ListsA key-value list of field names as keys with values of those lists associated with them.
The Make Numeric statement has a new As Boolean setting.
The Preference List Item Functions statement has a new function named Indirect Preference List. Named variable Indirect Preference List contains the name of the preference list to be modified by the specified function.
The Prompt statement can now configure buttons to display a menu.
The Prompt for Text statement
now visually displays newline characters.
There is a new configuration item/format code to display spaces as centered dots.
The Read Only and Hide format codes no longer depend on the presense of the picker button.
Display of the multi line editor no longer depends on the presense of a disable newline code or a picker button.
If a picker button is displayed, the multi line edit panel will display one as well. Note that menu items which would cause the panel to be dismissed are ignored.
Can now configure buttons to display a menu.
Can now immediately display a multi line editor via the new Multi line setting.
The Prompt from Container statement is now lenient on data types to allow the Create Container from JSON statement to specify named variables for all integer/boolean fields as strings.
The Re-Encode statement has new modes to backslash escape a regular expression pattern and replace template.
The Sort Form statement (and the Multi Field Editor's Sort form function) has a new mode: Remove Leading Article.
The optional help button displayed on Prompt category statements can now display a help panel with marked up text. This is in addition to being able to being able to display the web page at a URL in the browser.
Prompt Statement Markup:
There are now underline and strikethrough markup codes. u underline on, U underline off, x strikethrough on, X strikethrough off.
The File Browser:
The File Browser's context menu now has a Pinned Folders submenu.
The menu will display a Pin Current Folder or Unpin Current Folder menu item.
The menu will contain a list of all pinned folders. Clicking on a pinned folder will cause it to be displayed in the File Browser.
All pinned folders can be removed by Clear Menu.
The File Browser Information Area:
This optional panel previously only displayed read only audio information.
You can now configure, (on the Window menu), the panel to display a common default artwork item in selected files. Double clicking on the displayed image will display the Artwork editing panel.
Popup Help Panels:
Popup help panels now support dark mode.
If you want the old behaviour where popup panels were always light, you can configure them in Preferences - General - Dark Mode.
The panels now respond to Font>Bigger and Font>Smaller.
Container Viewer:
The Container Viewer has a new menu item to copy the selected item's Name / Index column to the system clipboard.
Database Viewers:
When inline editing a cell in an album or track database and the associated files are loaded, the files will be modified. This behaviour can now be disabled in Preferences - Databases.
Custom Field Presets:
Added presets for Roon Album Tag, Roon Track Tag, Section, and Version.
Bug Fixes:
After assigning keyboard shortcuts to the File>Open Selected Items In menu, they were incorrectly moved to the File>Open Track Playing In menu. You will have to recreate the shortcuts to fix the issue.
The Decompose Title into Classical Metadata statement could crash if the created container was formatted incorrectly.
The Build Component List statement was not listing the Artist List as a list association.
The Sort Form statement's documentation has been incorrect since the addition of the as List option. Support for previous secondary delimiters was dropped at that time. The documentation and the Multi Field Editor have been updated.
The Add to List statement was not properly retaining the Case and Diacritic Insensitive settings.
The Prompt statement's Menu mode was not correctly setting the Prompt for Text List Selection named variable.

New in Yate 6.8.1.2 (Jan 25, 2022)

New in Yate 6.8.1.1 (Jan 17, 2022)

New in Yate 6.8.1 (Jan 13, 2022)

Databases:
The File menu has a new Create Database... menu item. The function allows you to create a database using an Export set to control which columns are created. This differs from the File>Save As Database menu item which always creates a standalone database based on the currently displayed columns.
The new function provides a UI based equivalent to the Create Track Database and Create Album Database action statements.
Database Preferences:
You can now set a character string to be displayed for the Loved column in an Album database when the value is mixed. ie. the album is not all loved, disliked or none.
The default value is a green heart. If you want the old behaviour which was to display nothing, simply empty the new Mixed field.
Configuring the Main Window's Context Menu:
Preferences - File List - Context Menu - Configure now supports the reordering of the menu items.
It also supports the insertion and removal of separator lines.
Menu Changes:
The File>Save As CSV/TSV File menu item and the equivalent file list context menu item have been renamed Save As Database
The file list context menu item named Display Folder in File Browser has been renamed Show Folder in File Browser
The Apple Apps >Add to iTunes Staging Playlist menu item and the equivalent file list context menu item have been renamed Add to Apple Apps Staging Playlist.
Bug Fixes:
When doing an Apply Database Values to Open Files from an Album database and the rows did not have a Yate Album ID, it is possible that some selected files were not updated.
Monterey Only: If you change a Love field value to Dislike, by any means other doing it in an editing panel, the editing panel will not be updated.
Some menu items in the save panel presented by the File>Save As CSV/TSV File function may have been greyed out.
The Enumerate Fields and Extensions statement was messed up. Various enumerations returned an incorrect list.
The Map Metadata to Files action statement was broken in v6.7. This caused the Search Discogs/MusicBrainz Suite of actions to fail. No changes are required to the actions.

New in Yate 6.8 (Jan 5, 2022)

Much of the work in this release is devoted to ensuring that older Macs and older versions of macOS are supported.
Older Mac Support:
Certain third party components used by Yate do not support Macs from early 2010 or older. This is a hardware instruction set issue. We've been fighting this issue since v6.7 was released.
Yate will now detect the incompatible Macs and will automatically start an update to a functionally identical version which will run correctly. This will only be done once.
The About panel will have an OM designation after the build number when running the alternate build.
Subsequent updates will work as expected and will download a newer OM version.
If you're using the OM version and you migrate to an Apple Silicon based Mac, Yate will automatically detect the fact and you'll be told to download the standard build and install it as opposed to running the OM build.
If you're using the OM version and you migrate to a newer Intel based Mac, Yate will not automatically detect the fact when started. In this case you should always download the latest version from the web site.
There is no longer a need to install additional components on Macs running 10.13 or later.
Old macOS Support:
Many sites will not accept the SSL certificates distributed with MacOS 10.10 and 10.11.
Manual activation and deactivation processes are now provided so that you can successfully activate or deactivate without reaching out for help. When we have to intervene it's a two step process and can take a while.
Additional information is provided in the updated About Activating, Deactivating and Migrating topic found on the Help menu.
Opening Files:
File>Open and the Finder's Open With function can now open all image file types.
Find Tag With Content:
From time to time you might view a file in a player and see metadata displayed and you have no idea where the data is stored.
The Edit menu has a new Find Tag With Content menu item. You're prompted for a text string which is used to search all selected files.
The results displaying the name and type of each matched tag and its containing edit panels are displayed in the Log Viewer.
AppleScript Interaction:
There is a new action statement named Call AppleScript Function.
AppleScript functions of the form On functionName() can be directly called.
Note that enire scripts are not processed ... just the named function and whatever else it calls.
There are some restrictions as to what can be passed as parameters and returned. See the documentation for more information.
As the script source is contained in the action, you can modify the source on the fly if you so desire.
AcoustID:
The AcoustID fingerprint component now supports Apple Silicon. Thanks to the AcoustID folks for supplying this. It's amazingly fast on an M1 based Mac.
Action Statement Changes:
The Add Item to Container Array statement has a new Items in List mode. All items in the list referenced by a specified named variable and delimiter are added to the destination array.
The File Path Manipulation statement has a new Append Filename Extension mode. This is similar to the Set Filename Extension Mode and is intended for those cases where a filename extension is not present but the filename may contain a period (.)
The List Manipulate statement has a new Reverse function.
The Prompt statement has a new mode named Menu. A menu is displayed at the current cursor position. The menu is formatted the same as the menu in the Prompt for Text statement.
The Prompt and Prompt for Text statement's menus can be specified as a list or in a container. The container method supports submenus and hidden items.
Most action statement fields which require an integer value treat an empty string as zero. The Substring statement's Range mode no longer does this and returns an empty string for an empty range. An empty range typically implies no range as opposed to the entire string which an implied range of zero would return.
Bug Fixes:
Droplets sometimes did not launch Yate on certain versions of macOS. If you have a droplet which does not work, after installing this version, you will have to recreate it.
The Prompt for Text statement's handling of separator lines in a menu was not working as expected.

New in Yate 6.7.0.1 (Dec 8, 2021)

New in Yate 6.7 (Dec 6, 2021)

Data Types:
Yate has a new binary data type called containers.
This is the first binary data type supported by Yate.
Containers are designed to be efficient mappings to JSON data and can represent all JSON data.
Containers are arrays or objects and items can be efficiently referenced by the means of a directed path.
Far more information is available in the various new container topics in the help.
Container Viewer:
The Container Viewer allows the display of containers in a tree format such that items can be expanded and collapsed.
The Container Viewer can be displayed from Debug statements and from a new Display Container Item in Container Viewer action statement.
The displayed data can be saved as JSON formatted or compressed text to a file.
The displayed data can be displayed as formatted JSON text in the Log Viewer.
Multi Screen Support:
Yate does image manipulation in a screen independent manner. However Retina display detection is based on a screen's properties.
Prior to v6.7 Yate had an undocumented debug setting which enabled different techniques to detect if Yate had to manipulate images using Retina display scaling. This setting has been removed.
There is a new Preferences - Artwork setting named Determine if Retina display adjustments are required. Most of the older debug settings are still available, however the default value of Using All Screens should work for all single and multi display configurations.
Preference Changes:
The Custom Field Configurator now divides common mappings into submenus.
The Custom Field Configurator now applies Credit and Yes/No value settings when adding a commonly used mapping.
In FLAC/Ogg and Ape Mappings you can no longer change the field type of an item mapped to a custom field.
Added MinimServer as an audio prefset in Preferences - Audio - Common.
Removed the default prompt text colour settings in Preferences - Actions. Use markup in the Prompt statements.
Miscellaneous Changes:
The function buttons on most main window fields in edit panels have a Show in Popup menu item. Useful when the text is too large for the field.
The common UDTI menus now have submenus to make it easier to access.
When displaying the contents of a plist file, Custom Field definitions are now enumerated.
The Action Pending Window now supports dark mode.
Open With and all open modes now handle .json files. They are displayed in the Container Viewer.
Open from Clipboard can handle all file types handled by File>Open
The popup help window is now resizable.
Added Help>Activation, Deactivation and Migrating link.
The Action>Copy Metadata menu now has items to copy the configured metadata. Previously the configuration panel had to be displayed to copy anything other than all metadata.
Action Statement Changes:
The Close/Save Query Database statement has a new format code (A) to autosize the columns.
The Compare Date, Compare Numeric and Compare Text statements now support a text string as the left operand. This enables the specification of a left operand which can use any escape sequence. As with track variables, a left operand of text is applied across all files. A Once option may be used to limit the execution.
The Compare Numeric statement can now do decimal as well as integer comparisons.
New action category named Containers. The category contains 15 new action statements.
The Debug statement can now display containers in the Log Viewer and Container Viewer.
New statement Decompose Titles to Classical Metadata. Basically uses the MusicBrainz wizard's algorithm to extract classical metadata when importing.
Discogs Metadata for Release supports containers.
Eased some of the function usage in the Evaluate Expression statement. Better documentation of functions and the use of hexadecimal numbers.
List Numeric Functions can now treat track variables as list items so you can sum, etc. track variables.
Map Metadata to Files supports containers.
MusicBrainz Metadata for Release supports containers.
Open Database for Querying statement can now open a database as read only.
Open URL now supports headers, schemes and the downloading of artwork.
The Make Numeric statement supports hexadecimal.
New statement named Preference Management used to examine the contents of a preference file or to export a preference file.
The Prompt statement's Log mode has been renamed to System Log.
New Prompt statement mode named User Log. The message is logged to a persistent store in ~/Library/Logs/Yate-User.log which can be viewed in the Console application by clicking on Log Reports in the sidebar.
New Prompt statement mode named Flush User Log which will drain the persistent log at ~/Library/Logs/Yate-User.log.
Prompt category statements no longer support the settings of a text colour. Use markup instead.
Most Prompt category statements can now display a help button.
When Prompt category statements are now added, they clear the configurable title.
The new Prompt from Container statement can create a table oriented UI interface. Absolutely everything is configurable. Drag and Drop is supported.
The Prompt for Text statement now supports validation that the entered data is a decimal number.
Regular expression replace templates now handle n r t and uhhhh sequences. These are handled while pre-escaping named and track variables.
The Scanner statement supports hexadecimal.
Set, Set Named Variable, Set User Defined Text Item and Set Indirect statements now support only if not empty and only if the destination is empty settings.
Show in Log Viewer is now valid while batch processing.
The Substring statement has additional means of specifying the bounds.
The Stop Action and Close Files statement was renamed to Stop Action and Close Selected Files.
The Stop Action and Open Files renamed to Stop Action and Open/Close Files.
The Test Run Context statement has additional tests.
The Trash Files and Folders statement can now optionally specify that items should be deleted if they cannot be moved to the trash.
The Trash Files and Folders, Delete Files and Folders and Show in Finder statements now accept paths relative to the home folder (~/) as well as absolute paths (/).
The User Defined Items statement's Export function has been renamed to to Save and the Import function to Set. You are saving to a track variable or setting from a track variable.
The User Defined Items statement has a new Initial Values option which can be used when saving a value. As opposed to saving a current value you will save the initial value.
The Version statement now accepts versions numbers with three decimal places.
Holding down Option when inserting a markup sequence from the menu, will not insert the closing sequence.
Escape Sequences:
New escape sequence to specify a reference to a container directed path: ?[ directed path ?]
New escape sequence to insert the content of the Log Viewer: ?lv
The Action Manager & Action Editor:
Holding Option while double clicking on an action in the Action Manager will run it.
Open now works on a folder in the Action Manager. Every action in the folder will be opened.
The save text to clipboard options in the Action Editor have been reworked.
Added Display Named Variable Usage context menu to the Action Editor.
Resource Actions:
The Duplicate Credit Names, Lookup Wikipedia Artist Bio, Sync Files, Version/System Info actions have been updated.
New: Classical Metadata from Title can be used to extract or display metadata containd in the Title field.
New: BPM Functions used to download BPL data from AcousticBrainz and provides actions to halve or double the values. Electronically calculated BPM values may be incorrect due to tempo estimation octave errors.
New: Read JSON and Display. Displays JSON content stored in a file in the new Container Viewer.
... and one other interesting action. Check out the resources web page.
Documentation:
Yate and the P Word has be revamped. All examples are now available as a download.
Bug Fixes:
Apple specific UDTIs relating to Apple store metadata were not working as Custom Fields.
List Numeric Functions on track variables were not working.
The List to CSV Data statement was not being aggressive enough when deciding which columns had to be escaped.
When saving a filter in a database, the disclosure button displayed a menu of the main window filters as opposed to the filters in the database.
After doing a Look for Duplicates in a database viewer, filters did not work until the Results column was removed.

New in Yate 6.6.1.5 (Nov 17, 2021)

New in Yate 6.6.1.4 (Nov 17, 2021)

New in Yate 6.6.1.3 (Sep 13, 2021)

New in Yate 6.6.1.2 (Sep 1, 2021)

New in Yate 6.6.1.1 (Aug 17, 2021)

New in Yate 6.6.1 (Aug 11, 2021)

New in Yate 6.6 (Jul 20, 2021)

The Main Window:
The main window's minimum height is no longer dependent on the size of the tallest custom editing panel.
Edit panels may now be larger than the viewable area. The panels now scroll vertically when necessary.
On a per panel basis, when a panel cannot be viewed in its entirety, its scrollable size is the minimum size required by the edit panel.
The number of rows in a custom panel is only limited by the size of your display.
You can now define custom named sorts for the main window. You create and delete the named sorts from the table header's context menu's Sort submenu. The Title-Artist Sort introduced in v6.5.0.1 has been removed and has been implemented as a named sort which can be deleted.
The table on the Manage Displayed Columns panels can now be sorted by column. Initially when Yate starts the sort order is Show-descending, Column-ascending.
Backups:
Backups now occur when closing the application as opposed to when it is started. There is no real difference except that it enables the following...
Whenever you update to a new version number of Yate, the most recent backup file will be renamed to Pre Version Backup. These files are not recycled by the usual backup mechanism. Note that if you wish to restore to one of these files and it is zipped, the file must be manually unzipped. This is due to the fact that the file which was zipped had a different name.
Custom Panel Editor:
When a panel is cleared the row count is now reset to the default of twelve rows.
Added a new Disk/Track Combined field item which combines Disc, Disc Count, Track and Track Count in a single grid cell.
Added a new Love/Rating Combined field item which combines Love and Rating in a single grid cell.
Added the ability to combine most two single line fields into a single grid cell. There is a new item (at the top of the menu) named Combine Two Fields.
Preferences - File List:
The standard Mac controls for text fields with a list popup, set the width of the menu to the width of the field. This can cause cropping when the field is narrow. The Use wide menus for list display setting enables the display of a wider menu when required.
Preferences - Audio - Common:
You can automatically set the default rating to five stars whenever a track is written and it is loved.
Action Buttons on Custom Panels:
If an action button is disabled because there are no selected files, you can now access its function button to edit the action. Previously the function button was always disabled along with the button.
Action Statements:
The Build Component List statement has been enhanced. You can now explicitely specify the preference list association for each source item. This can be done in the editor or at runtime. The source can be a list where every list item is individually processed. Reverse functionality can also now be performed.
The Compare Text statement can now elect not to escape inserted content for regular expression comparisons. This means that you can construct regular expressions at runtime.
The Enumerate Fields and Extensions statement's Supported Image Filename Extensions function is now deprecated. For now it returns an abbreviated list of the most common image extensions. The File Path Manipulation - Is this an Image File? and the List Manipulate - Filter - Is Image File functions correctly identify all OS supported image types.
The File Path Manipulation statement has a new function named Clean Path Component. The function does not work on full paths. It works on path components. It performs the equivalent final manipulations performed on a component when renaming. All sequences of newline, control, illegal, colon (:) and slash (/) characters are replaced with a single instance of the Preferences - General - Invalid Characters Substitution field. Leading and trailing spaces are removed and all sequences of multiple spaces are replaced with a single space.
The Format Credits statement now has runtime configurability.
The Involved People/Musician Credits Functions statement now has runtime configurability.
The List Manipulate - Filter - regexp modes can now elect not to escape inserted content for the regular expression parser. This means that you can construct regular expressions at runtime.
The List Manipulate statement has a new mode named Identify Duplicates.
Prompt category statements
Most settings which had to be configured by manually setting named variables can now be performed directly in the statement. The new implementation automatically sets the same named variables when required.
New prompt statements will enable all settings to their default values. The only exception is Prompt Title as it may be desirable to set a title once for an entire action. This will reduce the dependency on the use of named variables for settings in the future. Note that all prompt statements created prior to this release will work as expected as none of the new setting will have been enabled.
The Prompt for File or Folder statement can now override the display of the OK button by setting named variable Prompt for Path Button.
Prompt for Fields and Prompt for Text statements can use a new button type named Exit. An Exit button closes the panel without validating against any configured formatting requirements.
There is no longer a default title for prompt statementss.
The line under the title area is now hidden when the title is empty.
Markup sequences can be inserted from a context menu in the text field. Items on the menu can be assigned a keyboard shortcut in Preferences - Shortcuts (10.13+). The markup context menu is also available on Set, Set Named Variable and in the multi line edit field of Append and Prepend.
When changing a default set on the Preferences statement, you can specify none (case insensitive) to imply that there is no set of the associated type.
The Preference List Add/Remove statement has been renamed to Preference List Item Functions. The statement now has a Return Matches function which allows for the extraction of the rendition of each specified element as contained in the list.
The Read Text File statement will automatically handle binary plist files.
The Scanner statement
New function named Scan Bracketed String. Used to scan a string with a balanced set of left and right delimiters. The delimiters are returned.
New function named Scan Bracketed Content. Used to scan a string with a balanced set of left and right delimiters. The delimiters are not returned.
The Show in Finder statement can now explicitly specify files and folders to be displayed. The statement is now valid when batch processing.
The Show in Finder, Delete Files and Folders and Trash Files and Folders now support a Get Path context menu item in the path specification field.
The Show in Log Viewer statement can now leave the named variable field empty to imply that the viewer should be closed. Empty content will still do the same.
New statement named Zip / Unzip.
Escape Sequences:
New escape sequence av which returns the version number on the executing action file's Version statement, if available.
New escape sequence at which returns the descriptive text on the executing action file's Version statement, if available.
New escape sequence ad which returns 1 if the executing action file has associated online help, otherwise 0.
New escape sequence ?rx which inserts the Preferences - General - Invalid character substitution field.
New escape sequence ai which inserts the name of the action initially called.
Properties:
A new property named Channel Count is available. As opposed to the Channel Mode property, it always displays a numeric value.
Main Window Filters:
Added Sample Rate and Channel Count to the main window filter Properties category
Snapshot Editor:
The status bar now honours the Font>Larger/Smaller Text on Status Bars items.
When not displaying empty values, boolean properties with a value of NO will not be displayed.
Discogs and Musicbrainz:
The search results panel's status bars now honour the Font>Larger/Smaller Text on Status Bars items.
The search results panel's table headers now support the auto resize column functions context menu.
Text on the status bars is now centered.
Resource Actions:
Sync Files and Permute 3:
The Permute 3 Convert Selected Files and Sync Files actions have been rewritten to support the retention of audio properties when converting files.
As both of the actions now share much of the same code, they have been bundled together as Sync Files.
If you previously only downloaded Permute 3 Convert Selected Files, you will not be able to auto-update. You'll have to download the updated Sync Files suite.
The profile format used by the Sync actions has been modified. An attempt will be made to update existing profiles.
The bundle contains a new action named Permute 3 Convert Selected Files - Select Destination. This is an easier action to use when you want to simply convert files and preserve metadat using a single fixed Permute 3 preset.
There is a new set of actions bundled under the name of Duplicate Credit Names. The actions are used to find, resolve and repair duplicate variations of a single credit name.
Bug Fixes:
The Prompt Default Button setting was not being applied on Prompt statements using Alert styles.
The List Manipulate - Filter - regexp modes were not escaping inserted named and track variable contents for regular expression sequences.
The Trim statement when operating on lists was not accepting any delimiter other than the default list delimiter.
Disabling the display of properties in the Debug statement was not working.
The copying/moving of items between lists in Preferences - Lists was not not working for the Custom 6 through Custom 10 lists.
The Involved People/Musician Credits Functions - Remove People function could insert a redundant = if the field was initially empty. This would be removed when the file was written but it could cause unnecessary writes.
When importing a preference list, the names were being decomposed if advanced list settings were set to Always. This is incorrect, imported names should be inserted without decomposition.
Preferences - Discogs - Advanced - Ignored Media was always reset to 'blu-ray,dvd,video' when manually set to empty.

New in Yate 6.5.01 (Jun 13, 2021)

New in Yate 6.5 (May 19, 2021)

Application:
m4r files can now be loaded.
Main Window:
There is a new main window column and filter item named Tag Scheme.
Dock Icon Behaviour:
There is a new Preferences - General setting to control what happens when the dock icon is clicked.
The default is Show the Main Window which is Yate's previous behaviour.
Preserve the Window Layout attempts to preserve the current window layout.
Active Dependent Behaviour is equivalent to Show the Main Window when the application is active or Preserve the Window Layout when inactive.
Opening Files:
Files can now be loaded in to the main window or to the Artwork Viewer via URLs. Do a Help>Search Yate Help for the Opening Files by URLs topic for additional information.
Droplets:
Many Yate actions do not require audio files to be loaded in order to execute. You can now create droplets to these files which run directly when opened. See Preferences - General - Droplets for additional information.
Discogs:
The Preferences-Discogs-General setting to Prefer Artist Name Variations (ANV) now has three values. Never and Always correspond to the previous settings. Latin Name Resolution will only substitute an ANV if an artist name contains non Latin-1 characters and the ANV contains only Latin-1 characters.
Lyrics:
APISEEDS is no longer handling requests. Support has been removed.
The Batch Processor:
Suppressed various logging information types unless Verbose is enabled.
The Batch Processor can now be started from within an action. When the Batch Processor starts, its display panel will be positioned such that you have to click on the Start button to proceed. This behaviour can be avoided by the new Preferences - Actions setting named Enable Batch Processor auto start from Stop Action and Run Batch Processor.
The Combined Credits Editor:
The credits table has been updated from the latest Discogs, MusicBrainz and Roon credits lists. There are now 7427 built in credits.
The Alias column has been renamed Alias Of.
Note that all Roon credits which are aliases now have the Alias Of column populated with the name of the canonical credit. If an alias was previously entered for an item, it will not be modified.
The Known Credits table has a new context menu item named Validate Known Credits table. The function looks for issues in the table. Issues are typically associated with invalid Alias Of definitions. If any issues are found they are displayed in the Log Viewer.
The View Menu:
The Credits Invalid for Roon function now performs a deeper analysis. The use of an alias is now reported.
The Help Menu:
The Help menu's Quick Reference submenu has additional items.
Search Templates:
You can now choose to use + or space as the metadata keyword delimiter.
The Action Manager:
The context menu items have been somewhat reordered.
The Set as Toolbar action context menu items have been moved to a submenu.
When exporting a single folder, the folder name field in the export panel will be populated.
Action Editor Windows:
You can no longer disable the display of line numbers. They're always displayed.
The vertical bar after line numbers is now always displayed.
The Run Action context menu item will now prompt you if there are unsaved changes and will allow you to save and run.
The context menu items have been somewhat reordered.
You can now search for occurrences of particular statements in the Find Panel. You must select the statement in the Function statement column before opening the Find Panel. As with other find entities you can find the next, previous or all occurrences.
Preferences - Actions:
There is a new setting which allows you to enable or disable the auto-resizing of the Action Pending window.
The option to disable the vertical grid line after lines numbers in Action Editor windows has been removed.
There is a new setting to enable batch processing to start immediately after execution of a Stop Action and Start Batch Processor statement.
Action Pending Window:
You no longer have to click on the displayed text to modify the size of the display font.
If you right click on the window's icon, a menu will be displayed where you can enable or disable auto-resizing of the window. If you enable it, the window will be resized immediately.
Action Statement Changes:
The Copy Non Audio Files and Move Non Audio Files statements have a new Overwrite existing subfolders option. Careful here!
The Artwork to Folder Icon statement has a new Silent option. You can now also save an icon to a specified folder.
The Artwork to Folder jpg statement has a new Silent option.
The Debug statement has been completely overhauled.
The choice of which content is displayed is now configured at runtime.
At runtime when the Action Pending Window is displayed for the Debug statement, there is a Configure button. This allows you to change the displayed content on the fly. You can also modify the default settings.
To the right of the Configure button is a disclosure button which displays a menu providing additional capabilities:
You can open an action in an editor window ... even while batch processing. As is currently the case, changes to these windows cannot be saved while action processing.
You can display the metadata in the Log Viewer for all active files as if a View>Metadata as Text was executed.
When executing grouped or after a Load & Run statement, you can choose to display the metadata for the current file.
The displayed information now uses colour coding and where necessary monospace fonts to enhance the ability to quickly and properly view the information.
Properties can now be displayed as well as track variables. You can choose which properties you are interested in.
Empty track, named and system variables are no longer displayed. Empty properties are not displayed as well.
The Execution Mode can now be displayed.
A list of active files can now be displayed.
The step info area can now be hidden as depending on the displayed content it may be redundant.
You can no longer change the default text colour. However, markup is supported in the text prompt.
You can no longer display a checkbox on the panel.
The window title is now always Yate Debug.
There is a new statement named Delete Files and Folders. This statement is extremely dangerous. Please read the documentation.
The Import Artwork statement has a new setting to enable scaling of the imported images.
The Involved People/Musician Credits Functions statement has two new functions: Credits Which are Aliases and Credits Which are not Defined.
The List Contains Test statement now supports the per file testing against a list in a named variable. All fields are re-escaped wherever appropriate for each processed file. There is a new trimmed option which tests trimmed values against trimmed lists.
There is a new statement named Load Artwork Viewer which can load an image file or the artwork contained in an audio file to the Artwork Viewer. The statement can also be used to close the Artwork Viewer.
The Log statement now allows you to save the results to a Log named variable or per track variables.
The Manipulate Artwork statement now accepts empty or 0 as a scale factor. It implies use the Preferences-Artwork scale value.
The Map Metadata to Files statement can now specify criteria at runtime.
The Open URL statement can now handle callbacks and the acquisition of downloaded data. The statement's online help contains additional information. There is a new escape sequence ?ou which serves as a callback marker in the URL.
The Play System Sound statement can now play a sound from a file at a specified path. The sound is cropped at 5 seconds.
Prompt category statements:
User interface markup:
The Ask, Debug, Prompt and Prompt for Text statements can optionally use a simple markup scheme in the displayed text.
The markup supports the display of bold and italic text, proportional and fixed width text and text colouring.
More information can be found in the online help for the above statements or via Help>QuickReference>Prompt Markup Sequences.
Statements with configurable buttons no longer have a requirement that the displayed buttons have to be contiguous. Note that discontiguous buttons will not display as expected on the Prompt statement with an Alert or Critical Alert display mode.
With statements with configurable buttons, which button, if any, is the default button can now be configured.
Statements displaying a Cancel button have a slightly modified default behaviour. The Cancel button warning gets reset to warn each time Yate is started. You can still temporarily dismiss the warning but not when batch processing.
You can now explicitly control whether a warning is issued when a cancel button is hit.
Checkboxes can now be displayed without the images essentially allowing you to specify an out of bounds text label.
The Prompt for Text statement:
Menu items displayed on the picker list can now be displayed as a separator line.
Menu items displayed on the picker list can be prefixed by a ✓ character.
Menu items on the picker list can be configured to close the window when selected. Either honouring the format requirements or ignoring them.
There are two new formatting options for the results. Sequences of multiple spaces can be compressed and characters can be marked as invalid.
Documentation for the statement's menu item special sequences and its formatting option codes can be referenced from the Help>Quick Reference menu.
When specifying a picker menu in the Prompt For Text List named variable, all trailing newline characters are removed. This is to avoid the inadvertent display of empty menu items.
The Prompt for Text List R/O and Prompt for Text List Overwrite named variables are now deprecated. Their functionality has been replaced by format codes in the Prompt for Text Formatting named variable. The deprecated named variables will continue to operate for now unless. The new format codes have a higher precedence.
The text field can now be hidden if you want the user to only be able to choose a menu item. This is controlled by the new H format code.
There is a new button type named Continue-Always. A button of this type exits without validating the text field.
The Re-Encode statement now has a URL escape sequence function for query values.
The Remove Folder Icon statement can now remove an icon on a specified folder.
The Rename Files statement has a new silent option which is enabled by default for new statements.
New Save statements now default to Selected Files as opposed to All Files.
The Search Discogs and Search MusicBrainz statements can now override the results limit at runtime.
The Set Action Runtime Setting statement can now remove all settings in the currently mapped set. This is done by by setting # to empty.
The Stop Action and Open Files statement can now selectively close and/or open individual files, ignoring the Open Mode.
There is a new statement named Stop Action and Run Batch Processor. All configuration for the batch processor is supplied. The user is presented with the information as to which action is about to run and can select Cancel or Start. Optionally there is a new Preferences - Actions setting to allow for the immediate start of the batch processor.
The Test File Type statement:
When testing for MPEG-4 files, the statement can now test for Any, AAC or ALAC.
The statement now applies the standard Set, And, Or semantics for the test state as well as any variables being saved. Previously the test state was set to true on success regardless of the specified mode.
The Test if File Exists statement:
The statement now returns creation and modification dates as well as file sizes.
You can Set, And or Or the result of the test to the action test state. Tests are only performed when necessary.
The Transfer Metadata statement, when transferring out:
There is a new option to copy the source file's modification date to the destination file.
There is a new option to only write a file if something has changed after transferring the metadata.
The Trash Items statement has been renamed to Trash Files and Folders.
New Actions on the Resource Page:
Identify Apple App Metadata Discrepancies. An action to identify values in iTunes/Music which should be identical to those stored in the file but are not. This was a long standing iTunes issue.
Lookup Wikipedia Artist Bio. A user facing action and an action which can be called to lookup artist bios and artwork on Wikipedia.
Permute 3 Convert Selected Files. An action to encode files using Permute 3.
Sync Files. A set of actions to synchronize metadata between files in different root folders. Copying of missing audio files and non audio files can be performed. Permute 3 can also be used to convert missing files.
Many other actions were updated.
Bug Fixes:
When explicitly specifying a text colour of Black, Red or Blue in an Ask, Debug, Prompt or Prompt for Text statement, the colours were not optimized for dark mode.
Error messages were incorrectly being accumulated in Discogs/MusicBrainz Metadata for Release and Search Discogs/MusicBrainz statements. This could cause incorrect results in repetitive calls. It could also cause the Data Source Access Error named variable to contain garbage. The Search Discogs/MusicBrainz actions on the resource page could be affected.
The Preferences-MusicBrainz-General Latin artist names setting was not substituting in single names. ie. no first name.
Exclusions on the Prompt for Fields statement were not working correctly.
The Sort Track List statement has been patched. At some point in the distant past it started sorting on incorrect columns.
If the Log Viewer, Notepad or the Action Pending window was closed with an open find panel, a soft crash could occur when they were reopened.
When an explicit true/false label was set on an Ask statement, the defaults were being changed.
The Debug statement was changing the button and picker list selection named variables.
Debug statement lines numbers at times were off by 1 or 2.
If you renamed an action or preference item and it initially was the same name as was referenced on a Map Action Runtime Settings statement, the statement would have its set renamed. It should only be renamed if a runtime set was being renamed.
Disabled Start statements were being recognized at runtime and in Action Editor Windows.
The Append and Prepend statements were not immediately updating the display after using the multi line editor.
The Ignore Files statement was not logging its track variable usage.
The Test File Type statement was not applying the Set, And, Or semantics to the test state ... only to variables.
m4a UDTI Apple Store Playlist ID was being incorrectly stored as a UDTI as opposed to a plID atom. Saving a file again will correct the issue.

New in Yate 6.4.1.3 (May 12, 2021)

New in Yate 6.4.1.2 (May 10, 2021)

New in Yate 6.4.1.1 (Apr 22, 2021)

New in Yate 6.4.1 (Mar 29, 2021)

The Beatport Importer:
The Beatport Importer was already stripping trailing qualifiers enclosed in parenthesis on the Title field when using it in a search. However, when scoring the Title against the search results, the full title was used. Both title variants will now be used and the highest score will be retained.
Yate used to synthesize Beatport URLs to https://pro.beatport.com/. That domain no longer seems to work. URLs are now synthesized to https://beatport.com/. An action named Fix Beatport URLs is available on the resources page if you want to update the URLs in existing files without running the importer.
The scoring algorithm will now use mix name and release metadata to further refine results when more than one has the best score.
By popular demand there is a new option to append a mix name to the Title field when importing titles. The format is: title (mix name)
The standard Edit Find functions have been mapped to the importer to make it easier to find files not marked for import. Edit>Find>Find (⌘F) will highlight all files which are not marked for import. Edit>Find>Find Next (⌘G) will highlight the next file which is not marked for import. Edit>Find>Find Previous (⇧⌘G) will highlight the previous file which is not marked for import.
yate-cli Command Line Application:
Certain versions of the OS cannot launch Yate when yate-cli is run from within the application's bundle. There is a new Yate>Setup menu item to extract yate-cli so that it can be easily accessed.
The functionality has been expanded to open audio files.
Do a Yate>Search Yate Help and search for yate-cli for more information.
Bug Fixes:
There was a timing issue where Prompt category statements could open a panel without any buttons. This would require a Force Quit.
Move/Copy statements which used a rename template which added path components and did duplicate handling, duplicated the added path components if a file was a duplicate.
Sort controls on the the Movement column were not working.

New in Yate 6.4 (Mar 23, 2021)

Beatport Importer Options:
When specifying Automatically select matches there is an Exact option.
You can now Aggressively search for an exact match.
You can now hide matches which do not meet the specified criteria. This is great for hiding a long list of rejected matches.
You can now specify thresholds to be used when matching titles, artists and optionally releases (albums). Items which do not meet the threshold are not considered. More information is available in the online help.
These changes will help eliminate the automatic choosing of matches which are incorrect.
Lyrics:
APISEEDS is no longer accepting registrations for API keys and is migrating to a new service at happi.dev.
As of this release we will continue to support APISEEDS and also support happi.dev. The usage and credit patterns are similar.
There are a few differences in behaviour and they are documented in the online help.
Every command and statement which contained APISEEDS is now named Get Lyrics.
The auto generated UDTIs which were prefixed with APISEEDS will now be prefixed with Get Lyrics. Old UDTIs will be removed and replaced with the new when a lyrics search is performed. In order to maintain your retry dates, the APISEEDS Status UDTI will be used if Get Lyrics Status is not present.
At some point down the road when APISEEDS shuts down we will remove support.
In order to ease the transition for those of you who have purchased credits, we've purchased a large block of credits which can be accessed by using an API key of free. This is a shared resource and will be used up over time.
Earliest Recording Date from MusicBrainz:
Functionality has been introduced to search MusicBrainz on a per track basis to determine a track's earliest release date.
There is a new action statement named MusicBrainz Earliest Recording which supports what gets matched, how many network accesses occur and what gets imported.
The Actions menu has a new Earliest Recording Date from MusicBrainz item. This is a convenience method as the functionality is provided by importing an action which is executed. The functionality is configured by modifying the imported action.
Some tracks have numerous recordings and may require many rate limited network accesses. If you're feeling lucky you can limit the process to one network access per track.
Progress is displayed on the main window's status bar. If you see that more pages (network accesses) are required than you wish to wait for, you can do a File>Cancel or hit the toolbar Cancel button. You will be given the opportunity to skip the file or cancel. When a search is cancelled, partial results will be retained.
The Artwork Viewer:
You can now open image files via File>Open.
You can now open image files via the Finder's Open With functionality.
You can now open an image file from a command line via the following command:
/Applications/Yate.app/Contents/MacOS/yate-cli -av file
Custom Panels:
Custom panels can now be imported via Yate>Import Preferences and by dragging an appropriate file to the main window's file list area.
The Custom Panel Editor's Delete All button has been renamed to Clear. It now also erases the name and tooltip fields.
Discogs and MusicBrainz Wizards:
There is now a new context menu item named Select Same Album or Folder on the mapping panel's context menu.
Rename Replacements:
A replacement item which has a from pattern of . will replace all trailing periods in the effective string with the possibly empty to pattern. This is primarily for users copying files to Window's based PCs.
Multi Field Editor Editor:
The Trim function has a new Remove Invalid setting. It is equivalent to the Remove Invalid Characters statement and does a context sensitive removal of invalid characters on a per field basis.
Filter Editor:
When saving a filter you can now show a menu containing the names of existing filters.
Audio Information Panel:
You can display a popup version of the Audio Information panel by right clicking on a file in the main window and selecting Audio Information from the context menu. It doesn't matter how many files are selected, only information for the clicked file is displayed.
When only one file is selected you can do a View>Audio Information for the same functionality.
Creating Apple App Playlists:
When creating an Apple App playlist from loaded files or within a Track database, there is now a disclosure button which will display the names of the existing playlists.
The choice of which application's playlists to display is determined automatically. In the unlikely event that you are creating playlists in Music and TV at the same time, you will be asked to choose which list to display.
Sort Form Improvements:
The Last Name, First Name functionality used by the Sort Form action statement and the same named function in the Multi Field Editor was very simplistic. It basically looked for the last space in a field and flipped the contents.
Two new replacement set types have been introduced which are now used by the functionality.
The Sort Form Ignore Suffix set contains a list of sequences which can follow a last name. These include Band, Orchestra, etc. The sequences when found will not be considered the last name and will be isolated. For example: Ben Webster Band --> Webster, Ben (Band). There is also the ability to mark a suffix as being additive. This enables: The Gary Clark Jr. Band --> Clark, Gary (Jr. Band, The)
The Sort Form Name Prefix set contains a list of sequences which can be considered to be part of the last name. For example: Al Di Meola --> Di Meola, Al
The new out of the box copies of the sets will automatically be imported and can be found in Preferences-Replacements.
Action Editor Windows:
The Action Description context menu item displays an action's description in a popup window. Previously hitting the space bar would have the same effect.
Hitting the space bar will now have the same effect unless the following holds: If a single statement is selected and it is a Comment, Force Grouped, Start, Tooltip or Version statement and has a non empty description, the description will be displayed in the popup window.
Action Statements:
The Alert and Critical Alert modes of the Ask and Prompt statements now support the same functionality as the Standard display mode.
The Enumerate Fields and Extensions statement can now enumerate the following classes of fields: credits, dates, numeric and URLs.
The Copy Files, Create Symbolic Links, Export Metadata, Import Metadata, Import Metadata from Audio File and Move statements now allow you to specify transformations to be applied much as you can in Rename templates.
Support for the long deprecated LyricWiki Access statement has been removed.
The Preferences statement no longer has a dedicated section to change the Action Pending Window's text colour. This is now done via a single preference change item named Action Pending Window Text Colour.
The Replace statement now supports regular expressions. While it has less functionality than the Regular Expression statement, it supports multiple fields at a time.
New action statement named MusicBrainz Earliest Recording discussed above.
The Preferences and Extract Preference Set statements have been modified to acomodate the two new preference set types used by the Sort Form functionality.
The Compare Fields Across Files and Compare Fields statements have been merged under the Compare Fields name. All existing statements have been adjusted. Please read the documentation as there are some changes when new statements are created.
The Add to List statement now supports diacritic insensitivity.
The List Manipulate statement has two new functions: Combine and Combine Counted. They both merge contiguous like elements.
The List Contains Test statment now has a Per file values setting which causes the test data and list delimiter to be evaluated for each file when testing for containment in lists in fields.
Prompt Statements:
The Prompt for File or Folder statement now supports the common prompt statement functionality. This means that depending on the OS version and the New File option, a title can be specified. A check box can also be displayed.
The Ask, Prompt, Prompt for Fields and Prompt for Text statements now support up to four buttons which can be configured in a variety of ways.
The Prompt for Fields statement now selects Hide Info when a new statement is created.
The Scanner statement:
The statement can now scan for Roman numerals and optionally convert them to integers.
The statement can now save per file results to track variables.
Other Action Related Changes:
The Pending Action Window now resizes to its content.
New escape sequence ?xd imports the Non Standard Delimiters defined on the Preferences-Lists-Advanced List Settings panel. List items are delimited by a newline character (n). Useful to be used with the new MusicBrainz Earliest Recording which has a delimiters field.
New escape sequence ?nv imports a list of all non empty named variables. List items are delimited by the default list delimiter (~).
Bug Fixes:
The Stop Action and Filter Files statement possibly displayed an unsorted list of filters.
When an action was exported the Preferences statement was not automatically including referenced Replacement and Exception sets.
If Regular Expression was chosen as a String operator in a filter, the escape menus did not revert if a non regular expression operator was chosen.
Tracks added to the Staging Playlist were not always added to the end of the list.
Fixed a potential issue with the Move statement's preview functionality.
The Exists statement was not immediately updating a change of a per file variable.
The Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards were adding unselected files by matching album AND folder as opposed to matching album OR folder.

New in Yate 6.3.0.1 (Feb 8, 2021)

New in Yate 6.3 (Jan 26, 2021)

Artwork:
The Auto Search for Artwork functionality is no longer restricted to processing a single album at a time.
Previously if your Mac had a Retina display and an image was modified the resultant image's resolution was 144ppi. An image's resolution is now preserved without resampling.
An image's resolution is now displayed in the Mime type field on any artwork panel.
The Crop/Scale/Square Artwork panel now supports the setting of the resultant image's resolution (without resampling). The panel also displays the initial image's resolution.
The Manipulate Artwork statement now supports the setting of the resultant image's resolution (without resampling).
The Artwork Information statement now supports returning the default, smallest and largest resolution.
The Indexed Artwork statement now has a Get Resolution function.
When saving artwork to a folder from an Artwork panel and from the Artwork Viewer, you can now set the resolution.
You can now specify 0 for the Manipulate Artwork statement's Compress artwork if size is greater than setting. 0 implies the initial size of the image.
You can now specify 0 for the Compress down to setting in the Crop/Scale/Square Artwork panel when it is available. 0 implies the initial size of the image.
The main window filter's Artwork category now includes Artwork Count. The item was previously only in the Multiple Item Counts category.
Main Window Columns:
You can now Show/Hide multiple columns at a time via the table header context menu Manage Displayed Columns item.
From the displayed panel you can show/hide individual columns or use the context menu to show/hide selected columns or all columns.
You can also elect to auto size all columns after saving changes.
The list of columns in the table header's context menu can be hidden.
Open from Clipboard:
The File>Open from Clipboard command can now open M3u(8), Cue and database files.
MusicBrainz:
MusicBrainz has primary release types and optional secondary types.
There is a new Preferences-MusicBrainz-General setting named Append secondary type when importing Release Type.
The Release Type metadata in previous versions returned the MusicBrainz primary release type. When the new option is set, MusicBrainz Release Type will now contain the primary and secondary release types. For compatibility reasons the values are separated by / characters. The primary release type always comes first. There can be multiple secondary types.
Discogs:
The Preferences-Discogs-General Preload releases setting will now also cause an Images column to be displayed in the list of releases. The column contains the number of available artwork items.
Escape Sequences:
New escape sequence an returns the name of the currently executing action.
New escape sequence af. If not executing an inline action this sequence is the same as an. If an inline action is executing, this sequence will always return the name of the containing non inline action.
Action Statements:
New action statement named Is Action Defined. The statement sets the action test state to true if the specified action exists, otherwise it is set to false. The statement can only test for the existence of non inline actions.
The Stop and Open Files statement now handles, M3U(8), CUE and database files.
In order to avoid confusion and possible unexpected behaviour at runtime, certain action statements now do limited edit time validation of integer values. The runtime validation of the values has not changed and where permitted before, an empty field will still imply zero. Where an integer value of abc would previously have been accepted and would be evaluated as zero at runtime, it will now be flagged as invalid when entered. Escape sequences are handled correctly and typically defer the validation to runtime. The following statements perform the edit time validation: Manipulate Artwork, Artwork to Folder, Crop Artwork, Duplicate Artwork, Indexed Artwork, Rearrange Artwork, Remove Artwork, Substring, Truncate, List from Column, List Item, at Index/Sublist, Remove List Item at Index, Set List Index.
The Remove Artwork statement has a new Do not remove the default artwork item option.
The Auto Search for Artwork statement has partially changed semantics for the returned Auto Search Status named variable.
Action Editor Windows:
You can now display a popup window which contains an action's description while editing an action. Previously this could only be done in the Action Manager. An action's description is the first non empty content in a Comment, Force Grouped, Tooltip or Version statement. A search for a description is terminated at the first enabled statement which is not one of the preceding statements or an Empty Line or Constrain Execution to a Single File statement. You display the popup via the Description... context menu item or by hitting the space bar.
Copy Action (text) to Clipboard will only include selected rows if the Option key is pressed.
ID3 Based Files:
Items with multiple values now have all empty items removed when reading. Previously only trailing empty items were removed. Note that this could only happen with files written by other applications.
WAV File BEXT Metadata:
Wav files can contain a bext metadata chunk which describes various properties and is part of the Broadcast Wave Format (BWF) specification. Yate now processes this chunk when present.
The metadata can be viewed in a textual format via a View menu's BEXT Metadata item or by double clicking on any audio information panel.
The Snapshot Editor will display the data in a tree format.
The presense of BEXT data can be tested with a main window filter.
There is a new property named BEXT Metadata. The extracted property is formatted as a key-value list using the standard delimiters. See the online help for the Get Property statement for additional information.
Bug Fixes:
The description test in the Remove Artwork statement was broken. The test was only applied to a single file.
The Build List statement's Grouping option was not being retained.
When creating m3u files from within a database file, an Extended or Yate header was not written when required. Note that m3u files created from the main window were not affected. An action named Repair Missing m3u Headers is provided on the resources web page. The action patches all m3u(8) files in a folder and optionally processes subfolders.
The size of toolbar icons was reverting to large each time Yate was run. This only occurred on Big Sur.
Many UI tweaks for Big Sur.

New in Yate 6.2.0.5 (Jan 7, 2021)

New in Yate 6.2.0.4 (Jan 4, 2021)

New in Yate 6.2.0.3 (Jan 4, 2021)

New in Yate 6.2.0.2 (Jan 4, 2021)

New in Yate 6.2.0.1 (Dec 28, 2020)

New in Yate 6.2 (Dec 15, 2020)

Apple Silicon:
Yate is now a universal build and runs natively in Big Sur on an Apple silicon based Mac.
Alert Messages:
Starting with Big Sur the OS displays vertical alerts with centered text.
These alerts may not be suitable for alerts with longer text displays or those which display a full file path.
You can enable the Preferences - General Use alternate alert style setting. These alerts display similar to pre Big Sur alerts. You can also enable the Larger text setting to use somewhat larger font sizes when displaying the alert. These settings are ignored on OS versions prior to 10.12.
Alerts with very long text may not fit on the display. The alternate alert style encloses the text in a scrollable region. Big Sur does the same but it positions the display to the end of the text as opposed to the start.
Custom Fields:
There is no longer a limitation as to how many custom fields can be displayed as a main window column.
All custom fields except for those marked as being Yes/No values can be associated with a list.
The Yes/No state is now exported/imported with custom fields.
The Custom Field Editor:
The custom field editor has been rewritten to isolate the user from the internal custom field numbers.
There are no longer controls for column association or for being marked as a popup.
Only defined custom fields are displayed in the list and they are sorted.
There are now edit and add buttons.
When editing or adding you can now cancel the changes to the item being modified/created without cancelling previous changes.
No functionality has been lost and internally nothing has changed.
Preference Lists:
Ten Custom Lists are now available in Preferences-Lists. This has been increased from 5.
The preference lists can now be renamed in Preferences-Lists.
The Custom Panel Editor:
A custom field which is defined as being a Yes/No value is always rendered as a checkbox regardless of the Display as checkbox setting's value.
Main Window Columns:
Copyright can now be displayed as a main window column.
Set Subtitle can now be displayed as a main window column.
Custom fields now display sorted in place in the main window table header context menu. ie. there are no longer Custom Field # (name) menu items.
Column Display Attributes:
You now configure individual column display attributes (align, crop) by right clicking on a column's table header and using the Column Display Attributes submenu.
The Preferences - File List - Column Display Attributes button has been removed.
Edit Panel Preset Buttons:
The edit panel preset button context menu has been rearranged. Custom edit panels are now represented by their assigned name (if any). There are no more Custom # (name) items.
The ability to move edit panels in and out of the Others menu by holding down the Shift key and selecting them has been removed. The Others submenu has been renamed to Hidden Edit Panels. A Manage Hidden Edit Panels item is now provided which allows you to specify which edit panels should be hidden.
The three Saved Layout menu items have been removed. You can now create, update, export and rename as many saved named layouts as you wish. If the older Saved Layout # items had associated content they will be migrated to saved layouts of the same name.
You can now click (primary not secondary) on the preset button which is associated with the displayed edit panel to get an abbreviated menu. Example clicking on a highlighted Info preset button. This menu contains items to activate all edit panels not currently displayed on a preset button. The menu ignores items which are hidden and all custom panels which are not configured. It's an easy way to quickly access edit panels of interest to you.
The Edit Panel Picker window has been removed.
Menu Changes:
The Custom Field Editor can now be displayed from the Edit Menu. This is a shortcut to the preference panel.
Application Presets:
The Preferences - Audio - Common - Application Presets menu has a new item named Roon - Read Only. This is a convenience function to enable all Roon settings and to force them to read only.
File Properties:
There is a new file property named Loaded File UID. The File Index property can change when a file availability statement is executed. This new property is unique for every loaded file and is retained as long as Yate is running.
Roon Settings:
New Preferences-Audio-ID3 and MPEG-4 options to remap the Release Time field to what Roon expects.
Action Statements:
The Prompt for File or Folder and Folder Contents statements now have a standardized list of delimiters for a list of filename extensions. Delimiters previously accepted in either statement are now accepted in both.
The Copy Metadata Between Files statement now can use the File Index or Loaded File UID property for indexes. This effectively means that metadata can be copied outside the current set of available files which can be modified by file availability statements and various Run statements.
The Fill Lists and Standardize on List Items statements now display all custom fields. The determination is made at runtime as to whether a custom field is associated with a list.
The Append and Prepend action statements now have a control which allows you to edit the optional text in a multi-line field.
The Exists statement now supports the saving of the results to per track variables when appropriate.
The More than One Item statement now supports ANDing and ORing to the test state. It also supports the saving of the results to per track variables.
The Import Artwork statement now supports single file pattern based matches where a filename extension is not supplied. This implies match any image file type.
Action Editor Windows - Find Panel:
The Find panel has been redesigned to provide faster access to the various item types that you can search for.
You can now search for inline action definitions from a list of names. ie. Start statements.
You can now search for callers of a selected action.
You can now search for statements with warnings.
The Find Track Variables menu only lists those track variables used in the action.
WavPack Streams:
The stream for WavPack files is now represented as: Lossy or Hybrid Lossy followed by (PCM) or (DSD).
Log Raw Data:
All raw data logs are now verbose. The Verbose setting has been removed from Preferences-Audio-Common.
Bug Fixes:
If the current editing panel was a custom panel and the Custom Panel Editor increased the size of a different panel, the displayed panel could appear messed up until Yate was restarted.
The main window double-click popup menu for Yes/No custom fields was not working as expected.
Found another case where status bar messages could be duplicated.
Fixed a potential timing crash in the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards when closing the windows when on the File Mapping panels.
The Clear User Defined Items by Source action statement was not removing Beatport data saved as UFIDs.
An extract of a full runtime settings set via an Extract Preference Set could return older data if a runtime setting had been changed since the action started.
The Open Database statement with Silent set was failing if the associated plist sidecar file did not exist.
When the Regular Expression Tester was opened from a Regular Expression statement a mode of Ranges+ was lost.
Big Sur: The toolbar icons were always displayed 'small'.

New in Yate 6.1.0.1 (Nov 1, 2020)

New in Yate 6.1 (Oct 26, 2020)

Beatport Support:
Beatport has updated its API. The old Beatport support will no longer function shortly. If you use the Beatport functionality you have to update.
Authentication is automatic and now handled completely by Yate.
The 150 file limitation has been removed.
Much better matching of Stem files.
More rigorous attempts at matching are made when track IDs are not available.
The following additional metadata can now be imported: Artwork (Artist), Artwork (Label), Artwork (Remixer), Artwork URLs, Encoding Date, ISRC, Label Track ID, Stem ID.
Track numbers can no longer be imported.
Columns can be reordered and hidden via the table header's context menu. Far more columns are available.
The table's context menu has new view options affecting the layout of the table and how various items are displayed.
The table now uses an image column to denote state. Grey implies not yet searched. Green implies a search has completed. Red implies an error occurred while searching.
Starting in this version text colouring is by default disabled. You can reenable it to be the same as in previous releases via the context menu.
You can now set tracks to be reloaded via the context menu. This is useful if you want to reload after changing options or a network error occurred and you want to resume loading.
MPEG-4 Files:
You can now pick two alternate encodings for fields with multiple values in Preferences-Audio-MPEG-4. Both of the new encodings provides a better degree of integration with MinimServer.
Artwork Viewer:
The gray background has been changed to a somewhat darker grey. This is to provide more contrast when displaying PNG images with transparent backgrounds. (such as Beatport waveform images).
You can now set the background to Grey, White or Black from the context menu.
Preferences - Export Sets:
OOB and Variable qualifier fields now have a few more configuration items. See the documentation for more information.
When these items are inserted and the Option key is down, and the menu text to be inserted is non empty, the text will be appended as opposed to overwriting the previous contents.
Preferences - Lists:
Sort Album Artist, Sort Artist and Sort Composer can now be associated with lists.
Note that there are no dedicated lists for these items. You can associate the fields with the Custom lists or any of the others you're not using.
Roman Numerals:
A sequence of Roman Numeral digits immediately followed by an alphanumeric character is no longer treated as a Roman Numeral. This only affects the Make Numeric statement when converting Roman Numerals to integer values. Previously Life would return 50. It will now return 0.
The word mix is quite prevalent in tagging. It is also a valid Roman Numeral. This can cause issues when changing alphabetic case and capitalizing Roman Numerals. There is a new Preferences - General - Basic setting named Do not treat the word 'mix' as a Roman Numeral. The new setting is initially enabled.
Action Manager:
Actions can now be constrained to be run only by a particular database. See the Action Manager documentation for more information.
You can now view the resource web page documentation while editing an action via the new Resource Documentation context menu item.
You can now use the Edit>Select Row/Line Number menu item to jump to a particular line.
Action Statements:
The Preferences statement has an override for the new Do not treat the word 'mix' as a Roman Numeral setting.
The Preferences statement has an override for the verbose state and limit applied to the Log statement's raw data modes.
The Preferences statement has an override named Extension. This item is reserved for extensibility requirements.
The special named variable Prompt for Text List Overwrite has a new meaning when set to -1. An attempt will be made to separate items inserted from the picker control by commas.
The Fill Lists and Standardize on List Items statements support the Sort Album Artist, Sort Artist and Sort Composer fields.
There is a new action statement named Pause which can be used to pause action execution for a specified number of seconds. eg. Pause 1.5
The Prompt and Ask statements now support the display of the message as a standard Mac Alert. The advantage of displaying as an alert is that the alert panel resizes automatically to the text. You should not display message with large amounts of text in this manner as text in an alert panel is not scrollable. Informational and Critical alerts can be issued.
Cue Files:
You can now load cue files via File>Open, dragging and by the Finder's Open With menu.
Menu Changes:
The Custom Panel Editor may now be launched from the application's Edit menu.
The File>Open With menu is now available on the file list area's context menu.
Bug Fixes:
The new Export Set popup menu functionality introduced in v6.0.2 was not working correctly in databases which were displaying an artwork image or weight column.
Main window status bar messages set via Prompt-Status statements could be duplicated.
Include statements were not being updated when items were renamed.
Track and Album databases if changed to Standalone could not be changed back.
Summary lines in the main window's filter panel sometimes displayed incorrect options. This was a display only issue.

New in Yate 6.0.2.1 (Oct 16, 2020)

New in Yate 6.0.2 (Sep 14, 2020)

Last.fm:
You can now download Top, Artist, Release and Track tags from Last.fm.
For now the support is only available through actions.
A new action statement named Last.fm Tags can extract the site's top tags or tags associated with albums, tracks or artists.
The web resources page has a download called Last.fm Suite which includes a variety of actions to access the functionally.
The suite is capable of stripping out year, decade and artist related tags. Actions are provided to extract genres and moods. This is done by matching the downloaded tags to the Genres List and the Moods List.
Last.fm tags entail far more than just genres and moods. A database is maintained which you implicitly mark tags as to be ignored; tags which are accepted (regardless of their presense in the Genre or Mood lists) and tags which are to be renamed.
An action is provided which trains the database by allowing you to specify rules on all tags which can be downloaded. This includes ignoring, accepting, renaming, adding to the Genre List or adding to the Mood List.
Given a set of downloaded tags named variables for Genres, Moods, Others, Years and Decades are available.
Action Statement Changes:
You can now specify the transformation mode on a Case statement at runtime.
The Compare Text statement has a new Is the Same Path As as test. A rigorous test is made to determine if two paths reference the same file.
The File Path Manipulation statement has new Abbreviate path (make relative to the home folder if possible), Standardize Path (make relative paths absolute and remove unnecessary components) and Resolve Path (Standardize and resolve symbolic links) modes.
New statement named Last.fm Tags.
The List Manipulate and Issue Database Query statements have a new Regex Filter function. Validation, previews and interoperability with the Regular Expression Tester is available.
Most List Manipulate statement functions now preserve the order of the first (leftmost) list. A new option for some functions named Do not compress is now available to indicate that you do not want list items to have leading and trailing spaces trimmed and that empty items should not be removed.
The Prompt for File or Folder statement can now set the initial folder and filename displayed via the setting of new special named variables.
The Prompt for Text statement can now specify the initial text in a named variable.
Action Runtime Settings:
Referenced Runtime Sets are no longer exported unless they are named on an Include statement. This was always the intent.
Action Manager:
There is a new context menu item named Resource Documentation. The item will be displayed if the selected action has been downloaded from the Resources Web page. Not all Resource Web Page actions have the required linkage. They will be updated over time.
Resetting Preferences:
The Factory Reset menu item has been removed. From mow on, whenever the preferences are reset a factory reset is performed. Yate is closed after a reset and has to be reopened.
Preferences - Export Sets:
OOB and Variable items can now use the qualifier field to specify a menu that is displayed when a cell in the column is double clicked. Menu item separators can be inserted and it is possible to mark such a column as having inline editing disabled.
Variable columns can now be Yes/No columns
Copying Metadata:
The Actions>Copy Metadata>Copy Selected Metadata... item has been renamed to Copy/Configure Selected Metadata... As the displayed metadata is used by the Copy One to Many function, the item is now always available. If the number of loaded or selected files is not appropriate for the chosen copy mode, the Copy button will display the reason.
Bug Fixes:
A rare timing based crash in the MusicBrainz wizard when accessing Discogs data is enabled and multiple requests are successively made has been resolved.
The Q button in the Preferences-Export panel was not inline editing the qualifier field. This was introduced when Yes/No column support was added.
The database context menu item to view a note could be hidden.
When a new row was added to a database file and the database was being filtered, the row would not be selected.
The Action Manager's escape menu of runtime settings was not suppressing a leading # when it had been used to represent keep empty values.
The status bar in the Beatport Importer was not resizing correctly. If the window was made too small it was possible that the Import button was effectively disabled.

New in Yate 6.0.1.1 (Aug 17, 2020)

New in Yate 6.0.1 (Aug 17, 2020)

Action Updates:
You can now check for updates for actions which you have downloaded from the resources web page. This is done via Yate>Check for Action Updates. You can configure this to be done automatically via the Automatically check for action updates setting in Preferences - General.
When checking for action updates you can update all newer versions or only those you select. Note that updates are only displayed for actions which you have installed.
When updating the actions via this method only actions are updated. Other Yate constructs are only written if they do not exist. This means that any customizations you have performed will not be lost.
If you have modified an action and you give it a greater version number it will not be displayed as having an update.
Except for the preceding condition, actions are considered updatable if an installed action has a lower version number then the version which is available online. Note that for downloads which contain multiple actions one differing version number is sufficient.
Yate>Check for Updates has been renamed Yate>Check for Application Updates.
Plist Contents:
When viewing the contents of a Yate plist file, action version numbers will be displayed.
Import and Export of Settings:
You can now directly import from and export to a zip file. The export as zip option is available on all export panels. The option has been initially set to On.
The new functionality means that downloaded content from the resources web page no longer has to be unzipped before being imported. The includes imports done by dragging to the main window and Yate>Import Preferences.
The functionality is very strict when determining if the zip file contains what is expected.
Single Custom Edit Panels (from the Templates section of the Resources web page) can also be imported zipped ... unless otherwise marked in the online documentation.
Action Manager:
You can set the version number of one or more actions at the same time by selecting them and using the new Set Version context menu item.
You can also select folders. When a folder is selected all actions in the folder will have their version modified. Note that this process is shallow not deep. ie. nested folder contents are not modified (unless they are also selected).
A Version statement will automatically be created if one does not exist.
Preferences:
The General panel has been divided into Basic and Advanced tabs.
The General-Basic panel has a new setting: Automatically check for action updates.
The General-Advanced panel has a new option to export preference backup files zipped. The export as zip option has been preset to On.
The General-Advanced panel has a new option to export synch preference files zipped. The option is initially Off. If set to On it must be done on all Macs synching the preferences.
There is a new m3u Files setting named Filename. When creating per folder m3u files you can provide a static name for the filename. If the field is empty the old behaviour is used ... if there is a consistent album field it will be used as the name otherwise Yate will be used.
Cue Files:
If all selected files are in the same folder the file save panel will be positioned to that folder.
The filename initially displayed in the save panel will be Cue Sheet as opposed to Untitled.
Action Statement Changes:
The Finder Tags statement now accepts the default list delimiter when writing tags.
New escape sequence (?ft) to return a list of the Finder's basic colour tags.
The Prompt statement's Reset checkbox has been removed. The option is now on the Mode pulldown control.
The Prompt statement has a new mode named DB Status which is used to place a message on an open database's status bar. See the online help for more information.
The Debug statement now supports Snapshot and Per Track at the same time.
The Debug statement is now smarter when displaying the per track variables. If they are the same for all files a snapshot will be displayed.
Statements in the File Availability category can now be executed in all execution modes. With the exception of the Active Files to List statement, the action test state is set to false if the statement is not appropriate due to one of the following reasons:
The action is executing Grouped.
A Load & Run statement is being executed.
A Run statement is being executed which sets the file availability by testing a track variable.
Execution of the statement would result in no files being active. It is invalid not to have at least one active file.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed issues introduced in v6.0 when interacting with iTunes 10.7. Yes 10.7! The bug more than likely affects interaction with any version of iTunes less than 12.3.3. Not all functionality may be available with versions this old.
The iTunes (not Music or TV) Media kind was imported as 'iTunes' as opposed to 'Music'.
When multiple Compare statements were being ORed and Any was not specified and track variables were being set, the action test state could be incorrect.
The Search Discogs and Search MusicBrainz action statements would hang when run in immediate mode if they were previously used in an action run through the batch processor.

New in Yate 6.0.0.2 (Jul 16, 2020)

New in Yate 6.0.0.1 (Jul 16, 2020)

New in Yate 6.0 (Jul 16, 2020)

The Action Manager:
Many actions are written which do not require selected audio files. These include actions which dynamically load files, those that manipulate databases, etc. The issue is that actions cannot run without at least one selected file.
Note that the All Files column settings are applied before the Always interpretation.
It is still your responsibility to ensure that selected files are not modified, if that is your intent.
Actions with the Always setting will be enabled in menus, main window toolbar icons and edit panel action buttons when there are no files selected.
Two new action statement categories were added: Import/Export and Preferences.
here is a new column in the Action Manager named Always. When the column is enabled, it is treated as a hint to the action runner. The hint is used as follows:
if files are loaded and at least one is selected, there is no behaviour change.
if files are loaded and none are selected, one file will automatically be selected. The named variable File Auto Selected will be set to 1.
if no files are loaded, a temporary file will be supplied and selected. The named variable Temporary File Supplied will be set to 1.When the action terminates, the file is removed. Note that if the file is renamed or moved it will not automatically be removed.
Filters
The main window filter panel and the database viewer window filter panels have been completely redesigned.
To the best of our ability, your existing filters will be converted automatically.
The new filters are no longer serialized binary data making them much easier to open, save and export.
The new filter system is extensible on operators and escape sequence processing.
The new filter system has a number of new features including:
The main window filters field menu can be collapsed into categories. There were a lot of filter types and there are now more.
Every field can compare using text, integer, decimal and boolean operators.
You can now use regular expressions as a text compare operator.
Text operators support case and diacritic insensitivity options as well as a match words option.
The compare against field can contain escape sequences. In the main window this includes all action statement escape sequences. This allows you to compare one field to another or compare a current value to an initial value, etc. In the database filter this includes column name inclusion which allows you to compare one column to another.
The database relative date escape sequences (slightly modified in format) are now also available in the main window filter editor and action statements.
The main window has the following new filter items:
Artwork Size - bytes
Is Linked with Differences
Named Comment
Named User Defined Text Info
Named User Defined URL
All filter panels can be opened by an Edit>Find menu sequence (⌘F).
Filters can be saved by a File>Save menu sequence (⌘S).
Renaming Files:
Rename Template Changes:
There is a new Track token named Track Symbolic. The token loads the track position metadata whether it is stored in a UDTI or a named variable.
There is a new Property token named Sample Rate.
The token menu's Custom submenu has been renamed Custom Fields.
The Open Filename token has been renamed Initial Filename.
The Open Folder token has been renamed Initial Folder.
The Start Filename token has been renamed Current Filename.
The Start Folder token has been renamed Current Folder.
Renaming Folders:
Previous versions of Yate only supported the renaming of the folder containing a track.
Successive Folder Start tokens can now be used to rename any path component. The tokens are applied right to left. ie. the first Folder Start token modifies the name of the folder containing the tracks. A second Folder Start token modifies the folder containing the folder which contains the tracks, etc.
The Current Folder and Initial Folder tokens are context sensitive. If there is no Folder Start token active, they are based on the folder containing the tracks. If there is a Folder Start token active, they are based on the path component being renamed.
Apple App Playlist Naming:
Playlists in iTunes, Music and TV use names which are case sensitive and unfortunately can be duplicated. Playlists can be stored in playlist folders which can be nested.
Previously Yate only supported access to playlists in a flat mode where folders were ignored. This mode is still supported.
You can now access playlists with the enclosing folder structure. All functionality which supports playlists supports the new and old naming methodologies.
The help for all functionality which can specify a playlist name has links to an Apple App Playlist Naming Conventions topic.
When the new naming conventions are used, you can create, delete, add to, etc. playlists within folders.
Apple App Support:
The maximum of 500 tracks previously set on the Open Items Playing In functionality has been eliminated. Be reasonable!
If Preferences - Apple Apps - Auto Import - Media Kind is enabled, Media Kind will be imported when tracks are added to the relevant Apple App.
Album Artwork in Music/TV:
We've come up with a somewhat more aesthetic workaround for the Catalina Music/TV issue of not updating album artwork when tracks are saved.
There is a new Artwork menu item named Patch Artwork in Apple App and a same named action statement. There are also variants which support the patching only if the default artwork item has been modified.
This is a far less invasive workaround than the Extreme Update set of actions as the tracks are not removed from Music/TV.
Unfortunately there is another bug in Music/TV which has a side effect. After running the new functionality the application's libraries will contain zero or one artwork item for each processed track. The number of items in the files and displayed by Yate does not change. As most people keep only one artwork item in a file it is thought that this limitation is not too oppressive.
While not necessary, the functionality operates on iTunes as well. When run against iTunes the above mentioned side effect does not occur.
Application:
There is a Warn Before Quitting (⌘Q) item on the Yate menu. the warning is only issued for the ⌘Q keyboard sequence.
The Quit Yate menu item can no longer be assigned a keyboard shortcut. ie. it is always bound to the system default of ⌘Q.
The File menu has a new submenu named Open With. Applications can be placed on the menu. The menu can be use to open loaded audio files in various other applications. Selecting an application on the menu will attempt to do the following:
If the main window is active:
all selected files will be opened in the chosen application
If a Track database is active:
the files associated with all selected rows will be opened in the chosen application.
if an Album database is active:
the folders associated with all selected rows will be opened in the chosen application.
Main Window
The Description field is now available as a column.
Navigation
The Navigate menu has a new Focus on File Browser menu item.
Low Level Audio File Changes:
MPEG-4 files are now more lenient in accepting atoms which are missing required data. In the past these items were dumped into unhandled.
MPEG-4 files purchased from the Apple store tend to contain various non standard metadata items. Most of these items are placed onto the Unhandled editing panel. Seven items which were previously unhandled are now stored as UDTIs. These items will appear as:
Apple Store Account Type - a numeric value. This can be iTunes or supposedly AOL ... which we've never seen.
Apple Store Artist ID - a numeric value. Some others refer to this as the Album-Title ID, however as the same values are often returned for this item and the composer ID, we believe that it represents an artist.
Apple Store Catalog ID - a numeric value
Apple Store Composer ID - a numeric value
Apple Store Genre ID - displayed as: # (symbolic genre if available)
Apple Store Flavour - a text string displaying information about an item's encoding or representation
Apple Store Playlist ID - a numeric value. This more than likely represents the album.
MPEG-4 files can now be configured to map the Initial Key field to initialkey as opposed to KEY. This is done in Preferences-Audio-MPEG-4.
All audio formats now remove empty UDTIs. In the past this was done for some formats but not all.
Video Settings:
You can now override the audio free space settings and supply alternate values to be used by files containing video.
Video files can be quite large and depending on the location of the metadata in a file it might be required to rewrite the entire file when changes are applied. This can be a lengthy process. There is a new setting named Fast rewrites which enables the functionality to speed up the process the first time a rewrite is necessary. It also removes the need to do subsequent full rewrites. There are ramifications to the approach. The online help has additional information.
When free space is removed in MPEG-4 files, typically only free space somewhat adjacent to the tag area is released. In order to enable the removal of free space introduced by the Fast rewrites setting, there is a new option named Aggressively remove free space. This can be a length process but typically would only be so once.
Batch Processing:
The batch processor log file is now written in a semi-persistent manner. This results in a smaller memory footprint.
The Discogs Wizard:
The Master ID is now saved with the leading 'm' used to differentiate masters from releases. This changes nothing other than it is now easier to copy a master value and paste it into the wizard's search panel's ID field.
The main window Discogs Wizard context menu item is now always enabled. Previously it was disabled if the wizard was already running. The new approach makes it easy to display the wizard's window if it is hidden.
A new action statement was added: Search Discogs.
A new action statement named Map Metadata to Files can map files as in the Discogs wizard from metadata downloaded by the Discogs Metadata for Release statement.
The MusicBrainz Wizard:
The wizard has a new metadata item: Discogs Master ID.
The Discogs Wizard can be launched with the Discogs Master ID item from the context menu or by double clicking on it. (Same as Discogs Release ID).
The main window MusicBrainz Wizard context menu item is now always enabled. Previously it was disabled if the wizard was already running. The new approach makes it easy to display the wizard's window if it is hidden.
Additional relationship URLs are now imported.
A new action statement was added: Search MusicBrainz.
A new action statement named Map Metadata to Files can map files as in the MusicBrainz wizard from metadata downloaded by the MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statement.
Discogs & MusicBrainz Import Sets:
Previously you could only manage import sets from with the wizards or the Access Discogs or Access MusicBrainz action statements.
You can now manage the import sets from the Actions menu.
Databases:
Databases can now be opened, closed and saved while batch processing.
An open database is only accessible while batch processing when an Action Pending window is displayed. ie. when the user is being prompted for information.
An open database has limited functionality while batch processing. They are intended to be used as an interface mechanism.
The context menu has a new Deselect All item.
File to Tag Templates:
The token menu's Custom submenu has been renamed Custom Fields.
Action Pending Window:
You can now specify that you want the Action Pending window to use a monospace font. This is done in Preferences-Actions.
Note that you can override this setting at runtime using the Preferences statement.
Action Runtime Settings:
Previously Action Runtime Settings were maintained in a single container. This was problematic as they could not be exported with individual actions and the list of settings could be quite long and confusing unless settings were assigned an identifying prefix.
Action Runtime Settings are now maintained in Runtime Settings sets. These sets can be viewed in a new preference section called Runtime settings. Your previous settings will have been migrated to an Action Runtime Settings set.
All access to runtime settings is associated with the mapped runtime settings set (initially Action Runtime Setting). You can change the mapping via the Map Action Runtime Settings statement. Setting the mapping to empty, is equivalent to setting it to Action Runtime Settings.
Runtime sets are automatically created when settings are saved. Further, they are removed when all settings are removed.
You no longer view the settings in Preferences-Actions. You can view them in Preferences-Runtime Settings.
The ?rs escape sequence inserts the name of the currently mapped replacement set.
When you update to this release the Runtime Settings item in Preferences will appear at the end of the list. You can always sort the list or drag and drop the preference setions to whatever order you prefer.
Actions and the Status Bar:
The Prompt statement has a mode which allows you to place a message on the main window status bar. Previously when running in immediate mode there was a good chance that some other function would overwrite the message.
This has been changed so that the messages you set are preserved. If a function displays status, the Prompt written message will be appended so that it is visible. When the status bar is reset by a function, the Prompt written message will again be displayed.
You should use the Prompt statement to clear the status bar when the message you are displaying no longer makes sense.
Action Statement Changes:
All statements which use a list of fields now support delimiters of commas, newline characters (n) and the default list delimiter (~) in the list.
Any action statement which removed control characters now also removes invalid Unicode characters.
The Access Discogs action statement now supports Loose Matching in immediate mode.
The Access MusicBrainz action statement now supports Loose Matching in immediate mode.
There is a new file availability statement named Active Files to List. The statement saves a list representing the current set of active files. This can be used as a restore point when used with another new action statement named List to Active Files.
The Artwork Information statement has a new per file option which can be use to override the default stepwise mode of operation.
The Artwork Information statement has new functions to return values relating to an artwork item's size in bytes.
The Bracket statement now has a diacritic insensitive option.
The Compare Date Test statement has been renamed Compare Dates
The Compare Numeric Test statement has been renamed Compare Numeric
The Compare Text Test statement has been renamed Compare Text
The Close Database statement can now be executed when batch processing.
The Close/Save Query Database statement now has additional functionality when closing a grabbed database. This includes removing an active filter and sorting. Further when closing a grabbed database with the 'stay open' open, the grabbed database will refresh its display.
The Compare Text Test statement now has a regular expression operator.
The Copy statement can now process named variables as the source and destination of a copy ... and more. The Copy Field to Named Variable statement no longer exists. All instances have been converted to be a Copy statement.
The Copy Files statement, when it references a rename template, will take advantage of the enhanced preference rename template's Folder Start capabilities. This means the rename template can append any number of additional path components.
The Count Items statement can now optionally set the action test state based on the number of items being zero.
The Delete Apple App Playlist statement can now specify that the immediately containing or all containing empty playlist folders should be deleted.
The Discogs Metadata for Release statement used to return error information as a key in the returned data. This was found to be too problematic due to multiple network accesses. Error information is now returned in a Data Source Access Error named variable.
The Enumerate Tag Sets and Fields statement has been renamed Enumerate Fields and Extensions. The creation of a list of tag sets and the fields in a named tag set functions have been moved to the Extract Preference Set statement for consistency reasons. The Enumerate Fields and Extensions statement now only enumerates fully static information. This includes various classes of fields and lists of filename extensions appropriate for media, database, playlist and image files.
The Expand Execution to Unselected Files statement is now available when batch processing. When batch processing it is identical to executing Restore Initial Set of Files.
The Extract Preference Set statement, when returning the contents of a named item, can now optionally set the action test state as opposed to stopping the action if the named item does not exist.
The Extract Preference Set statement can now return a list of Discogs and Musicbrainz import sets.
The Extract Preference Set statement can now extract information from named Runtime Sets.
The Extract Preference Set statement can now return a list of Runtime Sets sets.
The Field List Enumerator statement has been renamed Multi Item Field List Enumerator.
The File Path Manipulation statement can now test if a path references a database file.
The Get Containing Playlists from Apple App statement can now specify that fully qualified playlist names should be returned.
The Import Base Settings from Apple App statement has been renamed to Import Fields from Apple App.
The Is Database Open statement is now available when batch processing.
The Link to Apple App Test statement has ben deprecated.
The List Manipulate statement's Filter mode now supports filtering on a list item being an audio or image file path component.
The List of Apple App Playlists statement can now specify that fully qualified playlist names should be returned.
The Lock/Unlock Database statement is now available when batch processing.
The Modified Test statement has ben deprecated.
The Manipulate Artwork statement now has the ability to compress artwork items if they are greater than a specific size. There are special considerations for FLAC files.
New Action statement named Map Action Runtime Settings. The statement maps a specific runtime settings set to be used by action runtime setting assignments and loads.
New Action statement named Map Metadata to Files. Designed to be used with the Discogs Metadata for Release and MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statements, this statement can perform a file mapping equivalent to that performed in the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards.
The Move statement, when it references a rename template, will take advantage of the enhanced preference rename template's Folder Start capabilities. This means the rename template can append any number of additional path components.
The MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statement returns the Discogs Master ID.
The MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statement used to return error information as a key in the returned data. This was found to be too problematic due to multiple network accesses. Error information is now returned in a Data Source Access Error named variable.
The Open Database statement can now be executed when batch processing.
The Open Database Information statement is now available when batch processing.
The Open Query Database statement now supports diacritic insensitive keys.
The Open Query Database statement now supports opening the database in the UI before a grab attempt is made.
New action statement named Patch Artwork in Apple App used to force update artwork primarily in Music/TV.
The Preferences statement has additional single setting overrides.
The Prompt statement now has the ability to reset the various Prompt configuration named variables.
The Prompt for Fields statement now supports a Prompt for Fields Constraints named variable. The only constraint currently supported is that the user must select at least one field.
The Prompt for File or Folder statement now accepts the default list delimiter (~) as a separator for file types.
The Prompt for File or Folder statement has a new Set state option to enable the catching of a user selecting Cancel.
The Remove Item from Query Database statement can now delete a range of rows.
The Remove Items from Database statement is now available when batch processing.
The Save Database statement can now be executed when batch processing.
The Set Action Runtime Setting statement now has an override to allow the saving of empty settings.
New action statement named Search Discogs which can search Discogs for an album/artist combination and save the results.
New action statement named Search MusicBrainz which can search MusicBrainz for an album/artist combination and save the results.
The Set Action Test State from File Type statement has been renamed to Test File Type.
The Show in Log Viewer statement will close the viewer if the supplied content is empty.
The Test Property statement has been deprecated. The Compare Numeric Test and Compare Text Test statements can do everything done by Test Property and far more.
The Update Database statement is now available when batch processing.
You can specify text to be appended to a status bar prompt issued by the following Statements: Discogs Metadata for Release, MusicBrainz Metadata for Release, Search Discogs and Search MusicBrainz. The text is specified in a Status Bar Message Suffix named variable.
In order to provide runtime access to statements that specify fields to be processed in a table, standardization has occurred so that the fields can be supplied in a named variable which is processed at runtime. The following statements can now process fields specified in a table, a named variable or fields in a named variable:
Clear
Copy
Exists
Get First Line
Re-encode
Remove Invalid Characters
Further, many table statements can also treat each effective field or named variable as a list. The following statements can now process fields specified in a table, a named variable, fields in a named variable and support list processing:
Append
Bracket
Case
Find and Remove
Prepend
Replace
Sort Form
Trim
Escape Sequences:
There is a new escape sequence (?om) which returns an encoded description of the current Open Mode. More information is provided on the Escape Sequence help page.
The date offset escape sequences previously only available in database filters are now generally available. The sequences now start with %
There is a new escape sequence (Z) which inserts a time stamp: yyyy:mm:ddThh:mm:ss.###
There is a new escape sequence (?rs) which inserts the name of the currently mapped replacement set.
File Properties:
There are seven new file properties:
Has Chapters
Has Modified Chapters
Has Progressive Artwork
Has Progressive Default Artwork
Is Artwork Modified
Is Default Artwork Modified
Is Linked With Differences
The Crop/Scale/Square Artwork Panel:
The ability to compress images has been added. This is only available when the panel is invoked in the main window. ie. not when invoked in the Artwork Viewer.
FLAC Files and Artwork:
FLAC files cannot store an artwork item which is larger than ~16mb. In the past if this situation was encountered the artwork item was silently tossed. While we considered the situation extremely unlikely we've now seen one case. An error message is now issued.
The Artwork Manipulate action statement now has the ability to compress images. You can enter the required size value as FLAC to ensure the correct limit for FLAC encoding is used.
The Crop/Scale/Square Artwork panel, when opened from the main window, has the same compress functionality.
Web Resources:
There is a new version of the Repair Files from Audio Health Check Log action. This version runs in immediate mode, does not require any loaded files and can automatically determine the location of the AFHC log file. You have additional control over the content of the produced log file. The action can easily be run from the Actions menu.
There are new actions to interactively search Discogs or MusicBrainz in immediate mode or via the Batch Processor. The actions use the new ability to communicate with the user via a database viewer.
Many other actions were updated.
Big Sur:
For those of you having a look at Big Sur, we've made changes in this release which allows the application to run ... if we say so ourselves ... well. Issues will crop up in subsequent betas and we'll issue patches accordingly.
Bug Fixes:
If the Title Case preferences had - added as a start character but not an end character, a crash could result.
The Find and Remove statement was incorrectly displaying that the Trim setting was enabled.
The Music and TV applications have a bug where the list of available playlists cannot be immediately enumerated when they are launched by a programmatic access. In order to get around the issue the Get Apple App Playlists statement forces the application to activate if it is not running. This causes the application to be displayed. The application is then forced to be minimized but there will be a flash on the display.
The Close/Save Query Database statement's Filter on grabbed close setting was not ignored when running through the Batch Processor.
When a database was open and an action was being executed and the Action Pending Window was displayed, the database Open menu item was not disabled. This meant that the current open set of files could be changed.
The Is Query Database Open statement was not valid when batch processing.
The Access Discogs statement was incorrectly enabled in immediate mode for modes where it should have been disabled.
The Read Text File statement's single line display was referring to a 'prefix' which was bogus.
The Prompt for Text statement's optional R/O status was removed after choosing a value from a picker menu.
The Count Items statement was not flagging an empty destination named variable field.
A few controls in the CCE window were more than a little too dim in dark mode.

New in Yate 5.1.3.2 (May 27, 2020)

New in Yate 5.1.3.1 (May 12, 2020)

New in Yate 5.1.3 (Apr 2, 2020)

Apple Apps and the Media Type Field in MPEG-4 Files:
The Preferences-Audio-MPEG-4 Map stik atom to Media Type setting has been eliminated. All manipulation of the low level stik atom is handled automatically.
Yate will now preserve whatever you enter into the Media Type field. It will automatically produce a stik atom whenever the Media Type field contains a supported value.
Whenever the Media Type field contains an appropriate Media Kind, the low level stik atom will be written to the file.
stik atoms are only read by an Apple application when files are added. If the file does not have a stik atom (due to an inappropriate Media Type), the application will choose a type based on its own criteria.
If you want to target files to specific Apple application Media Kinds you have to choose the correct values, as you did prior to this release.
The auto importing and exporting of the Media Type field works exactly as it did prior to this release.
There is a chance that a previously empty Media Type field will show an Apple application value. Nothing has actually changed in the files. If you clear the field and resave the file the field will load as empty.
Identifying Progressive JPEG Images:
Certain media streamers evidently have issues with progressive JPEG images. The Index Artwork and Manipulate Artwork action statements provide the means of testing and re-encoding these images. We're now exposing new capabilities in the UI to do the same.
Progressive JPEG images will display a mime type of image/jpeg* in any main window artwork viewer.
There is a new main window filter named Artwork Progressive - default which can be used to identify any audio file where the default (first) artwork item is a progressive JPEG.
There is a new main window filter named Artwork Progressive - any which can be used to identify audio files containing a progressive JPEG image in any position.
The Artwork menu has a new submenu named Progressive JPEG to Baseline. There are items named Default and All.
Main Window:
When sorting the main window to selected first, the content is now positioned so that the selection is visible.
When filtering with one of the Selected modes, the contents is now positioned so that the selection is visible.
Bug Fixes:
Various Yate menu items related to preference changes were not disabled when the Preference window had a sheet displayed.
The Artwork>Search for Artwork menu item Fanart.tv, Cover Art Archive, Discogs Settings menu item was hanging.
The Fanart.tv, Cover Art Archive, Discogs Settings configuration in Preferences-Artwork was hanging.
Context sensitive help was not displayed for the Video editing panel.
The Media Type field was not being written correctly in MPEG-4 files on 10.15 if the now removed Preferences-Audio-General Map stik atom to Media Type setting was not enabled. Further, if the option was not enabled, it was possible that multiple unhandled stik atoms were written. stik atoms are now always handled.
The stik atom settings were not always optimal for the TV application on 10.15.

New in Yate 5.1.2 (Mar 20, 2020)

Droplets:
You can now create droplets on the desktop which set a specific Open Mode and run a specified action whenever files are dropped on them.
Droplets are created via Preferences-General-Droplets.
While the droplets are always created on the desktop they can be moved to any folder.
Running a droplet without dragging files to it will display the Open Mode settings and the designated action.
Empty Work Name Fields:
v5.1.1.2 added the Preferences-Apple Apps-General-Update Apple App on empty Grouping option.
As the default Apple App processing entwines Grouping and Work Name in ID3 files, there is now a new Preferences-Apple Apps-General-Update Apple App on empty Work Name option.
Both of these options are ignored by MPEG-4 files.
Action Statements:
The Date Functions statement has been enhanced. All previous uses of the statement will operate as expected.
The statement is now very lenient when parsing a date. A number of date-time formats are now accepted.
The statement can now format output dates in a variety of formats.
The statement can now be used to reformat a date without performing any other functionality.
The statement can be used in conjunction with Scanner statements.
The following statements have a new Diacritic insensitive option which causes the statements to ignore accents
Build List
Compare Text Text
Find & Remove
Issue Database Query
Index Of
List Contains Test
List Manipulate
Repeat With
Replace
The Find & Remove statement has a new then trim option. When set, any modified value will have leading and trailing spaces removed.
The Preferences statement has a new single setting named No Auto Tag Writes on Save. This setting is intended to be used when you are attempting to remove all tag information from a file. This typically involves the use of a Clear statement followed by a Save statement. This setting only makes sense if you are clearing all tag information as it only disables those items which can write tag information not affected by a Clear. More detailed information is given in the online help.
The Multi Field Editor:
The Find & Remove function has a new Trim option. When set, any modified value will have leading and trailing spaces removed.
Databases:
When producing databases the following fields will no longer display as 0 when they are empty: Disc, Disc Count, Movement Count, Movement Number, Track, Track Count.
Open Opus:
Open Opus (openopus.org) provides free classical metadata for a number of composers and their works.
For now the dataset is being provided as a Yate database file.
There is also an action which can be run from the database to view composer artwork.
The database and action are available in the Templates section of the resources page.

New in Yate 5.1.1.2 (Feb 19, 2020)

New in Yate 5.1.1.1 (Feb 18, 2020)

New in Yate 5.1.1 (Feb 17, 2020)

Catalina Applications and Artwork:
As of 10.15.3 Music and TV do not do a complete reload of artwork when they are told to refresh files. While the artwork appears in the files (via Get Info in the applications) the album artwork is not updated....which results in incorrect artwork being displayed.
A bug report has been filed with Apple and hopefully this will be fixed sooner than later.
For the time being actions are supplied to get around the issue. The actions can be found on the Resources web page. The actions extract all library only metadata such as play counts, ratings, etc. and all containing playlist information (except Genius or Smart) on a per track basis. Each track is removed from the Apple App and then re-added. The extracted library only metadata and playlist inclusions are restored. Two variants of the actions are supplied:
Extreme Update Apple Apps - If Artwork Modified:
Only selected files which can be linked and have modified artwork items are processed. Call this action before saving artwork changes.
Extreme Update Apple Apps - Always:
All selected files which can be linked are processed. This is useful if you comitted artwork changes while not linked.
Other Apple App Changes:
The TV application no longer supports Disc, Disc Count, Track or Track Count ... even though the fields are still marked as supported.
When a file is linked and the Grouping field is emptied, the empty value will now be forced to the appropriate Apple App.
Action Statements:
New action statement named Get Containing Playlists from Apple App. A list of all Apple App user playlists which contain a given track is extracted and saved to a track variable.
New action statement named Remove from Apple App Playlist.
New action statement named Delete Apple App Playlist.
New action statement named List of Apple App Playlists.
New action statement named Preview which can open a track in the Preview panel.
The Delete non Audio Files statement has a new Deep option.
New UI option for the Prompt for Text statement. Typically when a value is chosen via the picker button, the insertion mode is controlled by the read only status of the field set via Prompt for Text List R/O. When read only, the chosen value overwrites the entire field. When not read only the chosen value overwrites selected text or is appended to the field. You can now force chosen values to always overwrite by setting the named variable Prompt for Text List Overwrite to a non zero integer value.
The following action statements support common additional functionality: Ask, Debug, Prompt, Prompt for Fields and Prompt for Text. You can now change the displayed window's title and optionally configure and display a checkbox control whose value is stored regardless of the button used to dismiss the window.
File Properties:
New property named Is Artwork Modified
Main Window Filters:
New filter item named Artwork Modified
Discogs & MusicBrainz Wizards:
The track information table at the bottom of the Release Details panel has a Time column which has in the past displayed as milliseconds. Using the context menu you can now change the display to minutes:seconds. The chosen display mode is sticky.
Action Pending Window:
The window now maintains an independent user adjustable font size for the reason field.
Preferences:
The General setting Disable cached replies has been removed. Cached replies are now always disabled. Most functionality was already forcing it to disabled and some areas where it was not could have issues.
Bug Fixes:
The Process Audio File Health Check Log convenience process could not be started if the Batch Processor was not run at least one time in the past.
When a column was added to a database, the Advanced Filter column menu did not display it until the database was closed and reopened.
m3u files created from a database always had absolute paths.
the Close Query Database statement was not properly handling a path specification starting with ~/. This will fix the Repeated Query Artist Reference DB action on the resources page.

New in Yate 5.1.0.1 (Jan 21, 2020)

New in Yate 5.1 (Jan 17, 2020)

Application:
There is a new Navigate menu. The menu contains the Next File, Previous File, Focus on File List items and new items named Move Up and Move Down to assist with accessibility.
The Main Window Filter Panel:
Accessibility changes were made to make it easier to access the four available functions.
Preferences:
New Preferences-Audio-ID3 setting named Allow repeated Text frames. The ID3 specification states that each Text frame (this includes Artist, Album Artist, Genre, Title, etc.) can only occur at most once in a file. It has been found that certain encoders ignore this rule. The Allow repeated Text frames option enables the reading and merging of the metadata on these technically invalid repeated frames.
Preferences - Lists can now specify that Comments should be associated with a list. Note that the association is only used when a Comments field is displayed on a custom panel as a new Comments (list) field.
Custom Panels:
A new field type called Comments (list) can be displayed on a custom panel. This is a single line Comments field which can be associated with a list much like the Artist, Composer, etc. fields. The display of this field type is the only means of using an association between Comments and a preference list.
Fields on a custom panel which can be associated with lists will only display the list access control if the list association exists. For example if you display Category on a custom panel and have not associated Category with a list in Preferences - Lists, the field will not have a drop down control at the right of the field. If you then associate a field with a list the field's display will automatically be updated.
FLAC Files:
An additional Involved People and Musician Credits encoding used by eClassical is read.
FLAC comments mapped to the Track and Disc fields now always accept n/m encodings.
When writing files for Roon, non Roon credits in Musician Credits (if mapped to PERFORMER) are automatically remapped to PERFORMERYR in order to insulate them from Roon's Performer credit. Previously this resulted in messed up Primary Artist displays.
Roon Support:
There is a new convenience item on the View menu named Credits Invalid for Roon. This is a quick means of identifying Involved People and Musician Credits items which essentially will not be displayed in Roon.
eClassical Support:
As much as possible the ID3 and FLAC low level readers have been modified to handle files distributed by eClassical. Actions and FLAC mappings are provided on the Resources page to enable the correct loading and post load modification of the metadata. A new help topic is provided on the main help page.
iTunes/Music/TV:
There is a new File menu submenu named Open Selected Items in. You can use the menu items to open items which are selected in the chosen application.
This can be used to avoid the inconsistent dragging of items from the applications into Yate.
There is currently a limit of 500 items which can be opened and linked in this manner.
Discogs Wizard:
A new metadata item named Country is included. This value will be identical to Release Country. The only difference is that the metadata is written to a UDTI named Country (processed by Roon) as opposed to Discogs Release Country.
Combined Credits Editor:
The Track Credits table has a new context menu item named Resolve Non Standard Simple Mappings. If an item matches a known credit associated with a simple item (Composer, Conductor, Lyricist, Remixer, Album Artist, Artist, Original Artist or Original Lyricist), the known credit's mapping will be applied.
The Track Credits table has a new context menu item named Resolve Empty Credits. Empty credits in Involved People will be associated with Administration. Empty credits in Musician Credits will be associated with Performer.
The Track Credits table can now filter on the ~ indicator (matches known credit without qualifier).
The Multi Field Editor:
The Sort Form function has new modes to flip names to last name, first name and to restore names to first name last name.
Databases:
When a database file is updated Out of Bounds columns are now retained as opposed to being cleared.
Duplicate detection test modes Case Insensitive and greater always apply Unicode folding and ignore accented characters.
When running in Batch Processor Query Database Processing mode, a file which has not had a key column set will be opened keyless.
Action Modifications:
The Open Database for Querying key state of In File will fall back to Keyless if no key column has been set.
The Remove Invalid Characters statement now treats UDTIs as multi-line for the Default mode. Far too many applications, including iTunes, write UDTIs containing newline characters.
The Sort Form statement has new modes to flip names to last name, first name and to restore names to first name last name.
fuzzy comparions now also do Unicode character folding.
Combined Credits Functions statement:
The statement has a new setting named Resolve Non Standard Simple Mappings. Any item which has the same role as a known credit associated with a built in Yate field will be moved. eg. a credit of Composer mapped to Involved people will be moved to the Composer field.
The statement has a new setting named Resolve empty credits. Empty credits in Involved People will be associated with Administration. Empty credits in Musician Credits will be associated with Performer.
Involved People/Musician Credits Statement:
The statement now supports the generation of a list of and removal of names associated with an empty credit.
The statement now supports the generation of a list of credits invalid for Roon. Note that an empty credit is not returned by this function even though it is invalid.
Bug Fixes:
The Involved People/Musician Credits Functions statement did not work correctly if the targeted field was empty.
The main window filter Configure panel's All button was not working.
Repaired a few broken help links that were added in v5.0.3.
The Pad statement was not correctly displaying the pad string if it was larger than one character.
Auto refresh of an Apple App after saving linked files was not working in the Batch Processor.
The Rename Template token named Season was incorrectly inserting the episode.
The Catalina Music application no longer supports the setting of Episode, Show Name, Sort Show Name, Season, Episode ID ... even though they are still listed in the application's dictionary. This was causing some fields which were emptied not to change in the application. These fields are no longer directly set in the Music application.
Database Viewer:
After adding a database column, sorting would spin if the file was not first closed.
A database Results column (Look for Duplicates) was not removed properly if deleted.
Successive calls to a Database Viewer's Look fo Duplicates function could hang.
Changing the Key Column status in a database viewer did not mark the file as being changed.
When a database column was renamed and it was the key column, the key column status was lost.
If a database changed filter information and had no other changes the filter changes were lost.

New in Yate 5.0.3.3 (Dec 30, 2019)

New in Yate 5.0.3.2 (Dec 23, 2019)

New in Yate 5.0.3.1 (Dec 23, 2019)

New in Yate 5.0.3 (Dec 20, 2019)

Mac OS Support:
Support for MacOS 10.9 has been removed. Yate now supports Mac OS 10.10 through 10.15.
Roon Interfacing:
Added 679 new Roon credits. Marked 347 older credits as being now supported by Roon.
While Roon v1.7 added the parsing of additional fields, some of which are standard, it has been found that use of the PERSONNEL construct remains the best implementation to maximize the parsing of all of their credits. Some changes have been made to better hide those credits that are not valid in Roon so that the new parsing does not deliver unusual results. More information can be found in the help topic called 'Roon Audio Settings' accessible on any Preferences-Audio help page or in the main help page's 'Roon Settings' topic.
Combined Credits Editor:
The Track Credits table's Status column will display '~' if an existing [qualifier] must be removed in order to match a known credit. ie. if a credit has a qualifier and it only matches a known credit without the qualifier, '~' will be displayed.
Alphabetic Case Transformation and Roman Numerals:
Many of the supported alphabetic case transformations have a side effect of messing up the display of Roman numerals. All functionality which supports case transformations now have a new setting named Roman #. When enabled, this setting ensures that all valid Roman numerals are converted to upper case characters. This functionality is always performed as the last step when modifying alphabetic case.
The new setting can be found in: the Title Case configuration/test panel, the Yate transformations text field menu, the Case statement, the Multi Field Editor and Rename templates.
Character Set Encodings:
A new encoding called Force ASCII has been introduced. This encoding function maximizes the conversion and replaces invalid characters with underscores. This is different than the still supported Re-encode to ASCII (lossy) method which uses a system API and provides less character approximation.
Force ASCII is available in Rename Templates, on the Yate Transformations menu, in the Multi Field Editor and in the Re-Encode statement.
Yate Search Help Window:
You can now change the size of the display font.
You can put the window into an always on top mode.
Notepad:
The Notepad now supports Yate Transformations.
Spell check settings are retained.
m3u Creation & Analyzer:
The analyzer will now report duplicates on files which cannot be located.
The analyzer will process multiple files and/or folders at a time.
All m3u creation modes now have the ability to force absolute paths and to choose a Standard, Extended or Yate encoding. All three formats should be readable by all players. The formats are defined in a topic available in the reference section of the main help page.
If an m3u file is created and an m3u8 file of the same name exists, it will be deleted. If an m3u8 file is created, if an m3u file of the same name exists, it will be deleted.
The File menu has a new convenience item named Create Single m3u File which does as the name implies regardless of the current Open Mode settings.
Preferences Changes:
There is a new section named m3u Files. When you first update the new section will be at the end of the list. You can drag it wherever you would like it to appear or you can sort the list from the context menu.
The m3u Files section provides options which are used when creating per folder m3u files.
The m3u Files section also allows you to specify the base character set encoding to be used when writing the files. The possible values are ASCII, Latin-1 and UTF-8. For maximum compatibility with audio players the value is initially set to ASCII. When set to UTF-8, m3u8 files will not be produced.
Rename templates have a new Encoding option at the top of the Token Editor window. You can choose No Change, Remove Accents, Force ASCII or Force Latin-1.
The Log Viewer and the Notepad were not correctly handling dark mode overrides.
Tooltips:
Evidently some people do not like tooltips which appear quickly. There is a new Preferences - General setting to force the use of the system's slower (default) display rate.
Copying Paths:
When a single file is selected in the main window you can now copy its path to the clipboard via a Copy Path to Clipboard menu item on the File or context menus.
Action Statements:
A new statement named Lookup Credit can be used to determine if a supplied credit is known in the CCE. Status information, exact alphabetic case and alias information is returned.
A new statement named Is Custom Field Defined can be used to determine if a custom field exists. If it does and it is designated a credit, the information is returned.
Added a new statement named Analyze m3u Files.
The Is Query Database Open statement will set the special named variable Open Query Database Prefix to the database's access prefix if it is open.
The Open Database for Querying and Read Database Sidecar File statements return column encoding values. New values are supported for Yate IDs and PIDs. These are documented in the help for Read Database Sidecar File.
The Read SideCar File statement now always assumes a filename extension of .plist.
The Write Text File statement can now optionally delete any file if the supplied content is empty.
The Include statement can now force the export of a custom field.
Escape Sequences:
New escape sequence ?TD which is used to insert the Default Track Database specified in Preferences - Databases.
New escape sequence ?M3 which is used to insert the m3u file encoding.
The Insert Yate Escape Sequences menu's Directory Paths submenu has been renamed Paths.
Databases:
When an action is run from a database's context menu, a UI-Clicked Column named variable will contain the name of the column which was clicked to display the menu.
Bug Fixes:
The Set Action Test State from File Type statement did not update the optional variable until you clicked off the statement.
Sounds were always disabled in Prefs-General-Notifications.
The Combined Credits Editor's Track Credits table's Status column did not properly identify all credits as being known by Roon.
Cancelling the Batch Processor will now work properly if an action issued window is being displayed.
Changing the width of the Preferences token editor could mess up the display when switching between Rename templates, Search templates and File to Tag templates.
The Create m3u action statement had numerous issues. The statement has been repaired. If you are using this statement you should examine its settings and read the online help.
The main window context menu item View>Stem Metadata was greyed out as opposed to hidden when not appropriate.
On Catalina, many operations which present a file save dialog softly failed if the selected file already existed. A work around has been implemented and a bug report has been filed with Apple.
Copying a Custom Panel via the Import button would have poor results if the panel being imported had a different number of grid rows than currently displayed.

New in Yate 5.0.2 (Nov 20, 2019)

Preferences
The Discogs and MusicBrainz preferences sections are now divided into a number of tabs to hopefully make the settings more legible.
Both of these sections have a new Preferred country codes for filtering setting on the Advanced tab. Due to the nature of the downloaded metadata, the settings have somewhat different formatting requirements. The online help has additional information.
Discogs and MusicBrainz Wizards:
The Country filter control on the search results panel can now access the new Preferred country codes for filtering settings.
You filter by the countries in the new setting by selecting Preferences from the Country filter control. If the setting is empty, Preferences is equivalent to All Countries. Note that if the new setting is not empty, Preferences will be pre-selected after each search.
Processing Audio File Health Check Logs:
Previously you processed an Audio File Health Check log by starting Batch Processing, selecting the repair action and by dragging over the log file.
The Actions menu has a new convenience item named Process Audio File Health Check Log. This item preselects the appropriate action and chooses the log file location based on the settings in Audio File Health Check (or the defaults).
Audiobook Chapter Renaming:
Audiobook chapter names can now be edited (in MPEG-4 files). Select one or more files containing chapters and do an Edit>Chapter Editor.
View Menu:
You can now Show Stem Metadata from the View menu. The Stem metadata for all selected files will be displayed in the Log Viewer.
The File>Log menu items have been moved to the View menu.
The main window's Log context menu item has been renamed View.
Action Statements:
When an action is exported it is a smart export. All directly referenced Yate components are automatically included in the exported file. However, many Yate components such as actions, rename templates, etc. can be indirectly referenced. These indirectly referenced components are not automatically included when an action is exported. There is a new statement called Include which can be used to manually specify that various component types are to be included when an action is exported.
There is a new action statement called Chapters which provides a programmatic interface to the new Chapter Editor functionality.
There is a new action statement called Tooltip. This statement replaces using a Comment statement to specify a tooltip for a custom editing panel action button. The statement's content will also be used for an action button on the main window's toolbar. The statement's content can also be used when displaying a description for an action in the Action Manager. All Comment statements which started with tooltip: will automatically be replaced with Tooltip statements.
The Extract Preference Set statement can now produce a list of all Action Runtime Settings.
The Extract Preference Set statement can save all Action Runtime Settings with a supplied prefix to named variables.
The Extract Preference Set statement now supports escape sequences in the template field. This means that when extracting a named Exception or Replacement set you an choose to do so indirectly.
Custom Panels:
The Produced Notice field can now be resized vertically on Custom Editing Panels.
Mac OS 10.9:
Since the last two queries about 10.9 have been issued we have not received even a single request to maintain support. This will be the last release which supports Mac OS 10.9.
Bug Fixes:
A while ago the ability to place an action on a database's context menu was introduced. While this worked from the Action Manager it was not enabled when saving a new action or a modified action in an Action Editor window.
When a File List filter, a Discogs Import Set or a MusicBrainz Import set was imported, the associated list of items was not sorted.
The Preferences - General - Notepad location field and Chooser button were disabled based on incorrect criteria.
You could not create shortcuts to the View menu items.
When the Action Manager extracts a description for an action, disabled statements will now be ignored.
The Multi Field Editor table's column headers were not showing.
The Custom Panel editor was sometimes enabling vertical resizing when a control only occupied a single line.
The escape sequence to extract the version of the TV application (?tv) was not working.

New in Yate 5.0.1.3 (Oct 14, 2019)

New in Yate 5.0.1.2 (Oct 2, 2019)

New in Yate 5.0.1.1 (Sep 30, 2019)

New in Yate 5.0.1 (Sep 25, 2019)

New in Yate 5.0.0.1 (Sep 25, 2019)

New in Yate 5.0 (Sep 25, 2019)

The Biggie:
Yate now supports Mac OS 10.15 (Catalina)
There are numerous changes which were made in order to continue to support iTunes and the new Music and TV applications in 10.15.
These changes affect functionality and the UI.
Unless knowing which application is referenced is crucial, references to iTunes in Yate's UI and help has been replaced with Apple App or Apple Apps.
On Mac OS 10.15 Yate automatically determines whether it should be communicating with the Music or TV application. There is no way to manually specify this .... well except with Music Videos. Unfortunately, there is no programmatic access to the Podcasts application.
There are far too many changes to present here. There is a new help topic called What! No iTunes! Changes in Yate v5.0 for Mac OS 10.15 (Catalina) available on the main help page. Please take the time to read it.
Eh ... about 10.9:
Yate v5.0 still supports OS 10.9. ... but we'd love to be able to drop it. If you're still on 10.9 (why oh why) please drop us a line at [email protected] to let us know.
New Application Menus:
The new View menu provides access to various text documents maintained by the application. The items on the menu are documented below where they are appropriate.
There is a new File>Setup menu which contains access to various functionality which is typically only rarely performed.
Added a new Known Issues menu item to the Help menu. The link is not local so that the content can be updated when required.
Notepad Window:
If you want to jot down a few notes while tagging you can use the new Notepad window displayed from the View menu.
The notepad persists and supports displaying contents using a proportional or fixed font.
You can choose an alternate background colour.
Timestamps can be inserted from the context menu.
There is a new Preference - General setting to modify the default location of the notepad file.
Additional help is available from the main help page or via the Help menu's Help for Current Context item when the notepad is displayed.
Log Viewer:
You can choose an alternate background colour.
Field Changes:
The Show Work Name field is now valid for all supported audio types. It seems as if a few players (Windows based) are implementing it.
Action Manager:
The file availability statements have been moved to their own category in Action Editor windows.
Action Statements - Modifications:
The Remove PIDs functionality now has more granularity in the action statement and in the UI.
List Item at Index has been renamed to List Item at Index/Sublist. The statement can now extract sublists.
The Prompt and Ask statements now have Hide Info initially set.
The Preferences statement has a new Maximum Grouping-Work Name Compatibility override.
The Preferences statement has a new Batch Auto-Save Files override.
Added Double low-9 quotation mark(„) to " fold characters used by the Re-Encode statement.
The Run External Script statement now sets an External Script Result Code named variable.
MusicBrainz Metadata for Release has been modified to handle new metadata types.
Renamed the Load and Run statement to Load & Run.
Renamed the Restore Ignored Files statement to Restore Initial Set of Files. The statement can now restore the initial file selection after executing a Constrain Execution to a Single File, Expand Execution to Unselected Files and Ignore Files statement.
The Access Discogs and Access MusicBrainz statements now support selecting multiple import types at once to make it easier to change the import status on multiple items from the context menu.
The Access Discogs and Access MusicBrainz statements may now be executed when not batch processing if the operation mode is Release Matching and Import Changes.
The Evaluate Expression statement now posts a message and cancels action processing if an expression cannot be compiled. The action test state is still set to false if there is an evaluation error. ie. division by zero or a number which cannot be represented.
The Test Property statement can now identify ALAC and STEM files. It can also now SET, AND, OR the result of testing each file to a track variable.
The Set Action Test State from File Type statement can now SET, AND, OR the result of testing each file to a track variable.
The Compare Text Test statement has new Trim SP and Trim NL options. These options effectively will cause the test to ignore leading and training whitespace or newline characters.
The Copy Non Audio Files and Move Non Audio Files statements have a new Preserve existing files setting. Previously existing files were always overwritten.
New Action Statements:
New statement named Involved People/Musician Credits Functions. Various functions to extract and set metadata from the two fields.
New statement named Expand Execution to Unselected Files. The statement changes the set of files being processed by an action to include visible (ie.not hidden) files. This allows you to select some files and run an action which makes decisions on the selection then expands its scope to files.
New statement named Show in Finder.
Escape Sequence Changes:
New sequence ?mv to return the version of the Music application.
New sequence ?tv to return the version of the TV application.
New sequence os returns the OS version number as #.#.# except on 10.9
The Yate version number sequence ?yv no longer returns a Yate prefix.
New sequence [Open or Finder Open-With as opposed to dragging them in, potentially closed open unmodified files.
The Access Discogs and Access MusicBrainz statements' custom table context menu access to the import settings manager was disabled.
Fixed a bogus Log>Validation Errors message in MPEG-4 files with video and long description fields.
If a number of files were selected of which only some were linked, Refresh iTunes would display errors for the files not linked.
The Beatport Importer could hang on a network error.
The Beatport Importer now silently ignores 404 errors when retrieving artwork.
The test used to determine if Safari is the default browser did not work on Mac OS 10.9.

New in Yate 4.7.1.1 (Aug 7, 2019)

New in Yate 4.7.1 (Jul 4, 2019)

Application Help:
There is a new Search Yate Help item on the Help menu.
The Search Help panel locates topics containing your specified pattern and display's each topic's title. Searching can be done by contains, match start or word boundaries.
Double clicking on a title or using the context menu, you can launch the associated help page in your browser. In the browser you can use the native find support to locate the pattern.
There is an option to automatically position the opened content to the search pattern.
Specifying * as the search pattern will display a list of all the help topics.
Preferences:
When saving artwork to folder icons, you can now optionally have the corners rounded. Preferences - Artwork has a new setting named Round corners when saving icons. Note that this setting affects the UI and action based saving to folder icon functionality. It also affects the creation of custom toolbar icons for actions.
Action Statements:
The Remove List Item at Index statement now supports negative indexes with the same logic as the List Item at Index statement.
The Preferences statement has a new single setting override called Rounded Icon Corners.
The Remove from iTunes startement will now also remove any retained PIDs.
MPEG-4 Files:
Up until v4.0, MPEG-4 files which had no audio or video data would not be loaded. As of v4.0, the file could be loaded and edited. These files are damaged and once again will not be loaded.
MPEG-4 files will now automatically be repaired, under the right conditions, if the low level component containing the audio data is present but has a garbled identifier.
The Multi Field Editor:
An Exchange function has been added. The contents of two specified fields are exchanged.
Database Files:
From a database file's context menu you can now create an alias to the file on the desktop. This really only makes sense if you set the file, or all files of the same type, to open in Yate. You can do this in the Finder's Get Info panel.
File to Tag Templates:
When extracting to a field which requires a numeric value, all extraneous text after the number will automatically be tossed. For example extracting 2 file to a Track field will only retain the '2'.
See the online help in the File to Tag token editor for additional information and as to how this differs from the Numeric qualifier.
Blue Text in the Edit Panels:
Previously blue text was used to indicate the presense of control, newline or tab characters in fields where they are not valid.
Text will now also be blue for extraneous data after the number in a numeric only field.
When the text is blue, the associated function button will have a menu item named Why is the Text Blue?
Bug Fixes:
The Discogs Metadata for Release statement was not exporting the full date for the Year key, even when available.
The Discogs Metadata for Release statement had a potential crash depending on the received JSON data.
The MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statement was not exporting the following per track keys: Recording date, Recording end date, Recording location and Recording start date.
When executing an Add to iTunes statement in the Batch Processor the optional import of the PID was not performed unless the Verbose option was set.
When importing from iTunes, Loves/Dislikes values were not handled correctly.
The Episode ID field's Synthesize function was not working.
Worked around an issue on Mac OS 10.14 or later where interaction with iTunes was not freeing resources.
When batch processing an Access Discogs or Access MusicBrainz statement would crash if the action has a Batch Start sub action.
The Clear User Defined Items statement was missing tMDb and Yate as sources.

New in Yate 4.7.0.2 (May 20, 2019)

New in Yate 4.7.0.1 (May 16, 2019)

New in Yate 4.7 (May 15, 2019)

Additional Component Installation:
This version of the application requires installation of a few components.
When you run the application you will be prompted to install the components.
There is a new menu item named Install Additional Components on the Yate menu. This is primarily to handle the case where internet connectivity may be down when you first run the application.
To handle the case where you run Yate in a secure environment with limited or no connectivity, instructions are supplied in a new topic called Manually Installing Required Components which can be found in the main help file.
This version is the first where the application is hardened and notarized by Apple.
iTunes:
As is currently done when saving files, Refresh iTunes will now export library only settings enabled in Preferences-iTunes-Auto Export. This means if you made changes while not linked to iTunes, you can now link and do a Refresh iTunes without having to also do an export. This change is also implemented in the associated action statement.
Dark Mode:
The online help now enables the new Safari dark mode support.
The inline display of online help in an Action Editor Window will now change its appearance when the window displays in dark mode.
Custom Fields:
You can specify that a Custom Field should be displayed as a Checkbox via the Custom Panel Editor and as a Yes/No value in an Export Set. Previously there was no method of specifying a Yes/No display when a custom field is associated with a main window column. In Preferences-General-Custom Fields you can now specify that an associated main window column is to be displayed and edited as a Yes/No (boolean) value.
Main Window:
Columns which display a value of Yes or No, now display ✓ for Yes and empty for No. Double clicking on any of these columns allows you to select Yes or No for all selected files. When inline editing, you can enter Y, Yes, True, any non zero integer value and most Unicode check mark characters for a value of Yes. Any other value is treated as No. The entered value is case insensitive.
The Audio Properties table in the File Browser and on the Audio-General panel no longer has an ID3 Version field. The field has been renamed to Tag Scheme and displays additional information.
There is a new built in sort preset called Video Sort available on the table header's content menu.
Additional help topics on column layout presets, column sorting and autosizing are available on the main help page.
MusicBrainz:
There is a new Preferences-MusicBrainz setting called Always load Release Group. When this is set, a release group will always be loaded enabling the search for information which might not be present in the release. Currently this additional information includes Relationship URLs which can include a variety of interesting links to sources such as WikiPedia, lyrics, etc.
Some tracks in a release have location/date metadata. This is of particular interest to people organizing classical music libraries. Roon is capable of reading the metadata. Four new normalized UDTIs have been introduced named: Recording Date, Recording Start Date, Recording End Date and Recording Location. There are four associated import items available in the wizard. Note that MusicBrainz returns the start and end dates. The Recording Date is included simply for completeness and if imported is always the same as Recording Start Time.
MP3 Files:
When reading MP3 files which contain multiple tag constructs, the priority is ID3V2, APE, ID3V1.
Note that APE tags are always tossed when an MP3 file is written.
Overriding the Open Mode:
By default, Yate preserves its Open Mode settings. You can now override this behaviour in three different situations. You configure the functionality in Preferences-File List.
Key Entry in Preferences:
In order to avoid errors when pasting keys into Preferences for APISEEDS and Fanart, the keys are now sanitized. After removing control characters and spaces, the first non empty line is retained as the key.
Properties:
There is a new Ape Version property which is set for all files containing APE tags (including MP3).
Action Statement Changes:
The Manipulate Artwork statement can now explicitly set a JPEG encoding to Baseline or Progressive. You can also now explicitly set the compression factor to the system default. Some options, previously restricted, are now available in more situations to avoid unnecessary manipulations.
The Contents of Folder statement has a new option called Full paths. When set, full paths as opposed to filenames or folder names will be returned. A Choose button was also added.
The Enumerate Tag Sets and Fields statement now inverts inverted Tag Sets before returning them.
The Save statement's, Save MP3 files which have an ID3V1 tag option has been renamed to Save files with non standard tag containers. Essentially the semantics have been extended to force save any file which contains a non standard tag container. eg. APE or FLAC files with ID3 tags
The List Count statement has a new option to save per file counts.
The Exists statement now allows the specification of the set of fields to be tested as a list of symbolic field names which can effectively be specified at runtime.
There is a new statement named Prompt for Fields. The statement can be used at runtime to choose fields. Full granularity is provided as to what fields are displayed and which are initially set.
There is a new statement named Set Tag Set. The statement takes a list of fields and applies it to an existing tag set or automatically creates a new one. If there are no fields in the list, an existing tag set will be removed.
Escape Sequences:
Numeric expressions can now be evaluated in escape sequences.
x(expressionx) will evaluate expression as in the Evaluate Expression statement and may contain nested escape sequences. Note that the terminating sequence has a leading character. If the expression cannot be evaluated nothing is inserted. If the expression evaluation works, the inserted text will always be an integer value.
x(expression.x) will evaluate expression as in the Evaluate Expression statement and may contain nested escape sequences. Note that the terminating sequence has a leading character. If the expression cannot be evaluated nothing is inserted. If the expression evaluation works, the inserted text may or may not include a fractional component.
If the Shift key is depressed when invoking the context menu containing the Yate Field and Yate Initial Field submenus, all fields as opposed to only those with a single or default item are displayed .
Database Viewers:
There is a new context menu item called Display Column Mappings. The database's column mappings will be displayed in the Log Viewer. Essentially export set metadata will be displayed.
Cosmetic Changes:
The [+], [-], etc. buttons under tables in various panels now display larger than in the past.
The Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards' Release window now changes the size of both tables with Cmd+ and Cmd-. Previously only the bottom table was adjusted.
Link controls on edit panels are now blue.
Bug Fixes:
The Set Open Mode statement was not preserving a setting of Playlist mode.
Preferences-General-Notifications-Remove Notification on Exit in Prefs-Notifications was never enabled. Introduced when Growl support was dropped.
The Create Stubs and Set Action Test State from File Type statements were not properly enabling WavPack.
The List Manipulate statement when performing Remove One/Match, was not properly handling empty delimiter fields. They should have been defaulted to ~.
When creating databases and preserving the sidecar file, the test for equality was a little too lax.
While not really a bug, the regular expression Return Ranges+ option was returning a ridiculously large number for a not found capture group. The length field was correct at 0. Simply for legibility reasons, a -1 will now be returned instead. ie. -1,0
When searching for Variable 0 in an action editor, a Set Action Test State statement which was not using variables as a source, would be matched.
The Category field when not associated with a list was displaying the same list components as Content Advisory.
The Enumerate Tag Sets and Fields statement with the Create a list of all non simple text fields option was not returning the correct list.
The Action Editor window's Find panel was not displaying the correct per-type choices.

New in Yate 4.6.1 (Mar 25, 2019)

Safari and Mojave:
Safari has issues when being launched with a page contained in a application bundle. (such as Yate's online help). This only happens on Mojave and results in a 'Safari Can't Open the Page' message. Once Safari is open, subsequent pages load correctly.
We've attempted to solve the issue by launching Safari, if not already open, and then after a delay telling it to open the page. While this seems to work most of the time, there is no guarantee that it will always work. The problem can always be solved by reissuing the help request once Safari has opened.
File to Tag Templates:
An additional Optional qualifier is available. While Optional and Optional Once make a preceding token optional, Optional Stop makes all subsequent tokens optional.
Preferences - Lists:
A new control is available to enable the copying and moving of list items between lists.
Action Manager:
The Action Manager has a new column named Version. The column will display the value specified on a new Version statement embedded in the associated action.
Action Editor Windows:
Statements can now be marked as being a favourite via the context menu.
The list of statements panel has a new submenu called Add Statement which displays the favourites.
Action Statement Changes:
There is a new statement named Version. This statement can specify a version number to be displayed in the Action Manager.
The File to Tag From Content statement has a new option to save the results as a key-value list as opposed to applying the changes. There is also a new option to extract the template components. The action test state is now set so you can determine the success/failure of the function.
The Prompt for Text statement now supports the setting of formatting requirements to control what is input.
The List Contains statement has a new option to save all matching list indexes.
The Test statement has been renamed Test & Run. The statement now requires that an action be specified. Existing uses where an action is not specified are automatically changed to the appropriate Exit or Stop statement.
There is a new Insert Path context menu item in the source field of appropriate Set commands. The item prompts you to select a path to a file or folder to be inserted. At times this may be easier to use than dragging a path from the Finder.
The Auto Search for Artwork statement is now valid when grouped. Note that this is far less efficient than when run stepwise.
The Prompt statement can now be optionally suppressed when run through the Batch Processor.
The Indexed Artwork statement can now be used to determine if an artwork item is a progressive JPEG. Note that the Manipulate Artwork statement can be used to convert a progressive JPEG to a baseline JPEG.
Changes made to Deprecated Items:
The Replace statement no longer has a Set state option. State is always set.
The Find & Remove statement no longer has a Set state option. State is always set.
The Open URL statement no longer has a Set State option. State is always set. The Report/Set State options have been replaced with a new option called Silent.
The Regular Expression statement no longer has a Set state option. State is always set.
The Truncate statement no longer has a Set state option. State is always set.
The User Defined Manipulation statement no longer has a Set state option. State is always set.
The Transfer Metadata statement no longer supports the saving of properties to a named variable.
List Sorting:
Yate has long used its own sort routine when issuing a sort where integers are relevant. This is typically called 'sort as in Finder'. This routine handled leading and trailing integers and avoided a few pitfalls in the standard Apple API. The routine has been completely rewritten to make it more classical friendly. It will now handle integers anywhere in the strings which makes it much better when sorting strings with multiple embedded integers.
FLAC/OGG/APE/WAVPACK:
When reading files if multiple low level items are mapped to the same field, identical values will not be displayed more than once. eg. if YEAR and DATE are both mapped to the Year field and they both contain 2019, the Year field will display 2019 ... not 2019;;;2019
Bug Fixes:
The File to Tag context submenu for Variables was labelled Variable 15.
The File to Tag from Content statement was not being processed when executing an Export. This means that the template was not placed into the plist file.
The Move statement was not clearing the Retained Path properties on entry. This means if you did more than one move on the same files and the second failed, the older values were not cleared.
The Auto Size menu was being displayed in Preferences-Shortcuts on older OS versions where it should not have been displayed.
The Test & Run statement with a combination of the Grouped, Once and Exit settings was not working. The Exit semantics were not applied.
The Regular Expression statement's return Matches+ options was not working. It was working in the Regular Expression Tester.
Multiple item highlighting was not working correctly in the Regular Expression tester for some modes.
When saving property lists with the Transfer Metadata statement to a variable > 9, the data was not saved.
Parameters in variables > 9 on the Run External statement were not passed correctly.
Searching for a track variable in an Action Editor Window went into an infinite loop if the action contained a A0 or A1 escape sequence.
Certain combinations of the Extract Replacement Set statement were not retaining the correct save-as value.
v4.6 regression: The FLAC/OGG and APE preference mapping controller's F buttons were not working.
The APE preference mapping controller's 1 button was not working.
Files with APE tags were not properly merging multiple low level items mapped to the same field.

New in Yate 4.6 (Feb 12, 2019)

New Audio File Support:
Monkey's Audio (.ape) and WavPack (.wv) audio formats are now supported.
Yate will read ID3V1, ID3V2, APEV1 and APEV2 tags in .ape files. Typically only APEV2 tags are written, however you can elect to additionally write an ID3V1 tag.
Yate will read ApeV1 and ApeV2 tags in .wv files. Only APEV2 tags are written.
Preferences:
There is a new section called Ape Mappings used to control the mappings for .ape and .wv files.
The Audio section has a new tab for APE settings. These settings apply to .ape and .wv files.
New settings in Audio-Common to support the configuration of the BPM field to allow fractional values. These options control the display and writing of the values. note that for compatibility reasons the standard low level mapping will always contain an integer value. A fully managed second tag is used to store BPM values with a fractional component. In the UI you only see and edit the value with a (potential) fractional component.
The File List section has a new option named Auto size column widths after loading files. Essentially after loading files an Auto Size All Columns Limited will automatically be executed. All columns except those that are excessively wide will be resized to a full display width.
Tag Sets can now be specified as inverted. ie. Process all but the Selected Fields. When saving an inverted set from any list of fields, the new Tag Set will retain the inverted property.
New Shortcut menu to access Auto Size functions.
Auto Sizing Columns:
On windows that support the auto sizing of columns a new standardized submenu has been created.
New limited modes are provided which are essentially an auto size followed by a downsize.
Regular Expression Tester:
There is a new function mode called Return Ranges+. This is the same as Return Ranges, except that capture group ranges are also returned.
The above functionality is also available in the Regular Expression action statement. Interfacing with the Regular Expression Tester is provided.
The Multi Field Editor:
The Replace function now supports regular expressions.
Action Changes:
Statements which directly reference audio file types now also support APE tags or .ape and .wv files.
Combined Credits Editor:
Changes to the Known Credits table:
~1000 MusicBrainz credits are now displayed and may be filtered.
~250 of these credits are new to the table.
Changes to the Track Credits table:
You can now swap the position of the Person and Credit columns by dragging a column header.
Simple credit items, eg (Artist), now sort inline ignoring the ().
All columns can be sorted.
Query Databases:
Opening a Query Database will no longer fail if an associated sidecar file does not exist. The required fields from the sidecar file will be synthesized from the column headers. Note that a sidecar file will not be written when closing the Query Database. To auto generate a sidecar file, simply open the database in Yate and save it.
Miscellaneous:
Audio File Health Check has been updated to process .ape and .wv files.
The Repair Files from Audio File Health Check Log action has been updated.
For users of Audirvana+, an updated template is provided which reflects the current version's extended fields.
Bug Fixes:
Modifying a FLAC mapping associated with a Custom Field, in Preferences-FLAC Mappings, did not reflect the changes to the Custom Field configurator.
The roles (credits) in FLAC Performer mappings now handle multiple levels of nested parenthesis.
When FLAC tags were written, they were effectively being trimmed. This did not effect most users, however there are times when the exact format of a tag must be preserved.
The 'current' main window filter was not being imported/exported.
Main window and database viewer filter panels were not resizing properly.
When displaying the Multi Field Editor via a field's associated function button, Process All but the Selected Fields was not being reset to Process the Selected Fields.
The main window's filter editor was crashing when filtering on item types which contain a space followed by a left parenthesis.
Fixed a crash in the Column Value List from Query Database action statement when caseless was selected.
The iTunes Grouping Compatibility property's G flag was not cleared if required after saving a file. The appropriate changes were saved, only the display did not update.
When importing data from a preview in a Regular Expression statement, the statement's display line was not updated until you clicked off the line.
When adding to the staging playlist from a different database, duplicates could be entered.
When modifying the Test Only setting in the Export Metadata statement, you had to click off the statement to view the change.

New in Yate 4.5.0.1 (Jan 3, 2019)

New in Yate 4.5 (Dec 11, 2018)

General:
There is a new field named Category. The primary intent for the creation of this field was as a location to store the iTunes Category data.
The iTunes Category field, which can be useful as an alternative to the Grouping field, is not directly editable in iTunes.
The Category field takes part in the general mechanism used to synch iTunes library only metadata such as Ratings, Skip When Shuffling, etc.
Category is on the More Info editing panel.
Category is accessible as a main window column.
Category is accessible from the main window's advanced filter
Category is accessible via export sets.
Category is accessible via the Compare iTunes Values panel.
Category can be associated with a list in Preferences-Lists.
Category is accessible in the Get iTunes Value, Export to iTunes, Fill Lists and Import from iTunes action statements.
Shortcuts:
On macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) and 10.14 (Mohave), the Preferences Shortcuts panel now provides access to many items on the main window's function buttons, Database and Action Editor context menus.
Other Preference Changes:
The iTunes preference panel now supports Category on the Fields of Interest, Auto Import and Auto Export tabs.
The Database preference panel has a new field to enable the use of the Delete key to delete database rows.
Default characters are now provided for Love columns as the characters exist in all supported OS versions.
When the Staging Playlist Database Columns Export set is created it no longer has a Duration column. It was used for the timing display which is also provided by the Time column. The Duration column became redundant when the ability to provide timing from a Time column was added. You can safely delete the Duration item from an existing Export Set.
A FLAC/Ogg mapping for Category is automatically created.
The MusicBrainz preference panel has a new option to specify that only a single genre should be retained. Previously this was based on the Discogs setting of the same name.
The MusicBrainz preference panel has a new option to provide more granularity when determining the source of genre metadata.
The Export Set column named Bool has been renamed to Yes/No.
An OOB item in an Export Set can be marked as being a Yes/No column.
The Video preference panel has a new option to control how Musician Credits and Involved People should be sorted after an import from tMDB. Previously Credits and People were always sorted.
Main Window:
When inline editing in the list of files, the context menu contains the Yate Transfomations submenu.
Actions>Copy Metdata has a new item called Copy One to Many. This function copies metadata from the first (topmost) selected file to all other selected files. The set of fields which will be copied is specified in Actions>Copy Metadata>Copy Selected Metadata... which also provides access to the new functionality.
Database Viewers:
If a database contains a Discogs Master ID, Discogs Release ID or MusicBrainz Release ID, you can now invoke the context menu anywhere on a row to access the menu items to launch the wizards. Previously you had to click on the relevant column.
Empty rows can now be added to standalone databases.
Empty rows can now be added to databases while the database is filtered.
You can now remove, add and rename columns from the table header's context menu.
The table's context menu item 'Remove Results Column' has been eliminated.
The search panel can be expanded to enable additional search configurability and to enable text replacement. The expansion is done via the triangle control at the extreme right of the panel.
When inline editing, the context menu contains the Yate Transfomations submenu.
Double clicking on a cell in a Yes/No column will toggle the value.
Double clicking on a cell in a Rating column will display a menu of rating values.
Double clicking on a cell in a Love column will display a menu of love values.
You can now run actions from a database viewer's context menu. An action is made available on the Run Action menu by specifying it in the Action Manager's Menu column. (new code of D). When run from this menu, the database will automatically be opened as a Query Database using the new grab option on the Open Query Database statement. The action will know which rows are selected. For more information see the online help for Database Viewers and the Open Query Database action statement.
The Action Manager:
Actions can now be associated with the Database Viewer's Run Action menu.
The Action Editor:
Action Editor Windows now have context menu items to enable, disable or toggle Debug statements.
Action Editor Windows now have a context menu to toggle the enable/disable state of individual statements.
Action Statements:
The Dump Variables statement has been renamed to Debug.
The Close Database statement has a new Discarding Changes setting.
The Open Query Database statement has a new option to specify that you would like to grab an open database. With this option you can have query database statements interact directly with a database open in the UI. Named variables are created to specify if the grabbing state was established and to describe which rows are currently selected in the grabbed database. See the online help for this statement for more nuances of grabbing.
New action statement named Open Database Information. Named variables are created to describe all open databases and the current state of each database. More information is supplied in the online help.
The LyricWiki Access statement is now deprecated.
The Discogs & MusicBrainz Wizards:
The id fields on the respective search panels are now validated.
The id field on the Discogs search panel can now contain an id in any of the following forms: #, r#, [r#], m#, [m#]
Audio Files:
In Yate, the Track field is always an integer value. The application has long supported a Track Position UDTI or Custom Variable. When importing from Discogs or MusicBrainz, the automatic setting of this metadata is supported. The main window has a column named Position which displays the data and a Custom Edit panel named Info+ can be downloaded from the Yate Resources web page which does as well.
When an audio file is read and the Track value is not an integer (eg. A1, A2, B2, etc.), the value will now automatically be displayed in the Track Position UDTI or Custom Variable. The next time the file is written, the moving of the values will stick.
Bug Fixes:
Preferences-Shortcuts was displaying a meaningless Ratings row.
The Show in Path Finder menu item was visible in the main window's context menu even if Path Finder support was not enabled.
The Custom Panel Editor's panel builder was using a smaller font for checkbox controls than in the built in panels.
Regression: The Credits Formatter was messed up unless Correct was specified.
All Query Database action statements now add their identifying prefix to the Insert Query Database submenu.
Apply Database Values to Open Files from an Album Database did not work if the album name changed ... even if a Yate Album ID was present.
Display in File Browser was not working from the File menu, only from the main window context menu.

New in Yate 4.4 (Oct 29, 2018)

Lyrics:
Access to a lyrics download service is now provided.
There are a number of help pages describing how to get an API key and how to configure and use the service.
The easiest way to start is by opening the new Preferences-Lyrics section's online help. Remember, so as not to mess with your current sort order, all new Preference sections are initially at the end of the list.
When searching for lyrics, you can exclude tracks based on a variety of conditions including specific genre types, Skip When Shuffling and the presence of an Instrumental UDTI or Custom Field with a non zero value.
You can easily check for database updates on tracks where a match could not be made with retry intervals such as 1 Month, etc. When looking for updates, no lookup will be performed unless the specified retry interval is satisfied.
New Audio File Support:
Yate now supports Ogg containers for Vorbis and Opus streams. Note that files with multiple streams are not supported.
Files with extensions .ogg, .oga and .opus may be loaded.
Ogg files share their low level mappings with Flac files. There is only one preference section to define these mappings. Preferences - Flac Mappings has been renamed to Flac/Ogg Mappings.
Custom Panel Editor:
User Defined Text Info items and Custom Fields can now be marked as requiring a checkbox display.
Custom Field Editor Editor:
The Flac mapping field is now used for Flac and Ogg files.
Preferences:
New Lyrics section
The Flac Mappings section has been renamed to Flac/Ogg Mappings.
Audio Section:
The Flac tab has been renamed to Flac/Ogg.
A few new settings relating to Ogg files have been added.
Actions Section:
Action Statement List Background and Action Manager Background popup menus now have the same choice of colours. For those 10.14 users who missed the gray background for the old Window Background, gray has been added.
The Window Background colour choice has been renamed to System Default.
Export Sets:
There is a new column named Bool. User Defined Text Info Items and Custom Fields can be marked as being boolean. Yes or No. This affects the display of the column in Database Viewers.
Main Window:
New toolbar button for lyrics searches.
New toolbar button to save only selected modified files. The original Save button saves all open loaded modified files. Note that this functionality was always available on the File>Save Selected Files submenu.
When looking at a value in a function button's Chooser, there is now a new Rearrange option which lets you drag and drop items.
Databases:
Database views will now display durations on the status bar if the database contains a Time or Duration column. Previously a Duration column was necessary.
Discogs and MusicBrainz referenced track databases will now use a Time or Duration column for track durations. Previously only Duration worked.
Fields which default to boolean, such as Part of a Compilation, or are explicitly defined as boolean now coerce edited values to 1 or empty. 'empty' always has a 0 value but has some efficiencies in avoiding the saving of unnecessary tags to files.
The tooltip for the context menu's 'This is an ... Database' menu item, displays the file's character encoding.
Combined Credits Editor:
The closing Apply button has been renamed to Rebuild All Credit Fields & Close.
Renaming:
Renaming is now done on a separate thread and progress is displayed.
Action Statements:
The Build List statement is inherently stepwise so that a single list can be produced based on the content from multiple files. However, there are cases when you might want individual lists produced. For this reason a new Grouped option has been added.
There is a new statement to get lyrics.
Move statement previews now insert {field name} for empty Fields as opposed to reporting errors.
Preferences-Lyrics allows you tp specify a list of genres to be excluded when looking for lyrics. The Preferences statement has a new individual setting which can be used to override the list.

New in Yate 4.3.0.2 (Oct 12, 2018)

New in Yate 4.3.0.1 (Sep 26, 2018)

New in Yate 4.3 (Sep 23, 2018)

MacOS 10.14 (Mojave):
The first time you attempt to access iTunes, you will be asked to grant permission to Yate. If you do not, iTunes interaction will fail. The permission can be re-enabled in System Preferences-Security & Privacy-Privacy-Automation. Note that without the permission, all iTunes functionality will fail.
Preferences:
There is a new Preference section called Cue Sheets. This section has various settings to control importing metadata to single file cue sheets and the creating of multi file cue sheets. Remember that new Preference sections are added at the end of the section list in order to avoid changing your sort order. You can rearrange the sections by dragging or by sorting from the context menu.
There is a new Preference section called Credits Editor. Settings for the Combined Credits editor have been removed from Preferences-File List.
Preferences - General has a new configuration button for Dark Mode. The new panel lets you select a System, Always Light or Always Dark appearance for most windows. By default, every configurable window is set to System. Note that these settings do nothing unless you are running on macOS 10.14 Mojave.
Preferences - General has a new field named Yate UID. If you have more than one copy of Yate and you want to be able to determine in an action which instance is running, this field is for you. The new escape sequence YI will insert the identifier.
File to Tag Templates now interpret - (tab) and n (newline) escape sequences. This is for use in the expanded File to Tag from Content statement.
Preferences - File List now supplies more granularity when auto-updating databases. You can now choose to only update existing items.
Preferences- iTunes has a new setting so that you can select which playlist gets written when the new Add to iTunes Playlist functionality is used.
Rename Templates now support Sentence case.
A new Rename Template named Force Latin-1 will have been imported. The template renames a track's containing folder and filename to be ISO Latin-1 without changing anything else.
Preferences - Export has a new dedicated export field called iTunes PID. Used to create iTunes playlists from any track database containing the field.
Preferences - Databases has a new setting to hide or show the 'Add to Staging Playlist' menu item if the database is not already open.
Growl support has been removed. All supported OS versions have support for Notification center. If you had notifications configured to use Growl, you will be switched to Notification Center.
Advanced List Settings:
These settings are shared by the Combined Credits Editor and all other functionality which can access preference lists. The settings can be accessed from Preferences - Credits Editor and Preferences - Lists.
These setting determine the rules to split fields with delimiters other than the multi-value delimiter.
There is also an option to enable the standardization of the representation of fields when typing in a field which auto saves to a list.
There is a single set of alternate delimiters which can be specified for spliting and reconstructing fields.
Every preference list can disable the non standard delimiters or enable them for the CCE or all editing functions.
The settings can be used to improve the ability to add single items to preference lists.
The non standard delimiters do not replace the multi-value delimiter which remains the only delimiter to be used when differentiating multiple items when reading and writing audio files.
The default settings ensure the same functionality of preceding versions.
The following functionality can be affected by these settings:
editing a field on an editing panel which is associated with a list.
editing a field which is associated with a list inline in the file list.
the Choose Value functionality.
manually adding an item to a preference list.
inline editing of an item in a preference list.
the Fill Lists action statement.
the Standardize Case of List Items action statement.
the Combined Credits Editor.
Playlist Staging Database:
It can be tedious to use the main window to accumulate tracks for a playlist. You might want to load various albums and preview tracks before adding them to a playlist.
There is now support to easily add tracks to a staging playlist database. You can add tracks from the main window or from any Track dadabase.
When all your tracks have been accumulated, you can save the playlist as an m3u file or as an iTunes playlist.
Support has been added to the Database Viewer to randomize row order.
The functionality is available on the Files menu and via a toolbar button.
There is a new help topic called Playlists and Playlist Staging on the main help page.
Main Window:
Lot's of menu reorganization has occurred. There is also a new iTunes menu which coalesces all of the various iTunes menu items. The Ratings submenu, now on the Edit menu, has been renamed to Edit Rating Values. The Database ID menu item has been renamed Yate Database IDs.
The File menu has a new item named Create Cue File. This item creates a cue sheet which references all selected files.
The Yate>Reset Built in Items menu has a new Reset List Mappings item.
New Edit menu item to select a specific row in a database.
Edit panel function button Choose Value functionality has been enhanced such that all fields associated with preference lists have the ability to successively add items from the list.
Edit Panel preset buttons have a new context menu item called 'Help for Edit Panel'.
Whenever a function button has an Add to List item, there will also be an Add to List Ignoring Alt Delims item.
There is a new toolbar button for Add to Staging Playlist.
There is a new Add to iTunes Playlist item on the File menu. All selected tracks will be added to an iTunes playlist specified in Preferences-iTunes.
There is a new toolbar button for Add to iTunes Playlist.
The File Browser will no longer be updated when the main window is 'locked down'. This is typically when the activity spinner is on. When the activity ends, the File Browser will be updated if necessary.
Typically when you want to choose an item from a list for a field, you click on the disclosure button to the right of the field. This allows you to choose the desired list item. If you wish to see all list items containing the text in the field, you can use the new List Items Containing Text in Field menu item. The new menu item is available on a function button's menu and the application's Edit menu so that a keyboard shortcut can be applied. The application menu item or an assigned keyboard shortcut will only work while you are editing an appropriate field.
The Multi-Value Delimiter, Fields and Preference Lists:
Various editing functionality such as autocompletes, list selection from a popup menu, etc. are now multi-value delimiter aware. This makes it far easier to add and maintain multiple items in fields. There is a new help topic with the same name as this section. The main changes are:
Autocompletes:
When a field is associated with a preference list, only the text following the last multi-value delimiter sequence is autocompleted.
Selecting a list item from a popup menu:
If a field contains a multi-value delimiter, any item chosen from a popup menu will be appended to the end of the field. A multi-value delimiter sequence will be inserted if required. The append mode can also be forced by holding down the Option key when clicking on the field's disclosure button. When the popup menu is displayed and in append mode, the field's text will display in green.
List Items Containing Text in Field:
When applied to a field containing a multi-value delimiter, only the text following the last multi-value delimiter is evaluated and overwritten.
Yate Transformations:
The Sort menu item is now available in all text fields describing audio fields which can contain multiple values. When used in a multi-line text field, a newline character is the item delimiter. When used in a single-line text field, the multi-value delimiter is the item delimiter.
There is a new item named Sort Excluding First. This is the same as Sort with the exception that the first item is not included in the sort and always remains first.
Case Transformations:
Support for Sentence Case has been added. Unlike the Capitalize First mode, Sentence Case is period (.) aware. The mode has been added to the following places:
The Yate Transformations menu
Rename Templates
The Case statement
The Action Manager:
There is a new column named Priority. The column only serves to enable you to establish a specific sort order. The highest priority is 1, then 2, ... then 9, followed by the default (lowest) priority which is displayed as ·
The Menu column can now be directly edited by selecting a single action and then by clicking in the column.
The new Priority column can be edited for multiple items from the context menu. It can also be set for a single item by selecting it and then clicking in the Priority column.
Action Statements:
There is a new statement named Create Cue File which creates a multi file cue sheet.
There is a new statement named Embed Cue Sheet which embeds an existing cue sheet into a track's metadata.
There is a new statement named Export Embedded Cue Sheet which saves an embedded cue sheet to the file system..
There is a new statement named Rename Cue Sheet File which can be used to adjust the name of a cue file after renaming or moving a same named audio file.
There is a new action statement named Copy Non Audio Files. Same interface as Move Non Audio Files.
There is a new action statement named Is Database Open.
There is a new action statement named Is Query Database Open.
There is a new action statement named Lock / Unlock Database. The statement can also be used to test the lock state of an open database.
There is a new action statement named Add to iTunes Playlist. The action statement differs from the UI variant in that a playlist can be named.
There is a new action statement named Build Component List. The statement builds a list of components using a list of delimiters. The statement uses the same logic as provided by the new Advanced List Settings.
The Open Database statement will no longer force a database window to the front if it is already open. There is also a new Silent setting which disables the reporting of errors through the UI.
The Case statement now supports Sentence case. The statement can also now be configured to transform items in a list.
The File to Tag from Content statement has a new 'Treat the content as simple text' option. This option disables the File to Tag path component handling.
The Compare Numeric Test statement has four new validation tests which can be performed. The application typically treats integer values as whatever leading digits are available in a field. The new tests allow you to determine if a field actually represents a number, an integer, a negative integer or a positive integer. The statement also has two new convenience functions called Is True and Is False.
The Update Database and Remove Items from Database statements are now valid when executing grouped.
The Ignore files statement can be based on a variable being false as well as true.
The Standardize Case of List Items statement has ben renamed to Standardize on List Items.
Properties:
There is a new file property called iTunes Grouping Compatibility. This property only applies to MP3 and AIFF files. The return value describes the compatibility state of the file when loaded. It also describes the current state of the application level Maximim iTunes Grouping-Work Name compatibility option. This property can be used to determine if a file should be force saved. More information can be found in the online help for the Get Property action statement.
Discogs:
The wizard now detects when a single file is selected and it has a corresponding cue file of the same name or an embedded cue sheet.
The intent is that when you have an audio file which was ripped to contain an entire CD in a single audio file, you can now import metadata into the cue file which was produced at the same time.
MusicBrainz:
The wizard now detects when a single file is selected and it has a corresponding cue file of the same name or an embedded cue sheet.
The intent is that when you have an audio file which was ripped to contain an entire CD in a single audio file, you can now import metadata into the cue file which was produced at the same time.
The wizard now honours the Latin Artist Names option, if set, when accumulating credits. ie. not just for Artist and Album Artist names.
If a credit is described as 'other instrument' and a qualifier is available, the qualifier is used as the instrument name.
Database Viewers:
Database files can now be locked. When a database is locked all updating and removing of items from the application's main window is disabled. When files are saved, no updating will occur regardless of the auto-update on save setting. The Open Database action statement's 'Update database values after opening' option is also disabled. The only means of modifying content in a locked database from an action is via the Update Database and Remove Items from Database statements. Note that locking a database has no effect on editing within the database. When a database is locked, a lock icon is displayed in the window's title bar.
The View Options panel has a new option to override the application's default appearance for these viewers. You can select a Default, Always Light or Always Dark appearance. Note that these settings do nothing unless you are running on macOS 10.14 Mojave.
If a database has a defined Duration column, the status bar will display the total time of the selected rows or of all rows (

New in Yate 4.2.0.1 Build 7396 (Jul 4, 2018)

New in Yate 4.2 Build 7394 (Jul 3, 2018)

Lists of Fields Presented in Tables:
v4.0 introduced support in the Multi Field Editor's Clear function and the Clear action statement to allow the list of fields to be interpreted as all but the selected fields. The Transfer Metadata action statement had similar functionality. This functionality has been expanded to all Multi Field Editor functions and with only a few exceptions, to all action statements which display a table containing fields.
There is no longer a control to choose the mode in the Clear functionality.
You change the mode by clicking on the button at the right of the table's header bar. The table's field column header displays the current mode.
All Clear and Transfer Metadata action statements in existing actions have been modified accordingly.
The first time you open the Multi Field Editor after updating, the mode will be Process the Selected Files. From that point on, the last used mode will be retained.
Which mode you use is largely a matter of convenience. However, there are a few differences between the two modes. A link to a more detailed explanation can be found in the Multi Field Editor help or the help for any supporting action statement.
Action Statement Changes:
The Enumerate Tag Sets and Fields statement has a new option to produce a list of all track variables.
The Date Functions statement has additional settings to convert a date to a number of milliseconds and vice versa.
The Pad statement now supports expanding tab characters in multi line data.
The List Manipulate statement's Numeric function has been renamed to Integer.
The List Manipulate statement's Remove function has been renamed to Remove All Matches.
The List Manipulate statement has a new function named Remove One Per Match.
The Stop Action and Open Files statement can now be configured to close all visible files without loading new ones.
The Truncate Variable statement has been renamed to Truncate.
There is a new statement named Preference List Add/Remove. This statement can be use to add or remove one or more items from a preference list.
There is a new action statement named Ignore Files which can be used to remove files from consideration while the action is running. The online help has additional information on how the statement can be used.
There is a new action statement named Restore Ignore Files which can be used to restore ignored files to consideration.
Main Window Changes:
The Yate menu has a new item named Quit Discarding Changes. When this item is selected, all changes to audio files are discarded and the application will attempt to terminate. You will still be prompted if an open database file has unsaved changes. By default a confirmation panel will be displayed whenever this function is invoked and at least one audio file has unsaved changes.
There are now ten Action # toolbar items.
If you hover over the status bar when truncated, a tooltip will be displayed with the full content.
The Help menu now has a Quick Reference submenu.
FLAC Files:
Yate will read ID3 tags in FLAC files but previously the presense of ID3 information was only available via Log>Raw Data. The ID3 Version property will now be set so that you can test for this situation and possibly re-write the file. Note that the Audio Property display will show the ID3 Version when appropriate.
Preferences-Audio:
Under the General tab, the Write padded track and disc values setting has been renamed to Write track and disc values as displayed which is more indicative as to what gets written.
Preferences-Export Sets:
You can now automatically create an action which will build one or more databases. From the Export button (⇒) choose Export as an Action. Depending on the fields in the export sets, you will either create Album, Track or Stand Alone databases. If a Yate Track ID or Yate Album ID field is present in any of the selected export sets, a Database ID statement will be included to produce the referenced IDs if they are missing. Note that a prompt will be issued at runtime for each database name.
When you create a new set, you can select All Unqualified Fields. The export set will be pre-populated with all fields except for the track variables, Unique File Identifiers, User Defined Text Items and User Defined URLs. This is useful if you'd rather remove than add fields.
Preferences-File List:
You can now supply custom icons for the Action 1 through Action 10 toolbar buttons.
Preferences-File to Tag:
You can now automatically create an action to provide the functionality of a file to tag template and map it to one of the Action # buttons. Select the appropriate template and from the context menu choose a Set as Toolbar Action # menu item. An action named File to Tag: template name will be created.
File to Tag templates display spaces as centered dots for visibility reasons. If your filenames contain centered dot characters you can now represent them as . in the template. The escape sequence will allow proper matching to occur. Any other escape sequence simply inserts the escaped character. ie. \ will be replaced with
Preferences-General:
Under notifications, there is a new option to do nothing when a process finishes.
There is a new option to suppress the warning issued when Yate>Quite Discarding Changes is invoked.
Preferences-Rename:
You can now automatically create an action to provide the functionality of a rename template and map it to one of the Action # buttons. Select the appropriate template and from the context menu choose a Set as Toolbar Action # menu item. An action named Rename: template name will be created.
Rename templates display spaces as centered dots for visibility reasons. You can now insert centered dot characters into filenames by representing them as . in the template. Any other escape sequence simply inserts the escaped character. ie. \ will be replaced with
Preferences-Search:
You can now automatically create an action to provide the functionality of a search template and map it to one of the Action # buttons. Select the appropriate template and from the context menu choose a Set as Toolbar Action # menu item. An action named Search: template name will be created.
Database Files:
When opening a database file, if the operating system cannot determine the encoding, you are now presented with a list of potential encodings to attempt.
Bug Fixes:
If a FLAC file had padded track or disc values in the file, the padding was not removed when rewritten unless the fields were set. The padding should always be removed unless the Preference-Audio-General 'Write track and disc values as displayed' setting is enabled.
v4 broke the ability of the Stop Action and Filter Files statement to interact with the main window filtering system with track variables. Track variables are cleared when an action terminates and variables were removed from the list of filterable items. Variable fields are again in the list of filterable items. The Stop Action and Filter Files statement will now ensure that the Variable fields are retained until the filtering has been processed.
Using the Rename Files statement, if you renamed a file to itself, the Retained Path 1 and Retained Path 2 properties were not set. There was no way to tell that an error had not occurred.
If a file contained a negative track number and you created an album database with an Incomplete column, the application would crash.
When looking for duplicates in a Track database, the Results column did not have the current font size when inserted.
When exporting an action that contained a Stop Action and Filter Files statement, the referenced filter was not being exported.
Fixed lots of minor display issues on Mac OS 10.14.

New in Yate 4.1.0.3 Build 7316 (Jun 4, 2018)

New in Yate 4.1.0.1 Build 7314 (May 24, 2018)

New in Yate 4.1 Build 7313 (May 23, 2018)

Action Runtime Settings:
In the past if you wished to have retained settings for actions you typically placed them in a Replacement Set. These sets are read-only for actions and you had to manually set the options.
There is a new item type called Action Runtime Setting which can be read and written from within an action. The data saved with the settings can be at most a single line of text. The information is persistent.
The settings can be viewed and manually written in the UI via a new Runtime Settings button in Preferences-Actions.
The value associated with a setting is inserted via a new #setting# escape sequence.
There is a new action statement named Set Action Runtime Setting which is used to write the values at runtime.
The currently defined and all referenced action runtime settings are available on an action text field's context menu.
Video Files:
MPEG-4 files which have a video track but no audio track will now be loaded.
If for any reason you want to set any of the video fields, even when there is no video track, you can enable the new Preferences-Audio-MPEG-4-Always display video fields setting.
Custom Panel Editor:
There is a new element called Comments/Thumbnail which is equivalent to the Comments display on the Info panel. ie. it can display the comments and a consistent default artwork item.
Preferences-FLAC:
You can no longer remove mappings associated with Custom Fields. You must remove the FLAC value in a Custom Field in order to remove the mapping. This is to ensure that the FLAC mappings and Custom Fields are always synchronized.
If you delete all displayed items the FLAC mappings will be reset to their out of the box values with Custom Fields applied. In fact if you do not have at least one non Custom Field mapping, a reset will be triggered.
iTunes:
There is a new Preferences-iTunes setting to disable auto linking. When set, the Open Mode menu and toolbar items to change the auto linking state are hidden and disabled. This means the setting cannot be enabled in error.
iTunes synthesized track ratings now always show as 0 stars when displayed. As you can determine if there is an explicit Album Rating, this will allow you to accurately determine what the real track rating is.
Artwork Cropper Panel:
The panel now supports squaring by increasing the size of the canvas as well as by cropping to the smaller of the width and height. You can choose to do a transparent, white or black fill or to stretch the image.
The panel can now also be used to force a re-encoding of the image to jpeg or png.
There is now a Reset button to start over.
File Browser:
You can now move files to the trash.
You can now drag files in as well as out.
Action Edit Window's Find Panel:
You can search for action runtime settings.
The Text search now does a deep search of all text fields as well as an item's display.
Action Statements:
You can now update and restore to the Editing State in actions. This may be useful when you want to preserve the potentially modified metadata in files without restoring to the initial values. The new statements are called Update Editing State and Revert to Editing State.
New Set Action Runtime Setting statement.
New action statement called On Cancel. This statement allows you to automatically do a revert to the initial or editing state when an action is cancelled on the panel displayed by one of the Prompt statements.
New action statement called Pad. This statement lets you replace tabs with spaces (4 and 8 tab stops). It also lets you pad the length of an item to a specified length with any string. The original text can be left, right or middle justified.
New action statement called List Numeric Functions. This statement can be used to sum list elements; find the average, minimum or maximum value.
New action statement called Trash Item. The statement can move any file or folder to the trash as long as you have the required permission and the item resides on a volume supporting the trash folder.
The Build List statement can now build key-value lists where the values are occurrence counts.
The Build List statement can now build raw lists where empty and duplicate items are not removed.
The Manipulate Artwork statement supports squaring by filling the background with white or black and by stretching. Previously only a transparent fill was supported.
The Manipulate Artwork statement now supports an increase of the canvas size if certain conditions are met while squaring and the new scale to canvas option is set. See the online help for more information.
New options for the Re-Encode statement to add and remove URL escaping.
New escape sequences to insert the Action Test State. a1 inserts 0 for false and 1 for true. a0 inserts nothing for false and 1 for true. These sequences are available on the Insert Yate Escape Sequence menu.
There is a new Audio Property called Has Audio. Note that it is only possible for this to be false in MPEG-4 files.
Open File by the OS and Open URL now work while batch processing.
List Manipulate has a new function which limits the number of items in a list.
Bug Fixes:
The Contents of Folder statement could lose filter information when editing after the initial creation.
Found a few action statements which were sorted incorrectly in their respective lists.
When dragging artwork to the Finder, the data will be what is retained as opposed to the data as returned by the OS. ie. load than drag will result in identical data. Note that this is only true when dragging from an editing panel. When dragging from the stand alone Artwork Viewer the data is always extracted from the OS.
Lots of help tweaks.
The long elusive "Edit Panel labels get truncated" mystery has been solved.
One of the new v4 picker controls was highlighting invalid selections when the menu was displayed. This was a visual only issue.
The Test statement's Open/Create button was not always correctly enabled.
Importing a Custom Panel could crash if custom field references had to be remapped.
Fields on Custom Panels were using a font one point smaller than the built in fields.
There were label display issues when adding UDTIs with a leading ; (special display flag) to a Custom Panel.
Video Definition displayed incorrect values in snapshots.

New in Yate 4.0.1 Build 7232 (Apr 10, 2018)

Action Editor Find Panels:
Previously you could only search for text in the displayed representation of each statement. You can now also search for fields, named variables, track variables, disabled statements and Dump Variable statements.
You can also now specify that you want all matches to be selected.
Renaming Files and Multiple Value Items:
When renaming files, inserted items with multiple values separated by the multi value delimiter had all values except the first removed.
There is a new Preferences-Audio-Common setting named Rename Substitution which you can use to change the above behaviour. When the new setting is empty, the behaviour is as before. When the field is non empty, the specified text will replace occurrences of the multi value delimiter.
There is a new rename template token named Multi Value Delimiter. This token can be used to override the Rename Substitution setting by specifying a replacement pattern or an empty string. This token can be used as many times as desired in a template to provide per field granularity.
Bug Fixes:
If no search pattern was specified in an Action Editor Find panel, a soft fault occurred.
Fixed a memory leak when displaying the Field or Initial Field context menus.
Compare Numeric Test statements could corrupt their data when editing the content after creating. This only occurred if testing against a track variable.
When updating from version 3.x to v4.0 the Multi Field Editor's Case statement might display an unexpected Optional Field Exception setting. If you have already installed v4.0 you can manually correct the situation.
When updating from version 3.x to v4.0, a rename template which specified a case transformation could display an unexpected Optional Field Exception setting. To fix this you must manually correct the issue.
The Multi Field Editor's new clear option, Clear all but Selected Fields, should have worked when no fields were selected.
Regression: The Multi Field Editor Remove & Insert function wasn't inserting.

New in Yate 4.0 Build 7224 (Apr 4, 2018)

Custom Fields:
There are now one hundred available Custom Fields.
Custom fields display in lists sorted by their name. Unassigned Custom Fields are not displayed.
Custom fields can be defined as being popup controls, much the same as Artist, Composer, etc. These fields can be associated with a list and set to auto-add and autocomplete in Preference-Lists.
Custom field escape sequences are inserted by the same Insert Yate Field or Insert Yate Initial Field submenus. The displayed names are symbolic. The references are associated with a specific custom field. Renaming a custom field will change all referencing escape sequences.
Custom Fields created previous to v4 will have been maintained. It is possible that some of the carried over fields are not actually used. In this case you can remove them in Preferences-General-Configure Custom Fields.
New installs have no predefined Custom Fields.
Rename and File to Tag templates now display the Custom Field names as tokens. The tokens are changed automatically if the name associated with a Custom Field changes.
The Combined Credits Editor can access any of the Custom Fields and will only access those marked as being credits.
Export Sets and Tag Sets display the symbolic names of custom fields.
It is important to note that with few exceptions, custom fields are still accessed internally by their ordinal number. This is as it was before. The big difference is that is now hidden as much as possible. Custom fields now display everywhere with their symbolic name. Yate changes all symbolic names when mappings are changed automatically. This include tables, popup menus, action escape sequences, Custom Panels, Rename templates, File to Tag Templates, Export Sets, Tag Sets and the Multi Field Editor.
Exporting Actions and Templates:
The export of actions, Export Sets, File to Tag Templates, FLAC mappings, Rename Templates and Tag Sets are now smart exports. When doing a smart export, all Custom Field accesses are exported in such a way that they can be conditionally remapped when imported. The custom field information included in the export file contains all the low level mappings associated with the Custom Fields. These smart exports, available from the associated preference panels and the Action Manager are the preferred means of exporting items for distribution. The menu based export of preferences should be used primarily for backup purposes.
The ability to merge exported files has been removed as the typical usage predates the smart exporting of actions.
All exporting in the Action Manager is now smart. The Smart Export and Export menu items have been replaced with a single Export item. When exporting in the Action Manager, you can now optionally specify a name of a folder to enclose the exported actions.
Exporting and Importing Metadata:
The Export menu item now supports the exporting of more than one file's metadata at a time. When exporting a single file you are prompted for the destination folder. When exporting multiple files the metadata is saved to a subfolder named Exported Metadata. If you want to locate your exported files to a diferent location, use an action.
When exporting metadata, smart information is automatically exported so that Custom Fields can be remapped when later imported. When importing this smart data, you will be prompted if custom fields are being imported or if a custom field already exists but with different low level data..
Per Track Variables:
There are now sixteen per track variables numbered 0 through 15.
All popup controls which specify fields and Variables, now display the variables in a submenu.
Escape sequences which access track variables, v#, i#, f#, @#, =#, +# and *# now treat # as an integer as opposed to a single digit. If you previously followed any of these sequences directly by a digit, you will have to insert a b (break) sequence. eg. 'v11 song' which previously inserted the contents of Variable 1 followed by '1 song', will now insert the contents of Variable 11 followed by ' song'. The sequence can be rewritten as 'v1b1 song'. As these types of sequences are highly unlikely, we are not handling the conversion automatically.
Per track variables are now cleared when action processing terminates.
Main Window:
The File and main window context Replay Gain menus have a new item called Calculate Sound Check. This can be used can be used to calculate iTunes Sound Check values based on previously calulated replay gain tags.
There are ten columns called Custom Column 1 to Custom Column 10. These replace the previous Custom 0 to Custom 9 columns. These columns can be associated with any Custom Field. If they are not associated wth a Custom Field, they will not be displayed.
The Mapping 1, 2 and 3 columns have been renamed UD Text Mapping 1, 2, 3. If any of these columns are not associated with a UDTI, they will not be displayed.
The multi item editing panels, which have a default value, such as Comments, Lyrics (All), Terms of Use, etc. no longer display empty placeholders for the default values. Empty values can be created but they will eventually be removed from the multi panel displays.
The Artwork menu has a new item called Auto Search then Search for Album Cover Fanart, CAA & Discogs.
The Work Name field can now optionally maintain a list as can Artist, Album Artist, etc.
The ISRC field's function button has a new item to remove all spaces from the field. The Yate Transformation Compress function will also remove all spaces for the ISRC field.
The Sort fields are now available as columns.
A Remove Duplicates menu item has been added to the Artwork menu and to artwork panels' image table's context menu. Two images are duplicates if they have exactly the same binary data. This was previously only available via an action.
New Window menu item called Focus on File List. This is useful if you are in the File Browser or on an editing panel and you wish to focus on the file list without changing the selection. There is also an associated toolbar item. Note that there is no real requirement to ever do this.
Older default keyboard shortcuts which used function keys have been changed to reflect the lack of those keys on most newer laptops.
Snapshot Panel:
Multi item fields which have a default value, such as Comment, Rating, etc., now display the default values separate from any additional items.
Preferences-General & File List:
The configuration of Custom Fields and Custom Column Mappings have been split into two configurators.
The Custom Field configurator has been completely rewritten and has been moved to Preferences-General.
Preferences-Lists:
There are new lists named Work Name, Custom 1, Custom 2 , Custom 3, Custom 4 and Custom 5.
The Custom lists are available in case you want to associate a Custom Field with a non-standard list.
Preferences-MusicBrainz:
On a per track basis in a release, MusicBrainz lists the artists associated with each track. Sometimes the artist as credited on the release differs from the artist associated with the recording. If the Prefer release artist names option is set, Yate will use the release name, when available, as opposed to the recording name. Note that this option is only available if the Use per track artist names option is enabled. In previous versions, the recording name was always used.
On a per track basis in a release, MusicBrainz lists the titles associated with each track. Sometimes the title as described on the release differs from the title associated with the recording. If the Prefer release titles option is set, Yate will use the release name, when available, as opposed to the recording name. In previous versions, the recording name was always used.
Preferences-Audio:
The Common tab has a new setting for Sound Check offset. This allows you to maintain different LUFS values for Replay Gain and Sound Check.
FLAC Files:
High Sierra supports FLAC files at the OS level... although not in iTunes. This OS support, when available, is used when calculating ReplayGain values. There's no change in functionality it's simply quicker.
Certain applications are writing artwork to Base64 encoded Vorbis comments. Yate will now extract images from COVERART and METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE comments. In the past these items were exposed as UDTIs as any other unmapped FLAC comment. Unless you knew that they were there you could have had quite a bit of space tied up in useless data. The images, which might be duplicates are more obvious and can easily be removed if required. If the image data cannot be decoded, the data is tossed. Note that the images are always written the correct way when saving a file.
Action Statements:
Added a new statement called Sound Check. The statement can be used to calculate iTunes sound check values based on replay gain tags.
Added a new statement called Clear User Defined Items by Source. This statement can be used to delete all user defined items associated with one or more sources.
Added a new statement called File Path Manipulation. The statement can perform a number of operations on file paths.
Compare Test, Numeric and Data can now specify a property as the source.
Enumerate Tag Sets and Fields has a new selection for Custom Fields only.
Compare Fields and Compare Fields Test have been merged into a single statement. The statement now supports NOT, Set, AND and OR.
Bitrate and Bitrate Test have been combined into a single statement.
Exists and Exists Test have been combined into a single statement.
The four Create Symbolic Link statements have been merged into one.
The Issue Query Database statements's contains tests now have an additional reversed option. When using this option you can test if a pattern is contained in the database contents.
The Build List statement can optionally only process files if a specified variable is true.
The Export Metadata statement no longer produces files which are duplicates when running stepwise. Typically these duplicates were artwork files.
The Save and Restore Variable statements have been redesigned to handle the new track variables. The information is now encoded as a single item for any one file.
The Search for Artwork Test statement has been renamed Test Artwork.
The Clear statement now supports inclusion and exclusion. Depending on the current set of Custom Fields, the number of displayed items can change.
The Extract Preference Sets, Fill Lists, Preferences and Standardize Case statements have support for the new Work Name and Custom 1 through Custom 5 lists.
The Ignore Errors option in the Run External Script statement is now completely silent. The contents of stderr, if any, are saved to the new External Script stderr Output named variable.
The Transfer Metadata statement can now specify which fields are not to be transferred.
The Prompt for Text statement now supports making the text field R/O and forcing the use of the picker menu. The index of the selected menu item is returned.
Escape Sequences:
All sequences which process track variables now take a number after the sequence to specify the variable number. eg: v15.
New sequence b. The sequence does not insert anything and merely acts as a break. This can be used in the unlikely case where you had a variable sequence which was followed by a digit. eg. v1b123
The old means of accessing a custom field c# has been removed from menu insertions. Previous instances will have been replaced with the correct symbolic representations. Custom fields are now accessed as any other field. The symbolic names are easier to use than cryptic c# sequences.
New sequence p will insert the name of the calling action. Note that this can be an inline action.
Multi Field Editor:
The Clear function now supports inclusion and exclusion. Depending on the current set of Custom Fields, the number of displayed items can change.
Text fields no longer have escape sequences processed. The escape sequences were intended for within actions.
Removed Deprecated Items:
The action test state mode is now fixed at Single Action Test State.
You can no longer set the default UUID mode to the older Yate implementation. Any previously generated UUIDs with this format will continue to work.

New in Yate 3.17.4.2 Build 6195 (Jan 3, 2018)

New in Yate 3.17.4.1 Build 6177 (Dec 23, 2017)

New in Yate 3.17.4 Build 6170 (Dec 19, 2017)

Please Read This:
This is the last planned update which will support OS versions less than 10.9 (Mavericks). This release will now target a different update path for those earlier OS versions. There is no guarantee that there will be further updates for 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8, however, the ability is in place to provide patches. Due to the loss of functionality outside of our control, we have come to this this decision...and not lightly. It's time to upgrade. For those of you who decide to continue using Yate on these older platforms, please be aware that the ability to load actions created by newer versions will not be possible.
The Main Window:
In order to stop the unnecessary display of the main window when a process finishes, nothing visual is done when the application is active. ie. the main window will not be forced to the front and the dock icon will not bounce. Unfortunately there is no way to reliably bounce the dock icon when the application is active.
Added a Renumber by Disc toolbar button.
Added a Calculate Track Count Per Disc toolbar button.
Artwork panels will display duplicate artwork items when a single file is selected.
A Help Indexed by Menu Items link has been added to the Help menu.
Unhandled Frames has been renamed to Unhandled Items.
The status bar can no longer be hidden.
The Audio Information panel at the bottom of the File Browser panel now auto-hides.
Some other minor cosmetic changes.
Regular Expression Tester:
There is a new regular expression test panel. The functionality can be accessed as a stand alone window from the Actions menu or as a sheet opened from a Regular Expression statement in an Action Editor window.
You can test all supported regular expression functionality.
You can set content values for accessed variables and named variables.
You can view the regular expression and template fields as they are passed to the regular expression compiler. ie. After Yate escaping.
Matches will be colour highlighted.
The regular expression and template fields have context menu items to assist with the most common regexp sequences.
TheMovieDB Importer:
You can now optionally synthesize the EpisodeID (eg. S01E12) for TV shows.
WAV Files:
WAV files have an alternate tagging scheme to the suppported ID3 specification. A small number of tags may be specified in a LIST-INFO chunk. Yate always wrote the Album, Artist, Title and Year tags to this construct to support those applications which do not handle an ID3 chunk. The Comments, Copyright and Genre metadata is now written as well. Further, Yate will now read any of the previous fields if non empty and there is no in place ID3 data or if the ID3 chunk is not present. Yate will also preserve any unhandled metadata that it finds so that it can be put back when the file is written. These unhandled items have a description field which starts with LIST-INFO:xxxx where xxxx is the name of the unhandled item.
When logging verbose raw file contents, the contents of the LIST-INFO chunk will be displayed.
Action Manager:
The Action Manager has a new Log Action Usage context menu item. The Log Viewer will contain a list of all actions describing the actions called and those that call them.
Action Editor Windows:
There is a new context menu item called Save Changes then Run Action.
Action Statements:
You can now specify that the Run statement should execute only for those selected files which have a specific variable whose value is true.
The Compare Date Test, Compare Numeric Test and Compare Text Test statements can all now save individual per file test results to a variable. When executing in stepwise mode the the action test state will still be set to the combined test result as documented. Having the individual test results saved to each file allows you to use the new Run statement option to limit which files get processed based on a condition.
The Make Numeric statement can now save a field as a boolean or negated boolean value. While true is interpreted as being any non zero value, there may be times when you want the value to be 0 or 1.
There is a new action statement called Logical Set. While the Compare Date Test, Compare Numeric Test and Compare Text Test statements can all now save individual per file test results to a variable, there are many other statements which can set the action test state. The Logical Set statement allows for pretty much every logical operation that exists. The statement can perform its logical operations on the Action Test State, Variables and named variables.
The Transfer Metadata statement's semantics for Unhandled items has been changed. If you transfer metadata between files of different types and you are transferring Unhandled items, the Unhandled items of the destination file will be cleared. This makes more sense than simply ignoring the transfer and retaining the previous items. This makes it far more convenient to transfer metadata and clear Unhandled in a single operation.
New action statement Clear User Defined Items by Source. The statement can clear all user defined data (text items and urls) associated with any combination of metadata sources: AcousticBrainz, AcoustID, AutoSearch, and nine other sources.
The Scale Artwork/Change Type statement has been renamed Manipulate Artwork. The restriction that an artwork item must be converted to a PNG image in order to square it has been removed. The statement now also allows for the setting of an image to greyscale.
The following artwork statements now support their functionality or testing by file index, a picture type or description: Artwork to Folder, Manipulate Artwork, Rearrange Artwork and Remove Artwork.
New action statement called Duplicate Artwork. This is useful if you want to perform some sort of image transformation on an item which is kept disjoint from the original.
Copy Unhandled and Clear Unhandled now have the same extended matching criteria. The four character pattern limit has been removed in order to handle the new WAV LIST-INFO unhandled items.
The Regular Expression statement has a new test interface. The statement's expression and template fields have context menu items to assist with the insertion of the most common sequences.
New escape sequence > inserts an integer value representing the current time in milliseconds since Jan 1, 1970.
Bug Fixes:
Repeat For statements were not being updated when a called action was renamed.
Repeat For statements were not being processed by the action usage logic.
The Access Discogs and Access Musicbrainz statement UI was messed up if there was more than one in a single action which specified the Custom option.
Comments and Lyrics in FLAC files can now start with a { character. The FLAC handler is smarter in determining the presence of secondary comments and lyrics.
Fixed a memory leak in the Load and Run statement.

New in Yate 3.17.3 Build 6096 (Nov 13, 2017)

Main Window:
The File menu's Close Files, Hide Files and Select Files submenus now have additional canned filtering options. The main window's equivalent context menu submenus have the same options. The context menus have additional options which process their functionality based on matching, or not matching, the contents of a clicked column's data. By default these menus now all process multiple data points. For example Close Files in the Same Folder will close all files in the same folder as any selected file. In the context menus the Option (Alt) key can be used to change the functionality to apply to only the clicked row.
The Show All Files menus have a new Add at the End item.
The table header's context menu has a new sort option called Selected First.
The Movement Number/of field on Custom panels has had its label field lengthened so that the default name is Movement as opposed to Mvt.
Added a Media Type column.
Font Resizing:
You can now reize the font used in the Snapshot window.
You can now resize the font used in the AcoustID Recording Information Window.
You can now resize the font used in multi line text fields. Note that unless noted otherwise, all multi line text fields share the same font size.
Rename and File to Tag Templates:
The templates have four new tokens: Work Name, Movement Name, Movement Number and Movement Number - Roman. In a Rename template, 'Movement Number - Roman' takes the decimal numeric field and writes it as a Roman numeral. In a File to Tag template 'Movement Number - Roman' reads a Roman numeral and saves it as a decimal integer to the field.
File to Tag templates can be used on a new action statement called File to Tag from Content. This uses a template to extract fields from other fields or named variables as opposed to from the file path.
All Rename template property reference tokens have been moved to a new Properties submenu.
Rename templates have new Bit Depth, Has Video and Stream tokens. To enable the testing of existence, the Has Video property returns Video for True and empty for False.
There is a new Rename property token called File Type. It inserts the uppercase filename extension.
There is a new conditional Rename template token called IfMultiDisc. The token tests if a file is part of a multi disc album. The test returns true if either of the Disc or Disc Count fields are greater than 1.
There is a new conditional Rename template token called IfCompilation. The token tests if the Part of a Compilation field is non zero.
Rename templates have a new setting to specify that you want accents to be removed from characters.
Involved People, Musician Credits and FLAC Files:
Musician Credits and Involved People metadata is written in a format, which while not a standard, is as close to a standard as exists for FLAC files. If you want to preserve the two fields exactly as entered you should set the When loading files do not sort the Involved People and Musician Credits option. However, this setting may not help if an application other than Yate rewrites the file and its contained tag information. This is due to the fact that as opposed to other supported audio formats, FLAC files encode the credits as multiple FLAC Comments. There is no guarantee that the order of the credits in the file will be maintained by other applications.
If you always want the data to be reloaded as displayed, there is a new Preserve exact appearance of Involved People and Musician Credits setting. This setting does not affect the standard writing of the metadata. What it does is cause additional tag items to be written which preserve the metadata as displayed. When reading FLAC files and the option is set and the additional tag items are present in a file, the as is metadata will take precedence over the standard metadata. The additional tag items are not written if the associated metadata is empty. Note that the fields always have leading and trailing spaces and newline characters removed. Further all control characters are removed and newline sequences are normalized. When the 'Preserve exact appearance' option is set, and the special tag items are present, Yate will ignore and toss subsequent changes made by other taggers to non empty Involved People and Musician Credits fields.
Beatport Importer:
The Filename/Path column has been separated from the Title column so that a track's title metadata can be displayed.
The tables's column headers have a new context menu supporting various autosizing functions.
Database Viewers:
Images are now cached as thumbnails as opposed to being cached full size. This can drastically reduce the memory footprint of an open database file. If an image is displayed in the Artwork Viewer it is loaded on the fly.
Double clicking in a cell in a Yate Album ID column is the same as 'Show Album in Track DB'.
Escape Sequences:
There is a new escape sequence L. The sequence disables subsequent processing of escape sequences in the string. If you require text which contains characters, it may be far simpler to precede the text with a L rather than change every character so that it is not escaped.
New Action Statements:
There is a new action statement called Remove Invalid Characters. This is a convenience method which duplicates the Yate Transformations>Remove Invalid Characters functionality.
There is a new action statement called File to Tag from Content. This statement allows you to apply a File to Tag template to the content of a field or named variable.
Action Statement Changes:
The Enumerate Tag Sets statement has been renamed Enumerate Tag Sets and Fields. The statement has new options to produce lists of Yate field names representing all possible fields or various subsets.
The Regular Expression Statement allows for the processing of v and sequences. Previously the inserted text was always treated as being literal and all regular expression escape sequences were escaped. You can now specify that the inserted text is not to be automatically escaped. This is useful if you are inserting the actual regular expression from a variable or named variable. See the online help for more information of the some potential issues and how to avoid them.
The Make Numeric statement now supports converting from and to Roman numerals.
The Extract Preference Set statement now supports the extraction of the File to Tag, Rename and Search template lists.
All action statements which take File to Tag, Rename or Search templates now support the manual entry of the template (in addition to choosing templates from a list). The template fields now support escape sequences. This means that specific templates can be assigned at runtime.
The Renumber Tracks statement now has the from... and random functions found on the Actions>Renumber Tracks submenu.
The Calculate Track Count statement has the new Absolute and Maximum functions.
The iTunes Import Base Settings functionality will also import the following fields for iTunes video content: Episode, Episode ID, Season, Show Name, Sort Show Name, Video Description.
The Copy Metadata Between Files statement now supports the setting of all fields. This setting can insulate you from the possible addition of new fields in the future.
The Transfer Metadata statement now supports settings to specify the transfer of all metadata with or without Unhandled fields. There is also a new run once option.
The User Defined Fields statement now provides access to Lyrics. The statement now allows you to set a description to empty.
The Field List Enumerator statement now provides access to Lyrics.
UDTIs:
The following additional UDTIs are now normalized across all supported audio types: MusicBrainz Album Artist Id, MusicBrainz Artist Id, MusicBrainz Disc Id, MusicBrainz TRM Id, MusicBrainz Work Id.
Bug Fixes:
APFS on High Sierra seems to report minuscule time differences on a file's modification date/time when it is not appropriate. Yate uses these values to determine when a file has been externally modified. A ridiculously small threshold has been added which seems to fix the issue of redundant warnings.
Fixed an issue with changing the font size in the LogViewer on High Sierra.
Various other High Sierra UI tweaks.
The Append and Prepend statements were missing a space in the display for certain option configurations.
The Search for Artwork statement's Continue option could cause extraneous URLs to be issued.
The Rename template Video Definition token was not correctly mapped.
Album Database Max Rating and Average Rating fields were always displaying integer values.
The Run Application statement was discarding the Open With option if an action containing the statement was re-opened in an editor.
If you exported then imported a track's metadata, it is possible that multi item fields with a default item (such as Comments), were duplicated. Note that the exported files are fine. The issue was with the import.
Regardless of the fields chosen to be copied, the Transfer Metadata stament will no longer copy Unhandled items unless the source and destination files are the same audio type.
When displaying a list of tokens starting with a letter in the Replace Template editor, the list was not always sorted.
Video fields are no longer displayed in a Snapshot if the file does not contain a video track.
The User Defined Field statement no longer removes trailing spaces when matching prefixes.
The Repeat For statement was not testing the stop condition before the first iteration.

New in Yate 3.17.2 Build 6021 (Oct 2, 2017)

ITUNES SUPPORT:
Added support for reading and writing the iTunes Remember Playback Position option.
The data is stored in a new field on the audio panel called Remember Position. While in the Audio panel, the setting applies to any linked iTunes item including videos.
The field is only available in audio file types which can be stored in iTunes. ie. DFF, DSF and FLAC are not supported.
iTunes preferences can specify the display, auto-import and auto-export of the setting.
The Import from iTunes and Export to iTunes action statements provide support for the new field.
The field is available on Custom Panels.
The field can be displayed in a main window column.
The field can be filtered.
The field can be exported to a database.
The field is accessible on the Compare iTunes Values panel.
MP2 FILES:
Files with an .mp2 filename extension will now be loaded. The files are treated as mp3 files. The Stream property will identify the files as MPEG-1, Layer 2 as opposed to MPEG-1, Layer 3 for mp3 files. With the exception of the reported stream type, all help references to mp3 include mp2.
CHARACTER FOLDING:
Previously the substitutions were hard coded.
You can now create a replacement set in Preferences-Replacement Sets and mark it as the Fold Character set (F). A set with the default values can be built with the Create a Set With the Default Fold Character Values context menu item.
The formatting rules and interpretation of the set is accessible in the Re-Encode statement's, Preference Replacement's and Preference Replacement Template's online help.
The name of the Fold Character set can be extracted by the Extract Preference Set statement.
The set used as the Fold Character Set can be modified at runtime by the Preferences statement.
Character folding of various Unicode characters to their ISO Latin-1 common usage is performed by:
The Re-encode statement's Fold Characters function.
The Re-encode statement's Force ISO Latin-1 function.
A rename template's Force Latin-1 option.
MULTI-ITEM EDITING PANELS:
The Show Initial Values and Show Editing State Values controls are now enabled when no files are selected.
ACTION STATEMENTS:
All escape sequences which indirectly load a field and the Set Indirect statement now ignore convenience qualifiers on Custom fields. This is to facilitate using the field names as returned by an Enumerate Tag Set statement.
FIELDS:
The previously ID3 only, Music CD Identifier field has been extended to MPEG-4 and FLAC files. The coercion to hexadecimal content is only enforced when saving to ID3 based file as the low level representation is binary.
The Music CD Identifier and Reverb fields are now available from the Insert Yate Field menus. This is for consistency reasons. At this point only those fields which can have multiple items and do not have a default placeholder are omitted.
BUG FIXES:
A few High Sierra UI tweaks.
The Get iTunes Value action statement had some mismatched indexes between the UI and the appropriate data.
When Re-Encoding to ISO Latin-1 (rename or Re-encode statement), no folding occurred if all characters originally were Latin-1. v3.17.1 started folding ISO Latin-1 grave and acute standalone characters.
Fixed a few more disabled menu items messed up in v3.17.
Fixed a crash on the UD Text panel which was data dependant.
The Exists statement did not always correctly report that Terms of Use, Official Artist/Performer Webpage, and Commercial Information Webpage items were empty.
The Artwork panel displays less items when Show Initial State and Show Editing State are both enabled. Initial/Editing states should only show items not current.
Now do a better job of not sorting or merging credits (Involved People and Musician Credits) when loading files.
Preferences-Tag Lists was constantly removing the selection whenever the state of a tag item was changed.
The relatively new Actions menu Database ID menu functionality was not checking for changes to the files after performing the function.

New in Yate 3.17.1.2 Build 5973 (Sep 9, 2017)

New in Yate 3.17.1.1 Build 5972 (Sep 8, 2017)

New in Yate 3.17.1 Build 5971 (Sep 8, 2017)

Databases:
Previously, the only column types which had a somewhat graphic rendition when written to a database were those associated with Ratings. These columns had a value displaying a number of stars or asterisks depending on the encoding. This made it difficult to access the data when the databases were opened in other applications. The ratings fields are now written as integers in the range of 0 through 5.
Both the old-style and new-style ratings columns are interpreted correctly by Yate and synching will still work as before.
There are new Preference-Database options to set the display of Ratings, Love and boolean columns. These options are applied when the columns are displayed. When editing the columns, the associated numeric values will be displayed. Using these options you can display stars for Rating, hearts for Love and checkmarks for boolean columns. Alternately, you can choose to display the numeric values.
The Rating column is now an editable field. The 'Set Rating' context menu item has been removed as the column is now the same as any other editable column. You can edit, apply to multiple rows, etc.
AcousticBrainz:
The Access AcousticBrainz action statement previously only allowed you to import BPM and Initial Key values. The AcousticBrainz database also provides extensive classification data. You can now save all or a subset of the classification data to a variable and/or the file as a key-value list. You can extract whatever values you wish.
The online help provides the key and value names (which have been sanitized) and samples showing how to extract data.
Sample actions are available on the resource page which display the saved classification data in a variety of ways.
Notifications:
Previously when Yate finished processing certain functions such as loading files, saving, etc., the main window was always brought to the forefront and activated. This can be annoying if you are working in another application. The previous behaviour will not change when Yate is the active application. When not the active application, Yate will bounce the dock icon. Some people find bouncing dock icons annoying. If you wish you can limit the bouncing to occur only when Yate is not onscreen by setting a new option in Preferences-General-Configure Notifications and to bounce repeatedly or only once. You can also elect to not bounce the dock icon and to use the previous behaviour.
Miscellaneous Changes:
Save statements (UI and actions) set a new file property called Save Error. (1 for error, 0 for no error). The property can be used to test if a Save successfully completed.
When filtering files you can now test for Save Error and Cannot Locate.
A much stronger attempt is made to preserve the file selection when filtering, closing and hiding files in the main window.
The File and context menus have a new Validate Locations item. If files cannot be located by the OS after they have been externally moved or deleted and then they are restored, you can use this function to re-validate the locations.
Action Statements:
The Test Property statement can test the new Save Error property.
The Preserve Modification Date/Time when Saving Audio Files option has been moved from Preferences-General to the Audio-Common panel.
The Replace statement can now operate on individual items in a list.
The Find and Remove statement can now operate on individual items in a list.
Found a few more Unicode characters to fold via Re-Encode-Fold Characters. The list of folded characters is now documented.
The Extract Preference Set statement can now extract the name of the special Case and Rename replacement sets.
You can now manually enter a replacement or exception set name in the Preferences statement. This was done so that set defaults can be assigned to saved values.
The Transfer Metadata statement has been extensively modified. The statement is now supported when running stepwise. The metadata being transferred can be customized. Property lists can and should be saved to a variable. Saving the property list to a named variable has been deprecated. The ability to save imported metadata to the initial as well as the current values has been removed. When saved to the initial values there was no way to determine if the file had been modified or if changes had occurred.
The Edit>Find Menu:
The main window will now display the Filter panel for the Edit>Find>Find... menu item. Find>Jump to Selection, will attempt to center the first selected item.
Database viewers now tie the Find menu items to the displayed search field and its associated controls. Find>Jump to Selection, will attempt to center the first selected item.
In Action Editor windows, Find>Jump to Selection, will attempt to center the first selected statement.
Behavior Changes:
When running an action the Save statement's processing of 'For all files' when external modification is detected did not work while executing grouped. This is due to the fact that when running grouped there is only a single file in play. The semantics and the message have been changed to 'For all files until the action finishes'.
When running an action and a Save fails, closing the files is no longer a user choice.
The Rename statement notifies on file location changes and had the same 'For all files' issues as the Save statement. Equivalent changes have been made.
The Show in Finder, Show in Path Finder and Display in File Browser commands will now work from the context menu even if the main window is not active.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed a few weird ones involved with properly handling the external change of folder names.

New in Yate 3.17 Build 5921 (Aug 16, 2017)

A lot of work has been done on iTunes integration. Support has been added for iTunes style Loves and Dislikes. You can now prefer Permanent IDs (PIDs) when linking and fall back to metadata matching if they are not available. PIDs and Love metadata can be imported and exported. The Compare iTunes Values functionality now handles all special import/export metadata.
The are also extensive changes to how the Editing state is set and maintained.
iTunes Changes:
The More Info editing panel has a new control to display and edit the new Love field. Clicking on the control changes the value from not set to Disliked to Loved. Note that this field can be used with or without iTunes interaction.
A new main window File List column, Love, is available. Double clicking in the Love column displays an abbreviated menu to choose the various values.
The main window has a new Ratings context menu to set star ratings and love/dislike ratings.
The Compare iTunes Values functionality now handles all metadata which can be imported and exported. The Classical metadata can be imported as individual items as opposed to being grouped as with the standard Import from iTunes and Export to iTunes functionality.
Preferences-iTunes settings have been split up into General, Fields of Interest, Auto Import and Auto Export tabs. Auto Import and Auto Export support Love/Dislike and Permanent ID
Preferences-iTunes has a new option named Prefer PIDs When Linking. When this option is set, all Link to iTunes functionality will use retained PIDs for linking, if available. If the PIDs are not available, linking by metadata will take place.
The Import from iTunes and Export to iTunes action statements have been updated to support Love and PID choices.
The Editing State:
Yate has always maintained an editing state which is basically a snapshot of the selected files' metadata. In the past the state was reset when file selection changed or an action terminated. The editing state is now only reset when file selection changes occur, files are saved or files are refreshed.
There is a new Preferences-File List option called Preserve Editing State. When the option is set, an editing state is only automatically set when a file is selected and it has not already had an editing state set. Further, the editing state is never automatically cleared. So, you can in effect restore to the editing state even after saving the files.
There is a new Preferences-File List option called Set Editing State Before Running an Action. As the name implies, this action will cause the automatic setting of the editing state whenever an action is run.
The Edit menu Undo Changes item has been renamed Revert to Editing State which more accurately describes what is about to happen and better aligns with the individual field functionality available on the function buttons to the left of each field.
A new Edit menu item named Update Editing State is now provided. This provides a means of manually updating the editing state. ie. setting a new Revert to Editing State point.
There is a new toolbar icon for the Update Editing State functionality.
The Log>Changes item has been renamed Log>Changes to Initial State. A new item called Log>Changes to Editing State will let you see the changes between the current and editing states.
Credit Formatting:
In Preferences-Audio you can now control the initial display of the Musician Credits and Involved People fields. You can select the desired sorting (or none) and elect to merge or not merge names with the same credit to a single item.
When formatting credits from the Musician Credits and Involved People field's function buttons, you can now choose to merge or not merge names with the same credit into a single item.
The Format Credits action statement now allows you to merge or not merge names with the same credit into a single item.
When configuring the behaviour of the Combined Credits Editor in Preferences-File List you can now elect to merge or not merge names with the same credit into a single item.
Databases:
You can now add a note to a database file.
The Love/Dislike metadata can be exported.
The row size of a database viewing small thumbnails has been slightly increased to allow for larger fonts when changing the font size.
When creating databases and the Preserve sidecar option is set, the sidecar is only preserved if the column layout of the new database is identical to that found in an existing sidecar file. Starting in this release, if the option is enabled, visual aspects and the note contents will be preserved even if the column layout differs.
When exporting Export Sets and creating databases from the UI, the file chooser's configuration panel will contain a Preserve sidecar option where appropriate.
You can now potentially change a database type. You can always change a Track or Album database to be Standalone via the viewer's context menu. Depending on the fields in the file and their encoding in the sidecar file, you may be able to change a Standalone database to be a Track or Album database. Warning: Standalone databases have no restrictions on editing fields. Any data can be placed into any field. Be careful when changing from a Standalone database to a Track or Album database.
Importing PDF Files as Artwork:
When dragging in PDF files you can now choose to scrape the file for the first artwork item or to render the first page at a supplied dpi resolution. This is configured in Preferences-Artwork.
Main Window:
The Actions menu has a new item to create Yate Track and Album Database IDs.
The Actions menu has a new item to copy a Unique ID to the clipboard.
When creating or editing a UDTI, there is now a picker control to choose common names.
Other Preference Changes:
The ID3 specification allows for the marking of the tag format as Experimental. Previously Yate did not load these files. You can now choose to not load, load the file ignoring metadata or to ignore the Experimental Indicator and load the file as if it was not present. This is configured in Preferences-Audio-ID3.
Items common to Audio-MPEG 4 and iTunes-General are now displayed in both sections.
The deprecated setting Do Not Normalize UDTIs has been removed. It was far too error prone when editing, which was why the normalized mappings were introduced in the first place.
If a default action has been specified in the Action Manager, it will be run whenever files are dragged to the dock icon or opened via the Finder's Open With command. You can disable the running of the default action if Yate is already open via the new Preferences-Actions Only Run the Default Action if Yate is Not Already Open setting.
Online Data Sources:
In the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards' Release Detail display the track listings table now has a Time (ms) column. Note that this column will be empty if the data is not available.
In the Beatport Importer, when a Track Id is imported, Yate will also set the appropriate UFID where expected by Beatport Pro.
In the Beatport Importer, when importing the Track Id, the 'Only if empty' option is treated as 'Only if empty or value differs'.
Audio Properties:
A new property called Stem Data is available. The specific read-only metadata available in a Stem file can be viewed in a snapshot or by double clicking on an audio properties table. If you wish to manually parse the data, you can extract it via this property.
Action Statements:
The Database ID statement can now create Track and Album IDs in the same statement.
The List Manipulate statement has new Common Prefix and Trim Spaces functionality.
The Copy and Move statements no longer consider the source and destination being the same as an error. ie. the paths are returned in the Retained Path 1 and Retained Path 2 properties.
The Move Non Audio statement now supports the renaming of items being moved.
There is a new convenience escape sequence Y4 which inserts the value of the Year field formatted as YYYY or empty.
There is a new convenience escape sequence YY which inserts the current year.
The Date Functions statement now treats an empty source named variable field as the current date/time.
The Prompt for Text statement can extract a picker list from the Prompt for Text List named variable. Previously the list delimiter had to be the default list delimiter (~). In order to make data entry easier, a newline character (n) will now also be recognized as a delimiter.
New action statement named Quit. As the name implies, an attempt will be made to close the application. All loaded files are closed discarding changes.
New action statement named Crop Image. When you have some method of pre-determining left, right, top and bottom offsets, you can use this function to crop an artwork item at a specific index.
Action Manager:
When doing a Smart Export, if a prefix pattern is supplied and it does not end with a - one will be supplied.
Bug Fixes:
A few display problems when running on Snow Leopard have been corrected.
When attempting to match Media Type names to known iTunes equivalents, trailing newline characters (as well as whitespace) are now removed.
The Get Next Line statement was not returning the last line if it was not terminated.
Actions>Copy Selected Metadata did not open its panel if Copy Metadata Top to Bottom or Copy Metadata Bottom to Top was called first.
FLAC items which map to Involved People Items will now display with the correct alias name.
Regression: the Disc Of Calculation functionality was messed up in v3.16. Check any actions which use the statement as settings were not always retained correctly.

New in Yate 3.16.2.3 Build 5839 (Jul 21, 2017)

New in Yate 3.16.2.2 Build 5838 (Jul 10, 2017)

New in Yate 3.16.2.1 Build 5837 (Jul 5, 2017)

New in Yate 3.16.2 Build 5834 (Jul 4, 2017)

Search Templates:
To ease the formulation of complicated URLs where the search metadata may be positional or possibly may not be contiguous, new tokens have been added. When the older Metadata token is used, the metadata type selection checkboxes are used. The new Album, Album Artist, Artist, Composer and Title tokens ignore the metadata type checkboxes.
Rename Templates:
There are two new rename template tokens: Disc Smart Pad and Track Smart Pad. These tokens will pad the values with leading zeros based on the value of the associated Count fields. eg. if Track is 1 and Track Count is 9, 1 will be used. If Track is 1 and Track Count is 10, 01 will be used.
Export Sets:
Variables 0 through 9 can now be specified in an export set. This is to facilitate the export of constructed fields as a column.
Once exported, the columns containing variable fields are essentially treated as Out of Bounds columns. ie. they will not sync.
AcoustID:
AcoustID functions now share the MusicBrainz preference settings for combining multiple items, an overriding join sequence and comma substitution.
The AcoustID Import Track Metadata statement has a new Custom mode. Using this mode you can prioritize various criteria which will be used in the match selection process. There are many criteria items which can be specified. You can also specify a max audio duration difference value. See the online help for more information.
The AcoustID Import Track Metadata statement can now import Album Artist metadata.
The AcoustID Import Track Metadata statement can now read a special named variable in order to override a tracks' duration. This is only necessary where AcoustID data is being retained and later loaded into arbitrary files for lookups.
The Extract Earliest Release from AcoustID statement has an new Ignore compilations option.
The Create AcoustID Fingerprint and Get Data from AcoustID statements have a new Ignore errors option. This option stops the posting of errors to the UI.
The AcoustID Metadata for ID statement has a new Extended mode. This mode returns detained information representing the entire set of data returned by AcoustID.
Bit Depth Information:
There is a new Bit Depth property which returns a track's bit depth when meaningful. If bit depth is not meaningful, mp3 and m4a(AAC) files, the empty string is returned. Note that the bit depth was previously returned at the end of the Channel Mode property. For now, this has not been changed in order not to break any actions that were written to extract the bit depth from the Channel Mode property.
There is a new file list column named Bit Depth.
Action Statements:
The Contents of Folder statement's return files mode now supports the filtering of results by filename extensions.
The Compare Text Test statement fuzzy mode can now be configured to perform a non positional test. eg. John and Bill will match Bill and John. See the online help for more information.
The Stop Action and Open Files statement has a new option named Close all visible files discarding changes first. While you can modify the Open Mode via the Set Open Mode statement, there are times when doing so may not give you the ability to close all open files depending on which Open Mode you wish to use. As the option name implies, all changes to the previously open files will be lost. If you wish to preserve modifications, execute a Save statement first.
You can now override the free space padding in the Preferences statement.
The Access Query Database statement can now import columns of data.
The List Manipulate statement can can create a key-value list from two lists.
Tab Characters and Blue Text:
Tab characters no longer display as invalid (blue) in multi line text fields.
The Trim action statement and the Multi Line Editor's Trim function no longer remove tab characters when the Control set is specified. You can replace tabs with spaces by using the Whitespace set with the Change Sequences to option.
Depending on the source field, the Yate Transformation of Remove Invalid Characters will either leave tab characters unmodified or will change them to a space.
iTunes and Audiobooks:
For some unknown reason, the metadata supplied when dragging audiobooks out of iTunes is different than that for every other media type. Further, some required linkage information is missing. In the past this meant that you could not drag audiobooks into Yate from iTunes. This release has a workaround.
Database View Options:
There is a new View Options context menu item which allows you to set the background style/colour and grid options. These are per database settings and override the new Preferences-Database settings which are used as default values.
Online Help:
By default, Yate's online help is displayed in your Mac's default browser. Certain browsers do not always force newly opened pages to the forefront. If this annoys you, you can force the opening of online help in Safari which does force the opened pages to the front. Note that the new setting only modifies the behaviour when opening embedded content. The new setting is available in Preferences-General and on the Help menu.
Preferences:
Minor rearrangement of the AcoustID, Discogs and MusicBrainz preference sections.
New Database settings for background style/colour and grid options. These settings establish the default display settings.
There are now four more canned colour options for an Action Editor window's statement list background.
Bug Fixes:
If an mp3 file was marked as a podcast, changing to any other media type was not recognized until the file was closed and reopened.
When choosing a display background colour, the text colour will now be changed to white, if required, to increase visibility.

New in Yate 3.16.1.1 Build 5780 (Jun 25, 2017)

New in Yate 3.16.1 Build 5779 (May 30, 2017)

Saving Files:
You can now specify an action to be executed prior to saving files via File>Save (or shortcut), the context menu Save item, or by the Save toolbar icon. The action is specified in Preferences-Actions. See the new Automatically Running an Action When Saving Files help topic for more information.
m3u File Support:
m3u and m3u8 files can now be opened in Album mode as well as Playlist mode. When opened in Album mode, folder expansion is suppressed and the sort order is not preserved.
Discogs / MusicBrainz Support:
The preferences for both wizards have settings to control the automatic substitution of commas in people oriented fields when importing. You can elect to leave commas unchanged, to substitute commas with alternate commas (visually the same) or to replace commas with smart spaces (only inserted if required as delimiters).
ISRC values can now be imported from MusicBrainz.
Renaming:
The maximum path component length in the HFS file system is 255 decomposed UTF16 character positions. Unfortunately this is not guaranteed to represent 255 visual characters. The rename template IfLength and Truncate tokens now take negative parameters. When a negative parameter is specified you are testing for decomposed UTF16 character positions as opposed to character counts.
The Truncate action statement also supports negative lengths so calculations can be made in actions.
iTunes Support:
New preference settings to display/auto import/auto export Media Kind. Media Kind is mapped to the Media Type field. When setting the media kind, any value other than one of the following is ignored: Audiobook, Alert Tone, Booklet, Home Video, iTunesU, Movie, Music, Music Video, Podcast, Ringtone, TV Show, and Voice Memo. iTunes will refuse to process some settings. For example you cannot change the media kind of a video file to be Music.
The Import From iTunes and Export to iTunes action statements support Media Kind.
Auto Search for Artwork:
The algorithm has been tweaked yet again. Better matching is done against albums with somewhat generic album names such as "Best of".
You can now configure the algorithm, to treat Album and Artist metadata with equal priority. This is the new default value.
If you wish to prioritize one metadata type over another you can still do so.
The Multiple Searches option has been removed.
Action Statements:
There is a new action statement called Get iTunes Value. Every time Yate accesses a track in iTunes it retains those values which may be imported or exported. This information is disjoint from the information stored in fields. When Yate imports from iTunes these values serve as the information source. When Yate exports to iTunes, this information is refreshed. Using this statement you can obtain the values contained in iTunes the last time it was accessed.
New escape sequence to insert the Yate version string (?yv)
New escape sequence to insert the iTunes version string (?iv)
The List Contains Test statement can now specify equals, contains, starts with and ends with.
WAV Files:
WAV files have an alternate method of storing an ISRC value outside the bounds of the ID3 metadata. If you wish to read and write this data (EBU Tech 3352) set the Preferences-Audio-ID3-Process axml chunks for ISRC (WAV only) option. When set, the out of bounds metadata will be read and written. If the two values differ, both will be displayed. Note that an incorrectly formatted ISRC value will not be written to the axml chunk. A loose validation of the ISRC field is performed based on individual character types and length (dash characters are ignored and removed).
Added support for WAV-RF64 files.
Databases:
In Album databases which have a Yate Album ID column, there is a new context menu item named Show Album in Track DB. The process either opens a specified default Track database or looks for an open Track database which also contains a Yate Album ID column. An attempt is made to filter the referenced Track database's display to only show tracks contained in the selected album.
There is a new Preference section called Databases. This new section has an option to specify a default Track database. The image source for Database files setting has been moved from Preferences-Artwork to the Database section.
About Panel:
The About panel can now save the version information to the clipboard.
Column Sizing:
The main window and all Database Viewer windows now have Downsize Column and Downsize All Columns options. Often columns which become too large are difficult to manage. This is especially true if attempting to resize the rightmost column. Note that not all columns will be resized.
Bug Fixes:
Hitting Cmd+S rapidly could cause the Save code to reenter and crash.
If the Batch Processor was started while the Preferences window was displaying a sheet, preferences functionality was lost upon completion. A restart of the application was required.
The Path Finder application support was broken. This was due to AppleScript issues. The functionality no longer uses AppleScript.
If all artwork was exported from the Discog Wizard's artwork view, the saved files were named with a MusicBrainz prefix.
The File menu items for Show in Finder and Show in Path Finder were not working with Database files. Context menus worked as expected.
The File menu Display Folder in File Browser item was always hidden.
After linking to iTunes, if an auto import occurred, the editing panels were not always being updated.
Changing the state of Classical Metadata in any of the three iTunes Preference sections did not take effect until the application was restarted.
Changing the Preferences - MusicBrainz Alternate Server setting multiple times could cause the application to crash. Note that changing this setting only takes effect the next time the application is started.
Fixed a potential crash in Close files Not Selected when some of the files to be closed had been modified.
The Combined Credits Functions action statement was broken when Process Simple Credits was enabled.
Show Discogs Release was mangling the URL.
When cropping images, switching from Fine Tune mode to Square mode, did not always display the correct slider.

New in Yate 3.16 Build 5738 (May 8, 2017)

Combined Credits Editor:
The Combined Credits Editor, or CCE, is an attempt to make it easier to edit Involved People and Musician Credits across tracks and albums. The CCE is accessible from the Edit menu.
The CCE is intended to solve three issues:
When looking at credits on an album, they are often described on a per track basis. For example CD credits may describe John Doe as vocals on all tracks and guitar on track 4. As there are rarely completely separate descriptions for each track, this layout of information makes it difficult to enter in Involved People or Musician Credits as the file selection may have to continuously change. The CCE hopefully makes it easier to specify which tracks are relevant when adding new items.
Users of Roon are faced with thousands of Roon standard credits which must be specified exactly or they will not appear. Hopefully, we've made sense of this process. We've built in a number of functions to make it easier to transition manually entered text to something Roon will recognize.
The Discogs API does not differentiate between credits which are instrument or involvement based. Prior to Yate v3.16, the Discogs Preferences enabled you to edit the Discogs credit mappings and to assign specific Discogs Credits to Composer, Conductor, Lyricist and Remixer as well as to Involved People and Musician Credits. This functionality has been moved into the CCE where you can also alias one role to another.
You can choose to process only the Involved People and Musician Credits fields or additionally to process the simple credit fields. The following credits are simple credits: Artist, Album Artist, Composer, Conductor, Lyricist, Original Artist, Original Lyricist and Remixer. Custom fields marked as being credits can also be processed.
Credits are displayed as one person - one role.
Credits can be saved to the known credits list.
Credits names and mappings can be changed.
Known credits can contain aliases and alias substitution is a provided function.
Standard alphabetic case settings can be applied to both credits and people.
Over 6000 known credits are built in. In many cases alias values have been supplied to ease the transition to known Roon settings. These aliases can be ignored if desired.
Extensive filtering is available for the known credits list and for the list of person-credit items extracted from tracks.
Duplicate credits can be identified.
Credits not palatable to Roon can be identified.
Artwork:
The Artwork Cropper tool can now crop any image.
Edge cropping as well as squaring is now available.
You can now manually load images into the Artwork Viewer. You can drag and paste images and image files and Open image files.
If you open or drag a folder into the Artwork Viewer, an attempt will be made to open a folder.jpg file.
The Artwork Viewer can load a folder.jpg file if the set of selected files are all in the same folder.
The Artwork Viewer's displayed image can be saved as a folder.jpg file if the set of selected files are all in the same folder.
The image cropper is now available in the Artwork Viewer.
The Artwork menu has a new item: Show folder.jpg in Artwork Viewer.
Beatport Importer:
Changes have been made to the UI to allow more granularity in the display of information. Separate columns are now provided for Status, Track ID, Release ID, Import and Score.
Columns can now be sorted.
Discogs and MusicBrainz Wizards:
Both wizards no longer clear the search criteria when the New Search button is hit.
theMovieDB Importer:
New import setting for Media Type. When enabled, the Media Type field will be set to one of Movie or TV Show.
New import setting for Video Definition. When enabled, the Video Definition field will be set by calculating the value based on the properties stored in the file.
New import setting (TV only) for Season Description. The import of a season's description is now optional.
New import setting for Classification which works with a list of country codes supplied in Preferences-Video.
An imported release date will now save the full date in the Year field as opposed to truncating after the year.
Most of the description fields are now retained differently to be more compatible with iTunes and other applications. The mappings are described in the online help.
Audio Preference Changes:
Audio preferences has been cleaned up to make them easier to read. Settings common to all supported audio types are now on a Common tab.
The Application Presets button now allows you to select Kodi and Roon.
The ID3, MPEG-4 and FLAC panels all have granular settings applicable only to Roon.
The online help on any of the audio panels has a link to describe settings changes necessary for Roon.
There is some controversy as to whether the low level ID3 TXXX frames used to contain UDTIs can contain multiple values. In ID3v2.4 a null character (binary zero) is used to separate multiple fields. Yate always reads the fields correctly if a null character is used as the separator. By default Yate does not support this encoding when writing files. If you wish, you can enable this behaviour by checking the ID3 Use nulls to separate multiple values in TXXX frames option. When unchecked, the multi-value delimiter (;;;) sequences will be left unmodified when writing the fields. This option only applies when ID3v2.4 is used as the write format.
MPEG-4 files can now be set to read both Conductor variants.
The MPEG-4 Write Empty Video Fields setting has been moved to Preferences-Video.
Other Preference Changes:
Discogs Preferences no longer has the ability to edit the credit field mappings. This functionality has been moved to the new Combined Credits Editor.
Preferences-Video has a new setting used to specify an alternate join sequence to use when importing genres from theMovieDb.
Preferences-Video has a new setting to specify a list of country codes to be used when importing classifications from theMovieDB.
Preferences-File List has been reorganized.
The File to Tag template editor has a new token named Fold Characters. This token must be the first item in a template. It performs Unicode character folding on the source data as is done by the Re-encode action statement and the Re-encode item on the Yate Transformations content menu. This is mostly useful to ease the detection of dash (-) variants in a filename.
Preferences-General-Notifications has a new option to automatically clear out all notifications when exiting the application. (Notification Center only). There is also a button to do it manually.
New Escape sequence:
_ is a new escape sequence used to insert an alternate comma (‚).
Action Statements:
A new statement called Combined Credits Functions is supplied. The statement provides a means of accessing much of the Combined Credits Editor's functionality in an action.
A new statement called Repeat For is supplied. This is basically a standard programming for loop.
The Calculate Disc Of function has been enhanced to support emptying Disc Count fields when there is only one disc. Also it can now optionally empty or set the Disc field to 1 for various conditions. The Action Menu's Calculate Disc Of function has been enhanced with the same options.
There is a new Property called Video Size. The property describes the maximum width/height of file containing video tracks as width x height.
The Get Data from AcoustID statement can now read a special named variable in order to override a tracks' duration. This is only necessary where fingerprints are being retained and later loaded into arbitrary files for lookups.
The Run Application statement has been enhanced. It can now launch applications and pass Open With messages. With certain players, this statement can be used to enqueue tracks. A sample action is provided on the resources page.
When supplying a list of file types to the Prompt for File or Folder statement, you can now use comma as well as space as a delimiter.
The Create m3u statement now allows an empty relocate to value.
File List:
Track, Disc and Movement columns all have the same display implementation. The approach is to only display the 'of' number if it adds value. In a potential display of 'n of m', the following held:
n=2, m=3 --> 2 of 3
n=2, m=0 --> 2
n=0, m=0 --> empty
n=0, m=2 --> empty
A non zero 'of' value was not displayed if 'n' was empty or 0. This case will now display as '0 of 2' in the belief that whatever is available should be displayed. The new semantics apply to data entry as well.
The Hi Def Video field has been renamed Video Definition. You can set values of SD, HD 720 or HD 1080. These values can be read by iTunes when adding files.
The Audio Properties box will display the maximum width/height of file containing video tracks.
Miscellaneous:
Wherever the a delete key is valid for deleting items, both left delete (backspace) and right delete will now work.
The Database Viewer context menu items Hide Items With Data Equal to Cell and Hide Items With Data Not Equal to Cell are now case insensitive.
All functions which operate on multiple albums, now ignore alphabetic case when grouping by album name.
Previously, MPEG-4 ---- atoms with multiple data components were delegated to the Unhandled panel. Yate will now read and preserve all available data in the technically invalid container.
The main window and all Database Viewer windows now have Auto Size Column and Auto Size All Columns options.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed a few UI bugs in theMovieDB importers.
theMovieDB importer would crash if Import was hit with no files selected.
theMovieDB importer was not properly importing descriptions. The mappings were not the best.
theMovieDB importer was putting movie taglines into Set Subtitle as opposed to Description.
theMovieDB importer was not properly retaining previous settings values.
In v3.14.2 code was introduced to open the appropriate preference editor if you held down the Alt/Option key while clicking on a template in the File to Tag, Rename or Search for Artwork menus, or the Artwork menu's Default Search item. This made keyboard shortcuts to these items which contain an Alt/Option key to stop working as expected. The code has been changed to open the appropriate preference editor if Alt/Option is the only modifier key which is down. Further, a keyboard shortcut will never open the editor.
A few editor panels had inoperative help buttons.
Quit was not disabled when when a UI initiated action was running.
The Label field was not splitting multiple values when Choose Value was selected.
Got rid of some annoying beeps when configuring the window tabbing behaviour.
Fixed a few potential crashes in the Custom Panel Editor.

New in Yate 3.15.1 Build 5590 (Feb 28, 2017)

Auto Search for Artwork:
The functionality has been entirely redesigned.
There should be far fewer incorrect matches with the new algorithm. In fact, we feel so good about it that we've enabled the use of the functionality in the Batch Processor. Note that the number of successful matches may not change.
The Fix too Much Auto Searching Error process has been removed as it no longer applies to the new algorithm.
There are a variety of options to tune the algorithm which can be accessed in the Preferences-Artwork section via a Configure Auto Search button.
The algorithm targets specific countries. It will more than likely be required to specify one or more countries to be searched in the settings.
The associated action statement has been redesigned as well. All older uses of the statement will be interpreted as a search request and will not be based on previously acquired metadata.
iTunes & The Grouping Field:
As of v12.5.4, iTunes is once again writing grouping metadata to mp3 and aiff files. This does not remove the need for the fix we introduced in Yate v3.14.3 as the low level frames used are not standard.
Grouping metadata is no longer handled as a synch item. Therefore, Import from iTunes, Export from iTunes and the main window's iTunes column no longer display or handle Grouping metadata.
We are now using the same low level file component as iTunes to store Grouping metadata when the Maximum iTunes Grouping-Work Name Compatibility option is set.
The change of the non standard file component used is handled transparently.
While there is no need to do so, you can run the Force Save All MP3 and AIFF Files action to force exact compatibility in all files. This serves no purpose if Maximum iTunes Grouping-Work Name Compatibility option is not set.
The Movie DB:
You can now import movie and tv show metadata from The Movie DB. The Importers are available on the Actions menu and online help is accessible off the main help page.
Discogs:
The track detection algorithm has been tweaked yet again.
Media subtitles can now be imported via the wizard and the Discogs Metadata for Release statement.
The Back to Release button on the Release window can now also start a new search.
Discogs rate limit changes are now handled dynamically.
MusicBrainz
The URL encoding has once again been adjusted to possibly enable more accurate results.
The Back to Release button on the Release window can now also start a new search.
Custom Panels:
Multiple occurrences of FLAC UDTIs are represented as a single UDTI with values separated by the multi-value separator. You can configure a UDTI field on a custom panel to represent each value as a separate line. The data is converted appropriately before being displayed and when written. To enable this, add a UDTI item to the panel and configure it to occupy more than one row. Assign the item a display name starting with a semi-colon. The semi-colon will not be displayed.
Preferences:
You can drag and drop the preference sections so that they are organized however you wish. The context menu for the list of preferences contains a single item which will resort the sections so that General is first and the others are sorted in increasing alphabetical order.
There's a new preference section named Video with a few settings related to The Movie DB functionality.
If you prefer to have text preselected when tabbing into a single line text field in an edit panel, you can enable this via a new option in Preferences-File List.
Additional tokens have been added to the File to Tag templates to extract metadata for TV shows. Show Name, Sort Show Name, Season and Episode. Note that the extracted metadata will be ignored in files not containing video.
Action Statements:
The Preferences statement can now override the Artwork settings for scale size and scale only if square.
The Replace statement now supports the All, First, At Start, At End, Last, Leading and Trailing qualifiers when matching characters. Previously when matching characters, All was the only valid mode. There is a new qualifier called Compress which is only valid when matching characters. The option replaces any consecutive sequence of the replace from characters with a single occurrence of the replace with string.
The Copy Metadata Between Files statement now supports the ability to copy the source file's initial metadata values as well its current metadata values. With two of these statements you can now swap the metadata between two files.
New action statement named Compare Field Across Files. This is essentially a new more powerful variant of the Compare Files {Test} statements.
The Indexed Artwork statement now lets you set the index item to be the default item. ie. it is moved.
The Rearrange Artwork statement has been significantly enhanced. You can now match on any combination of largest, any picture type and matching against the description field.
The Open Database for Querying statement now supports case insensitive keys.
The Multi Field Editor:
The Replace function supports the new Compress qualifier when matching characters.
Bug Fixes:
Label and Publisher controls on Custom Panels were not displaying the drop down control, introduced in v3.15, to access their associated lists.
The iTunMovi component in video MPEG-4 files was not being read correctly. Regression introduced in v3.15.
As Yate lists are case-insensitive, autocomplete could have been put in a state where a file contained the correct text but the displayed field did not. This could happen when changing the case of a field which auto-saves and autocompletes.
Now have a workaround for m4a (AAC) files where an incorrect sample rate is contained in the header.
The text fields on the Discogs and MusicBrainz Wizard Search panels will now work with clipboard utilities.
When producing CSV files from the UI, an Original Album field was incorrectly mapped to Original Filename.
Original Filename was not available as a column.
Multi line UDTIs on custom panels now display correctly.
Now catch DSF files with invalid tag pointers and recover if possible.

New in Yate 3.15 Build 5501 (Jan 5, 2017)

REPLAYGAIN CALCULATION:
The ability to calculate ReplayGain parameters for all file types except DFF and DSF has been added.
The functionality is available in the UI via the File menu and in actions by the new ReplayGain statement.
The gain and peak can be calculated for tracks only, for tracks and albums where an album is all selected files and for tracks and albums where the Album field is used to determine album identification.
The target level has been defaulted to -18 LUFS (Loudness units relative to Full Scale). You can override this in Preferences-Audio.
FLAC AND MPEG-4 INVOLVED PEOPLE AND MUSICIAN CREDITS COMPATIBILITY:
Unfortunately there are no real standards for these fields. Lots's of work has been done in this release to enable better compatibility with other applications (including Kodi).
In FLAC files, mappings and encodings changed. The transition is a transparent process and happens whenever a file is saved.
New mappings are provided for all fresh installs of the application. If you have not changed the out of the box FLAC mappings you can simply do a Yate>Reset Built In Items>Reset FLAC Mappings to get the newer mappings.
The new default mappings can individually read and write Involved People items for Arranger, DJ Mixer, Engineer, Mixer and Producer.
If you have changed the defaults for the Involved People or Musician Credits fields, you can download a file containing only those mappings from the Resource - Template area. Please read the documentation as there are a few things to check after the import.
In MPEG-4 files, new mappings are provided to individually read and write Involved People items for DJ Mixer, Engineer, Mixer and Producer.
Old and new encodings will be read correctly. Documentation for the encodings can be found via links at the bottom of the Tag Mapping Table accessible off the main help page.
If for any reason you want to update the mappings/encodings in all your tracks you can always run an action through the Batch Processor. Sample actions are provided in the Resources-Sample Actions area. However, unless you are experiencing display issues in other applications, there is no need to do so.
No action changes should be required as the display formats for these fields have not changed. All merging and un-merging on low level data is handled automatically. If you directly accessed roles saved in UDTIs, it may be possible that these roles now appear in Involved People. If this is the case, sample actions are provided to manipulate the Involved People and Musician Credits fields.
MAIN WINDOW:
Where possible, fields now display "Mixed" as opposed to "???" for multiple values.
Note that the Preferences-File List option to Disable Unique Fields on Multiple Selections has been removed. This is now implemented as a warning which can be temporarally or permanently disabled. If you had previously disabled the old setting, you will not see any changes. If you want to re-enable the warnings, do a Yate>Reset Warnings.
ARTWORK PANELS:
The thumbnail strips in artwork panels have three new menu items: Normalize, Largest First, Delete All but Largest.
The menu items are also provided on the main window's Artwork menu.
UDTIS:
In order to support multiple FLAC tag items of the same name which are not mapped to specific fields, UDTIs may now contain multiple values separated by the Multi Value Delimiter.
When editing a UDTI on the UD Text panel, you can now elect to treat multiple lines as separate values.
PREFERENCES:
Lists:
Prior to this release, the application supported lists for Genres, Artists, Composers and Groupings. These lists were fixed to specific UI controls and autocomplete could be enabled or disabled.
This release introduces new lists for Conductors, File Types, Labels, Lyricists, Media Types, Moods, Publishers and Remixers.
The Preference sections for Artists, Composers, Genres and Groupings have been removed. There is now a single Preferences section called Lists where you manage and view these lists.
Eligible UI controls can be mapped to any list. If you want to maintain a single list for Composer and Lyricist fields, you can do so.
Eligible fields can be dissociated from any list.
Individual fields can be auto-saved. An auto-saved field will add its UI edited content automatically to a list. You can also toggle this state from an appropriate control's function button menu.
Individual fields can have autocomplete enabled or disabled. You can also toggle this state from an appropriate control's function button menu.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to preserve the settings associated with the previous incarnation of the lists. You should view the Preferences-List section at least once, to ensure that your desired settings are in effect.
The lists automatically create separate entries when items with multiple elements separated by the multi value delimiter (;;;) are added. Existing lists will be adjusted accordingly.
General:
New setting to preserve an audio file's modification date/time when saving the file. Careful here, as some players use a changed modification date/time stamp to detect changes.
Audio:
All:
New setting to specify the ReplayGain target level.
FLAC:
New option called Keep Involved People Lists in Involved People mapping. Involved People List Items are written to their designated mappings. If you wish, you can have the items written to the write Involved People mapping as well.
Discogs:
Discogs functionality tends to operate better if extraneous media types are ignored. By default media types which begin with blu-ray, dvd and video are ignored. It is posible that certain audio tracks can be identified as dvd. If you wish you can now edit the list of media types to be ignored. The list is case insensitive and uses commas (,) as separators.
Exceptions:
An exception set marked as the default, is used by rename functions (changing file names) and case transformations (not changing filenames). You can now specify separate sets to be used for each function area.
FLAC mappings:
There's a new mapping type called Involved People List Item. These items allow you to map components displayed in the Involved People field to alternate mappings. The new default mappings implement support for ARRANGER, DJMIXER, ENGINEER, MIXER and PRODUCER. You can add others if you wish.
Replacements:
A replacement set marked as the default, is used by rename functions (changing file names) and case transformations (not changing filenames). You can now specify separate sets to be used for each function area.
MUSICBRAINZ:
You can now import Media Subtitles which get saved to the Set Subtitle field.
Bug Fix: UTF16 characters were not properly transformed to UTF8 characters for URL inclusion.
FINGERPRINTING:
Fingerprinting is now available on DSF files.
RENAMING:
When renaming, sequences of multiple spaces will be replaced by a single space.
ACTION STATEMENTS:
New ReplayGain action statement.
The User Defined Fields statement can now be used to remove selective General Encapsulated Objects and Private Information items.
The MusicBrainz Metadata for Release action statement has a new track level key named Media subtitle.
The Preferences statement allows you to override the new more granular default Exception and Replacement sets. It also can now be used to clear any of the Preference lists: Artist, Composer, Grouping, etc.
The Fill Lists statement supports the new expanded lists. The statement is now multi-value delimiter aware.
The Standardize Case statement supports the new expanded lists. The statement is now multi-value delimiter aware.
The Extract Preference Set statement supports the new expanded lists.
The Case statement now has a No Change option. This is a convenient method of applying exceptions and/or replacements without changing the case of a field.
New escape sequences, available from the Yate Escape Sequences context menu, to insert the paths to common folders: Application Support, Downloads, Documents, Movies, Music and Yate Application Support.
THE MULTI FIELD EDITOR:
The Case panel now has a No Change option. This is a convenient method of applying exceptions and/or replacements without changing the case of a field.

New in Yate 3.14.3.5 Build 5412 (Dec 23, 2016)

New in Yate 3.14.3.4 Build 5411 (Dec 20, 2016)

New in Yate 3.14.3.3 Build 5410 (Dec 11, 2016)

New in Yate 3.14.3.2 Build 5408 (Dec 5, 2016)

New in Yate 3.14.3.1 Build 5407 (Nov 29, 2016)

New in Yate 3.14.3 Build 5394 (Nov 17, 2016)

iTunes:
iTunes 12.5.2 introduced an incompatibility with how the low level Grouping field in mp3 and aiff files is interpreted. When iTunes reads one of these files it sets its Work Name field to the value stored by other applications as Grouping. This release contains a work around. It's not a terribly aesthetic workaround but it works.
New Preferences-iTunes option called Maximum iTunes Grouping-Work Name Compatibility.
Grouping metadata can now be imported and exported.
The display, auto-import and auto-export iTunes preference settings now support Grouping.
The display, auto-import and auto-export iTunes preference settings setting to Ignore MPEG-4 files has been removed.
The Export to iTunes and Import from iTunes action statements support Grouping and no longer have the Ignore MPEG-4 files setting.
New help topic called: iTunes, Classical Metadata and the Grouping Field
Main Window:
The Edit Panel Picker is no longer supported as a drawer. Sierra doesn't like drawers.
Added columns for Seller and Price Paid.
You can now elect to display larger text in the status bar. You choose the size from the Font menu. Note that the status bar in Database files is affected by the option as well.
MPEG-4 Files:
Now approxmate the bit rate for m4a files which report a bit rate of 0.
When writing MPEG-4 files and the Map stik atom to Media Type option is set, unknown or empty Media Type values will set the stik value to Music or Home Video.
Preferences:
Sierra tabbed window preferences have been moved to a popup panel. You can now choose to include the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards in the main tabbed group.
Artwork:
There are new, or restored, Artwork menu items: Save Artwork to Folder Icon and Save Artwork to folder.jpg. The associated main window context menu has equivalent menu items. These functions work with the default artwork item (the first). No folder will be modified more than once.
Action Statements:
New action statement: Discogs Metadata for Release
Okay, we bullet and added a Prepend action statement.
The MusicBrainz Metadata for Release statement now returns the per disc track count in the Track List with the key Track Count.
Access Query Database-Set Column to Value now allows you to only change records returned from a previous query.
Column Value List from Query Database now has an Unsorted option.
Although the functions were implemented to be more efficient when run stepwise, the limitation that the following action statements cannot run groupwise has been removed: Artwork to Folder, Artwork to Folder Icon and Artwork to folder.jpg.
The Write Text File statement has a ne append option.
Bug Fixes:
When an action was renamed and it was on a Custom Panel, the Panel was updated but the stored settings were not.
The Access Query Database-Set Column to Value was not allowing an empty value.
Worked around a potential crash on Sierra when editing cells in a Database Viewer.
You coundn't sort the MusicBrainz Wizard's search results by Track or Disc number.
Column Value List from Query Database was flipping the Case Insensitive option.
Column Value List from Query Database was not case preserving when set to Case Insensitive.
The Discogs wizard no longer removes () sequences at the end of names unless they are (#)
The File List Customize column display attributes mappings were messed up internally. In order to fix the issue all column attributes have been reset to their default values. Sorry for the inconvenience.

New in Yate 3.14.2 Build 5357 (Oct 25, 2016)

Tabbed Windows on Sierra:
Sierra allows for the automatic tabbing of windows. The default behaviour is set via System Preferences-Dock-Prefer tabs when opening documents
New Yate Preferences-General settings to control tabbing groups of windows under Sierra. You can override the default system settings and enable the grouping of Action Editor and Database Viewer windows, each in their own group.
You can also choose to include the Action Manager in the same group as Action Editor windows. This is a great feature for small displays.
You can optionally choose to merge database viewers into the same tabbed window with actions.
File to Tag:
File to Tag templates can now extract from any number of path components. Previously only the filename and containing folder name were available. You do this by specifying multiple Folder Start tokens, each of which works with a higher up path component.
There are new qualifier tokens to mark sequences as Required, Optional, Numeric and Not Empty.
When in the File to Tag template editor you can now preview the template against specified paths as opposed to loaded files. This is useful as at times it may be difficult to find multiple files with the desired paths for testing. To be prompted for test data, hold down the Shift key when starting the preview.
The File to Tag action statement has been enhanced to support the per file enumeration of a list of templates.
Menus:
If you hold down Alt while clicking on a template in the File to Tag, Rename or Search for Artwork menus, the template is opened in the appropriate editor.
If you hold down Alt on the Search for Artwork menu's Default Search item, the associated template will be opened in the appropriate template editor.
Named Variables:
Setting a named variable to the empty string completely removes the all space it previously occupied. The named variable is still accessable as all uninitialized named variables have an empty string as their value. The only difference is that when displaying named variables via the Dump Variables statement, empty named variables will not be displayed.
Actions:
You can now use the Delete key to remove items in an Action Editor window.
Much better memory management when running an extremely long action through the Batch Processor.
The Prompt statement allows to you to post the message to the system logging system. On Sierra, in the Console application, it is difficult to find log messages that have been posted before the Console was opened. The online help for the Prompt statement now describes a Terminal command which allows you to reliably see Yate initiated messages passed to the system log on Sierra.
All query database statements will now initialize the Query Database field if there is a single Open Database for Querying statement, in all open actions, which supplies a prefix. There is also a new Insert Query Database Prefix context menu item in these fields.
Action Statements:
The Delete Non Audio statement was deleting all non audio files when the *: pattern was supplied. *: was intended to delete all empty folders, not files. In order to provide equivalent functionality and to allow you to separate files and folders, the * pattern can be used to delete all non audio files, but not folders. The sequence */*: will delete everything permitted.
Unless the key passed to any Query Database statement starts with a #, it is trimmed (leading and trailing spaces removed). This was implemented to support symbolic keys which start with a #. You can now simply put a space before the key to avoid the special line number mode.
The Preferences statement now allows you to reset an Exception or Preference set to its pre-action value. This is done automatically when an action ends but there are cases when you would want to do so while executing.
The Preferences statement has new override settings for Write ID3v2.3 and Write ID3v2.4. Setting the value to empty resets the value to the setting in the application preferences.
The List Key statement has a new option which supports per file keys as opposed to a single key for all files.
The File to Tag action statement has been enhanced to support the per file enumeration of a list of templates.
The Prompt statment's Batch Status mode has been renamed to Status. The mode is now available in all contexts to display a message on the main window's status bar.
The Date Functions statement now supports the extraction of and offset by Hours, Minutes and Seconds. The resultant date format when offsetting a component is now smart as to what the output format is. There is a new Full options to force a full date/time representation. There is also a new extraction type called Duration. This is a special form used to return a visual representation of a passed number of milliseconds. The returned representation may contain days and hours and will always contain minutes and seconds.
Database Viewer:
The Advanced Filter functionality uses # Column Names to supply integer values for cells. A new heuristic is applied which will allow these columns to work as expected with cells containing symbolic ratings.
Preferences:
The from value of items in Replacement sets have always been treated as case sensitive. You can now specify that you want case insensitivity by starting the from value with a ~ sequence.
MusicBrainz:
... and yet again ... better escaping of special characters in the MusicBrainz Wizard's search fields.
Bug Fixes:
The Compare Fields Test statement was not properly setting the action test state when only one file was active and testing was for Files only.
Better testing to avoid timing issues when closing Action Editor and Database Viewer windows.
While batch processing, the Load and Run statement was not logging the name of a file which could not be opened.
Fixed the annoying little banding effect under the file list's table banner if using coloured backgrounds on Sierra.
File to Tag previews now display meaningful field names as opposed to internal key names.
Depending on how a standalone database was created, not all fields were editable.
The Sort List statement was not working when sorting a sublist with the numeric option.
The Issue Database Query statement was returning incorrect results on a keyless database when using a previous result set.
Export Sets had two possible Length items. The Length item at the top of the list was based on the extracted audio duration in ms while Length at the bottom of the list referred to the user editable Length field. The duration item has been renamed Duration. No changes are required in existing sets.
Columns could not be hidden in standalone databases.

New in Yate 3.14.1.2 Build 5290 (Oct 8, 2016)

New in Yate 3.14.1.1 Build 5288 (Oct 1, 2016)

New in Yate 3.14.1 Build 5287 (Sep 20, 2016)

The Action Manager:
The Action Manager now supports the saving and restoring of the sort order.
If you have a manually arranged display list, you can now save the sort order by the Save Current Sort Order context menu item.
You can return to your saved sort by the Sort by Saved Sort Order context menu item.
Action Editor Windows:
New Action Usage context menu sub menu. Displays a list of all accessed file actions and all accessed or declared inline actions. Clicking on a menu item will open or show the associated action.
All action statements which run an action have a picker button to display a list of action files. The picker control will now display all declared inline actions, when appropriate. The picker control has been added to the Repeat Forever statement.
The Start action statement now has a picker control to display all referenced but not declared inline actions. As a convenience the menu will also display Batch Start and Batch End if not declared.
Full Screen Support:
Hopefully a better interaction with the Full Screen mechanism. (Yosemite or later). The main window, Action editors and Database viewers can be full screen and tiled. All other windows cannot.
New General-Preferences setting called Allow document windows to become full screen. The setting can allow or disallow full screen support on Action Editor windows and Database Viewer windows.
Error Messages:
The more meaningful Cocoa Error messages introduced in v3.14 now display the error number as well as the descriptive text.
Resources Web Page:
The Sample Actions web page has been replaced with a Resources page which has a new Documents area.
Audio File Health Check:
The Repair Files from Audio File Health Check Log action has been updated and can be found on the Resources page accessible off the Help menu. When you import the action make sure that Overwrite is set.
The newer action now removes invalid control characters and newline sequences from fields which do not support them. It also directly modifies the targeted files as opposed to importing and exporting metadata.
While it is still recommended that you run the action by dragging the log file to the Batch Processor target, it will work if run directly from the UI.
Action Statement Changes:
The Indexed Artwork action statement now supports saving to a named variable and the function can now extract the size of the artwork data in bytes.
The Trim functionality will now process User Defined Text Info and User Defined URL items, if the deep option is specified.
The following action statements can be executed always or only if the action test state is true or false. Break, Cancel, Exit, Exit Grouped, Exit Repeat, Next File, Restart Batch Processor, Restart Repeat Forever, Stop, Stop Batch Processing.
You can now set the button labels directly on an Ask statement.
The Run Context Test statement has been renamed to Test Run Context.
The Test Key State statement has been expanded to test if a key is pressed or not and given the ability to Set, And, Or the action test state. This way any explicit combination of modifier keys may be tested.
The Re-Encode statement now has a function to remove RTF formatting. Useful if you've read an RTF file and you want the raw text.
MusicBrainz:
Yet again ... better escaping of special characters in the MusicBrainz Wizard's search fields.
Bug Fixes:
A Save statement executed stepwise from the UI while processing a Load and Run statement, saved to the current file selection as opposed to the track loaded by the statement.
It was possible to lose changes in a focused artwork description field if the field lost focus by clicking on a toolbar icon or by executing a keyboard shortcut.
The Cancel Batch button on the Dump Variables window was not cancelling.
Fixed a vulnerability where the closing the Action Manager in full screen mode could cause the application to crash.
The new Custom Panel Action Buttons, were not always refreshed properly.

New in Yate 3.14.0.1 Build 5252 (Aug 31, 2016)

New in Yate 3.14 Build 5250 (Aug 30, 2016)

Deprecated Items:
There are a few things which are either no longer necessary or are anachronistic for the application. We would like to remove them in a subsequent release. There is a new topic called Deprecated Items on the main help page under the Reference section.
Visual Indicators:
Previously Yate used circled alphabetic characters as special display indicators. These characters look terrible on non retina displays under Sierra. We've dropped the circles.
Main Window:
When closing files via the Delete key there is now a "Don't show again" option.
The Actions menu Copy Metadata submenu now has a Copy Selected Metadata... item. The function will display a panel allowing you to select the copy direction and the metadata you want to copy.
Fields which are disabled due to Preferences-File List-Disable Unique Fields on Multiple Selections, now display a visual indicator. Text fields display ... and the Artwork panel displays a lock icon.
Error Messages:
We've attempted to replace cryptic Cocoa Error messages with more meaningful text when saving files.
New Fields:
The upcoming iTunes v12.5 introduces support for four new classical metadata fields. Work Name, Movement Name, Movement Number and Movement Count. The fields are implemented and can be displayed on the More Info editing panel. The fields are also available as columns in the main file list area, may be filtered, exported and placed on Custom Panels.
The fields are available for all file types, including those not supported by iTunes.
iTunes handles these fields in a somewhat strange manner. They are stored in MPEG-4 files but in all other iTunes supported file types, they are only retained in the iTunes database. For this reason, Yate will allow you to import/export the fields much as with other database only fields such as Rating, Playcount, etc. Due to the better, implementation in MPEG-4 files, Yate will allow you to disable import/export of thes fields for MPEG-4 files.
Note that when importing the values from a version of iTunes less than 12.5, empty and 0 values will be imported.
Preferences-iTunes has been updated to allow the selective display/import, auto import and auto export settings for these new fields.
The Import from iTunes and Export to iTunes statements have been updated to support the new fields.
iTunes 12.5 also introduces a new setting to control the display of its Name field as the Work or Song name. The value for this setting is stored in MPEG-4 files but unfortunately is not programatically available. For this reason the new Show Work Name in iTunes setting on the More Info panel is only available for MPEG-4 files.
Finder Integration:
New File Tags column in the main window. The column describes the Finder Tags associated with the associated file. The column can be exported, filtered, etc.
New Folder Tags column in the main window. The column describes the Finder Tags associated with the associated file's containing folder. The column can be exported, filtered, etc.
New Edit Finder Tags functionality in the UI. Access via the Edit or context menus. You can edit Finder Tags for files and folders.
Rename templates can now specify that the Finder should hide or show filename extensions.
Custom Panel Editor:
You can now supply alternate display titles for components.
Audio Properties can now be displayed as individual fields on a Custom Panel.
You can now add action buttons to a panel. As the name implies the buttons execute an action.
Date oriented fields are now allowed to be marked as cropped fields.
Preferences:
When creating a new Export Set, you can choose to import the set associated with an existing database.
When renaming files you can now set the Finder's show/hide state for filename extensions. This is done via Rename Templates. Note that the show/hide state is only set if a file is actually renamed. If a filename is not changed, the show/hide state will not be modified.
Action preferences has a new setting to enable/disable the new warning issued when using escaped named variables where usually unescaped are used.
Audio preferences has a new setting to enable verbose raw data logs. When enabled, the binary data associated with each low level frame, atom or comment will be dumped. You can set a threshold limit for the maximum amount of data that can be displayed for any one item.
iTunes preferences has been updated to accomodate the new classical metadata fields.
Title Case / Capitalization: It turns out that the API to capitalize strings always capitalizes a letter following a hyphen. We've made the following changes by writing our own capitalize function:
Titlecase: adding a - to the middle words list in Preferences-General-Configure Titlecase, will now suppress the capitalization of a letter following a hyphen, as one would expect. Note that doing so will effectively disable the proper handling of hyphenated names.
Capitalize First: will no longer capitalize letters following a hyphen.
File List-Disable Unique Fields on Multiple Selections was applied to text fields and to the Artwork panel. The Artwork panel inhibiting has been given its own option called Disable Artwork panel when tracks in multiple folders are selected. The option will be initially set for new installs. It will effectively copy the Disable Unique Fields value when upgrading. The change of either option takes effect immediately.
Action Manager / Main Window Action Icons:
The label displayed with Action 1,2...5 buttons can be customized by enclosing text within square brackets in the name of an action assigned to a toolbar button. For example an action named '[Move] Files to External Drive' will be displayed with a label of 'Move'.
Action Editor Windows:
Warnings will now be issued when an escaped named variable is used where typically an unescaped named variable is used.
Warnings will now be issued when an escaped UDTI is used where typically an unescaped UDTI is used.
The context menu for text fields has a new submenu named Insert Named Variable. The submenu provides a quick means of inserting the named variables referenced in a text field in any open action. (escaped or unescaped).
The Insert Special Yate Named Variable, Insert Common UDTI and Insert Named Variable context menu submenus are now contextually aware. A determination will be made if the escaped or unescaped name is required.
The restriction disallowing the insertion of the File Index and File Count properties via the Insert Yate File Property menu has been removed.
Flow Control:
The Constrain Execution to a Single File statement introduced in v3.12 allows you to limit execution of an action to a single file. However the effects of the statement are not selective or reversible. An attempt has been made this release to provide a more selective means of executing an action grouped but only once, regardless of the number of selected files. The Run, Repeat With and Test statements all have a new Once option which can be enabled when Grouped execution is selected. The Once modes are useful when processing data which is not related to the fields stored in the audio files. For example data in a query database or in a list.
A new action statement called Break provides a more selective exit from a particular execution of an action. This function stops the execution of the current action, regardless as to how it was called or whether the execution mode is stepwiseor grouped or being repeated. The next statement to be executed is always the statement immediately following the caller.
Action Statements:
System Integration
New action statement Play System Sound.
New action statement Test Key State. Used to set the action test state based on one of Shift, Control, Option or Command being pressed.
File System Integration
The Move statement will now process ifDup sequences on specified Rename templates. To ensure duplicate handling, it is no longer necessary to move to a file named to a UUID and then to rename.
New action statement Contents of Folder returns a list of all non hidden items in a specified folder. You can return files and folders, only files or only folders.
The Write Text File statement will delete yatesh files if the content is empty. This means that you can create script files on-the-fly and then delete them.
The Delete Non Audio Files can now delete empty folders. The include and exclude lists can specify folder names. The include list can also contain *: to imply all empty folders.
The Import Artwork statement can now specify that that filename matching should be a contains match as opposed to an exact match.
The Variables mode of the Move Non Audio statement now process multiple folders as do the other folder determination modes when running stepwise.
List Manipulation
New action statement Build Key List. Used to construct key value list where the keys and values are extracted from fields. As an example this is an efficient method of producing lists of unique artists for all albums.
The Sort List statement now has the option of sorting based on the integer value of the list items. While Sort as in Finder handles some leading integer cases it does not normalize leading zeros. ie. 01 is treated as different from 1.
The List Item at Index and Set List Index statements, both now support negative indexes. A negative index counts from the right of the list. -1 is the last element, -2 is the second to last, etc.
The List Combine statement has been renamed List Manipulate. The statement now supports the filtering of lists and the ability to produce a list of all unique integer values in a source list.
Date Manipulation
New action statement Date Functions. The statement can be used to extract date components year, month, day, week of year, week of year (relative), day of year, first day of week, day of week, days in month and days in year. It can also be used to add offsets to a date's year, month, week or day component. There are also convenience methods to set a date to YYYY-MM-01 or YYYY-MM-01.
External Script Execution
The Run once option in the Run External Script statement will now save the result to all files when run stepwise. This is more consistent and makes it easier to access the result.
As mentioned above the Write Text File statement eases the deletion of external scripts created on-the-fly.
Numeric Expression Evaluation
We got tired of not having a 'mod' function in the Evaluate Expression statement, so we added one. At the same time we added 'div', 'min' and 'max'. More information in the online help for Evaluate Expression.
Query Databases
The Open Query Database statement now enforces the uniqueness of the supplied identifying prefix. All non prefix methods of referencing an open query database are now deprecated. If an open fails because the database is already open, a named variable will be assigned the value of the previously opened database's identifying prefix. See the online help for more information.
Flow Control
New action statement called Test Property. The statement is a convenient means of testing a conditional property across all selected files. You can test for No file, Any File or All files for the Is Modified, Is Linked to iTunes and Has Video properties.
Inconsistencies on the Exit Repeat statement have been resolved. The statement immediately exits a calling Repeat With or Repeat Forever statement, regardless of the execution mode.
As already mentioned, the Run, Repeat With and Test functions have a new Grouped-Once option.
Metadata Copying
New action statement called Copy Metadata Between Files. The statement allows you to copy selected metadata from a single file to another file or all other files.
Encodings
Encode As has been renamed to Lossy Encode As. Use of the statement is deprecated. Re-Encode should be used as an alternative.
The Re-Encode statement now supports ASCII (Lossy) and ISO Latin-1 (Lossy) modes.
Prompts
The Prompt statement now has an option to hide the Copy button.
There are no longer any limitations when batch processing with the Ask, Dump Variables, Prompt and Prompt for Text statements. The standard Pending Action Window is now displayed even when batch processing.
Regular Expressions
The Regular Expression statement's pre-processor now accepts named variable escape sequences as well as variable sequences v#.
Extended Named Variable Support
The following action statements now support named variables:
Bracket
Evaluate Expression
Extract Bracketed Text
Get First Line
Lossy Encode As
Make Numeric
Re-Encode
Regular Expression
Remove/Insert
Scanner
Split
Truncate Variable
Usability
The following action statements now have Show buttons to quickly view their respective template in the appropriate Preferences context:
Artwork to Folder Icon
Artwork to folder.jpg
Create Album Database
Create Track Database
File to Tag
Rename Files
Search for Artwork
Discogs / MusicBrainz:
The Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards now assign the default button focus to the Import button on the Import panels.
Better escaping of special characters in the MusicBrainz Wizard's Album search field.
Database Viewer:
You can now produce an m3u file for all displayed items in a Track database.
MPEG-4 Files:
MPEG-4 files with fragmented audio/video data can now be processed. Note that the duration, bit rate, etc. is taken from the audio track so values may be zero if they are not available where expected.
Bug Fixes:
Various action statements were not replacing : characters in file paths. They were replaced in filenames but not always in path components. While the OS always replaced the characters it was not consistant with the Invalid Character Substitution setting. Note that Rename was not affected by this issue.
List item at Index was returning true for an empty list and an index of 0.
It was possible for a thumbnail on a custom panel to display an incorrect image. This could only happen when the associated track had no artwork and the tab panels were changed a few times.
The Remove/Insert statement was not processing escape sequences in the numeric fields, as documented.

New in Yate 3.13.0.2 Build 5116 (Aug 11, 2016)

New in Yate 3.13.0.1 Build 5115 (Jul 29, 2016)

New in Yate 3.13 Build 5113 (Jul 1, 2016)

ACTION TEST STATE CHANGES:
Previously every action had its own unique test state. This goes back to the early days of action processing in Yate when there were no flow control statements other than the Test statement. The current implementation makes it impossible to return a true or false value in the test state from a called action. The behaviour has been changed such that there is now a single test state for the entire action mechanism. The value of the test state always reflects the last time it was set. With one exception, the test state is only automatically set when action processing first starts from the UI or whenever a new folder is about to be processed by the Batch Processor. In these cases the test state is set to false.
The exception is the Load and Run statement. After executing a Load and Run statement the test state reflects the success or failure of the track loading, as it always did. The test state from the executed action is not returned.
There is a new option in Preferences-Actions where you can return to the earlier action test state mechanism. This may be removed at a later date.
The Preferences statement now allows you to set the behaviour either way at runtime. This also, may be removed at a later date.
STEM FILE SUPPORT:
Stem file metadata can now be viewed:
In the Snapshot Editor
By double clicking in an Audio Information panel
Via Log>Raw Data
DATABASE VIEWER:
There is now an Advanced Filter panel. Complex filters can be defined and saved.
Relative date testing is possible.
Saved filters may be directly accessed via the viewer window's context menu.
Database rows in Album and Track databases can now be dragged outside the database. The associated files or folders will be treated the same as if dragged from the Finder. Dragging to the Finder will copy, dragging to Yate will open, dragging to iTunes will add to the destination (library and/or playlist).
ACTION MANAGER:
You can now select any combination of actions and folders when doing a Smart Export. Note that the folder structure is not preserved when doing a Smart Export.
ACTION EDITOR WINDOWS:
You can now Show and Hide line numbers in Action Editor windows via the context menu. This is to facilitate the location of items described by line number in certain error messages.
ACTION PENDING WINDOW, PROMPTS, BATCH PROCESSOR LOGGED MESSAGES, ACTION ERROR MESSAGES:
With few exceptions, wherever an executing statement and action is described ... the action name is now displayed in one of the following ways:
When executing a non inline action: action name (line number)
when executing an inline action: action name (line number in containing action)
PREFERENCES:
Actions:
All preferences associated with Action Editor windows now take effect immediately.
You can elect to display a vertical grid line between line numbers and statements in Action Editor windows.
You can now change the labels on the Ask statement's True and False buttons.
You can choose the Action Test State mode.
Export Sets:
You can now export the Classification, Hi Def Video, Network Name, Show Description and Video Description fields.
BEATPORT IMPORTER:
The importer now supports a "run after import" action.
DISCOGS:
Yet another tweak to the Discogs track separator algorithm. Note that this is the algorithm used to detect tracks and discs in the metadata returned by the API, not the algorithm which matches files to the metadata. Sub tracks are now better recognized.
ACTION STATEMENTS:
Comment statements are now displayed as ' text to make better use of display space.
The Run Context Test statement now supports the cancelling of action processing if the specified context is not supported.
The Access Query Database Cell statement has been renamed Access Query Database as row and column access options have been added.
The Create Album Database and Create Track Database statements have a new option to preserve the contents of an existing sidecar file. See the online help for more information.
The Prompt for File or Folder statement now optionally supports the selection of multiple items and allows the selection of both files and folders.
The Regular Expression statement can now be used to return matched patterns and matched locations as well as replacing text.
The Preferences statement supports the run time changing of the Ask Statements True and False button labels. It also lets you choose the Action Test State Mode.
The Set Action Test State from Variable statement is now called Set Action Test State. The statement now supports the explicit setting of the test state to True or False as well as to the contents of a variable or named variable.
The Dump Variables statement can now display the call stack. This may assist in the debugging of complicated actions. Each line in the displayed call stack represents a statement calling an action which has not yet terminated.
The List Item at Index statement will process each file individually, when run stepwise, if the source and destination are not named variables.
The Set List Index statement will process each file individually, when run stepwise, if the list is not in a named variable.
BUG FIXES:
Reduced spurious redraws in the File Browser when displaying a large folder.
The 'db' field in database files did not support (B) for Beatport.
The Log statement was failing when a path was not specified and it was running in the Batch Processor.
The Build List statement was needlessly disabling some field types from the 'source' field.
Actions exported via Smart Export were not preserving the date/time modified information.
The Preferences statement was being ignored when overriding the Unique Value Mode. Regression introduced in v3.12.
It turns out that there were workarounds to allow inline actions to execute recursively.
The Run External Script statement's Ignore errors option was being reset the next time the action was opened (not run).

New in Yate 3.12 Build 5014 (May 17, 2016)

Named Variable Changes:
Named variables now always persist while batch processing. The non-persistant option was a holdback to the application's earlier days and now has potentially breaking issues with the various batch processing modes.
In the rare event that you created actions to be run through the Batch Processor, which assumed that named variables were empty whenever a new folder as processed, they will break!. It is a good practice to always initialize named variables to the desired initial value.
Main Window:
New field on the URLs panel called Podcast URL.
Added support for specifying that a track is a podcast. Note that iTunes only recognizes the setting when a track is first added. Setting the Audio Panel's Media Type field to Podcast will set the appropriate low level metadata for ID3 and MPEG-4 based files. When adding podcasts in ID3 files, iTunes requires that the Podcast URL field contains a well formed URL or it will not be recognized as a podcast. If you do not supply the URL and Podcast is specified, a hidden dummy URL will be supplied. When reading a file, the Media Type field will be set to Podcast if the low level podcast metadata is present.
There are now five Action-n toolbar items, increased from three.
Discogs:
We've switched the application to use the custom Discogs authentication method. There is no longer a need to authenticate the application at Discogs. The Force Discogs Authorization and Validate Discogs Access Token menu items have been removed.
Discogs has increased the number of requests which can be sent in a given amount of time. The application's throttling algorithm has been modified to reflect the changes. Thanks Discogs!
MusicBrainz:
Better retrying is now performed for 503 and 504 responses.
iTunes:
New Action menu item called Batch Extract iTunes PIDs. If you want the PID values and you have little or no metadata in your files, this process eliminates the need of dragging the tracks from iTunes into Yate. The process will also identify tracks in iTunes which cannot be located.
Linking to iTunes by PID silently updates the iTunes location if the file has been moved.
Custom Panels:
Links to multi item editing panels can now be placed on custom panels.
Databases:
The Database Viewer's context menu filter items have been enhanced and hopefully been made a little clearer.
You can now hide selected or not selected rows.
When database values are being accumulated, numeric fields are normalized to avoid ??? displays for same but textually different numeric fields. This mostly affects Album databases.
Encodings:
The Multi Field Editor's Re-Encode function, the Re-Encode action statement and the Yate Transformations - Re-Encode to sub-menu, all have new options which are somewhat different than the previous usage of re-encoding from an incorrect Latin-1 determination. They are:
Unicode UNFC:
When chosen a field will have decomposed accent sequences changed to composed accent sequences. eg. É will count as one character as opposed to two when taking the length of the field.
Force Latin-1
The re-encoding provides a forced transformation to Latin-1, preserving as many characters as possible. This differs from the Encode As ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) statement as it does a smart transformation as opposed to simply trying to change the encoding. It will ensure that decomposed characters are composed; it will do a transformation of those nasty Unicode quote characters, it will preserve accents wherever possible; it will remove accents from characters which cannot be converted; and will change characters which cannot be represented to underscores (_).
Remove Accents
The re-encoding will attempt to remove all accents from characters.
Fold Characters
This changes various characters to their similar Latin-1 equivalents. Currently this includes single and double quote equivalents as well as dash/hyphen equivalents.
Rename templates now have a Force Latin-1 option. This is equivalent to performing the Force Latin-1 re-encoding described above. One possible use of this is to ensure that files can be placed into m3u as opposed to m3u8 files while renaming.
Some users produce CSV files on other platforms and then create the associated sidecar (plist) file via Preferences-Export Sets, if required. When CSV files are produced on non Mac platforms it is possible that the OS cannot automatically determine the file's encoding if accented characters are present. In the past the encoding setting which can be specified for a CSV database was only used for writing purposes. If a CSV file cannot be opened letting the OS automatically determine the encoding, an attempt is now made to open it with the explicit encoding specified in the sidecar file.
The Read Text File and Write Text File action statements now support the explicit specification of an encoding. You can always do a read and then write of any text based file to process files produced on other systems.
The list of available encodings for database file creation and the Read Text File and Write Text File action statements now include twelve different possible encodings.
Preferences:
Preferences-Audio-MPEG-4 now lets you set the rating mapping. Previously it was hard coded to be iTunes (0-100).
The Preferences-Audio rating mappings now support a new mapping called Direct*2 (0-10). This mapping is used by JRiver Media Center when writing MPEG-4 ratings.
There are now presets in Preferences-Audio and Preferences-Audio-Configure Full Rating Mapping for JRiver Media Center settings.
When Yate starts it automatically creates a backup of the application preferences. In Preferences-General You can now configure how many backup files will be retained.
File to Tag, Rename and Search templates can now be marked as Hidden. When Hidden, a template will not appear on any associated menu. This is useful when a template is used by an action and is not intended to be directly run.
Replacement set to fields can now be edited in a larger text view. They can still be edited inline.
Title Case:
The v3.11 Title Case algorithm properly handles multiple sentences being processed. Abbreviations are problematic as they are terminated with periods. You can somewhat get around the issue by making general exceptions which cause the abbreviations to be set to lower case. However, the Title Case algorithm can do much better if it knows that the items are abbreviations. For this reason, Preferences-Exceptions has a new case mode called Abbreviation. This mode is only meaningful in the Title Case word list. In all other lists it is treated as No case change. The mode tells the Title Case algorithm to treat the word as an abbreviation when it is followed by a period. It is a good idea to use this new mode on words such as v, vs and ft.
Action Manager:
You can now specify that an action should appear on the File to Tag, Rename or Search for Artwork menu as well as the User Defined Actions menu. You do so from the context menu Add to Menu item.
In the past all actions which effectively started with a File to Tag statement, were automatically added to the File to Tag menu. This mechanism is no longer supported. However, all such actions will automatically be migrated to have the include on the File to Tag indicator.
Action Editor Windows:
There is now a button in the help panel which will load the displayed help page in the default browser.
You can now add if-endif and else sequences directly. Previously you could only add if-else-endif sequences.
New Action Statements:
AcoustID Metadata for ID. The statement can be used to manually extract metadata from downloaded AcoustID data. See the online help for more information.
Set User Defined Text Item. While UDTIs can be set by the User Defined Fields statement, this new statement is not limited to having the source in a variable.
Stop Action and Filter Files. The statement allows you to Close, Hide and Select Files, either Matching or Not Matching a chosen filter. The main window's filter functionality now supports the specifying of Variables in filters so that complex non destructive filters can be formulated.
Restart Batch Processor can only be specified while processing the Batch End inline action. The statement causes the folder traversal to restart. This can be used to create multi-pass actions.
Open File by the OS. eg. opening a file with a .txt extension will typically open the file via TextEdit.
Enumerate Tag Set. Useful when you want to write an action based on a variable set of fields.
Metadata for MusicBrainz Release Id. This statement is used to fetch the metadata for a specified MusicBrainz Release Id saving it to a key value list in a named variable.
Constrain Execution to a Single File. If you write an action which does not actually use the current file selection, it can be a pain to ignore meaningless action executions in grouped mode if more than one file is selected. This statement causes the action to operate as if a single file was selected.
Modified Action Statements:
The Replace action statement has new options called Leading and Trailing. They are similar to At Start and At End, with the exception that all leading or trailing sequences are replaced by a single replace with string. As an example, the Trailing option can be used to remove all trailing semi-colons in a field.
The Stop Action and Open Files statement can now specify multiple paths separated by newline characters.
The online help for the Move statement now describes the sequence to do duplicate handling.
When Batch Processing, if you are performing lengthy operations in the Batch Start or Batch End sub-actions, there may not be any progress updates for a while. The Prompt action statement now has a Batch Status mode allowing you to output a prompt message to the Current Folder field in the Batch Processor's progress panel. Doing this too often may slow things down quite a bit.
Re-Encode modified as described in the above Encoding section.
The Open Database for Querying statement now sets a prefix-Path named variable. It is the unescaped expanded path used to open the file. The variable can be passed as a parameter to any query database statement to identify the file.
The Column Value List From Query Database statement now has an ignore empty values option.
The Create Album/Track Database statements now create the path to the file if it does not exist.
When sorting the results of a Build List statement and Case Insensitive is specified, the sort will be an as in the Finder sort.
The Compare Date, Compare Numeric and Compare Text statements now all have an Any option. The default behaviour for stepwise execution is and has been for all files. The Any option, allows you to do a test which will succeed if true for any file.
The Load and Run statement can now be used when running in the UI.
The Move Non Audio Files statement no longer displays an error if the source and destination folders are the same. The statement simply does nothing.
The Add to List statement has new options to disallow adding empty items and/or items already in the list. You can also control how may files get enumerated when adding to a named variable and executing stepwise.
The Translate Rating statement supports the new Direct*2 (0-10) mapping.
The Ask, Prompt and Prompt for Text statements have a new Hide Info option. Thise option will hide the action name, associated file and reason text. This can result in a somewhat prettier display.
The Read Text File and Write Text File statements have been enhanced as described in the above Encodings section. After successfully reading a file the named variable Read Text File Encoding will be set to a textual description of the encoding used. If a file cannot be read due to the encoding, the Read Text File Encoding will be set to Indeterminate.
The Write Text File statement also now supports lossy and lossless writes. It also allows the testing of content to determine if it can losslessly be converted to a specific encoding.
The Repeat With, List to CSV and Build List statements allow an empty delimiter so there is no concept of a default delimiter. As this is typically not the case, the statements now pre-initialize to having a delimiter of \~ (the default delimiter's escape sequence). If you want an empty delimiter, you can delete the text.
The Access Query Database Cell statement has a new convenience function to set a cell to a named variable. This avoids the need to escape a named variable when setting a value.
All Query Database statements can now identify the desired database by specifying the named variable prefix supplied on the Open Database for Querying statement.
The Batch Processor:
The Batch Processor now automatically creates a named variable called Batch Phase. 0 implies Batch Start is executing. 1 implies that folder processing is occurring. 2 implies that Batch End is executing.
The Multi-Field Editor:
The Replace panel has the new Leading and Trailing options.
MPEG-4 Files:
iTunes may use two atoms to identify the seller of a track. 'sfID' (the iTunes store) and 'xid ' (a vendor ID field). These contents of these atoms are now both displayed in the Seller field. Previously 'sfID' was stored in Seller, while 'xid ' was stored in a UDTI named iTunes Vendor xID. You can read more about the display format of the Seller field on the help page for the Privacy panel.
Bug Fixes:
The List Contains Test statement was not allowing an empty pattern for 'Equals' tests.
The Encode As statement did not handle Latin-1 properly. At times, ASCII could be substituted.
The Multi-Field Editor's Replace function had an extraneous Words checkbox.
The main window's status bar was not always displaying the longest common path.
The Access Query Database Cell statement was not accepting an absolute row index of 0.
The Column Value List From Query Database statement was ignoring the case insensitive option.
The following Database statements were not properly handling empty paths: Close Database, Update Database, Remove Items from Database, Save Database and Close Query Database.
Fixed a timing issue which could cause a crash when closing the Beatport Importer window.
The single export of a Tag Set from within Preferences-Tag Sets was broken.
Values were not being retained after doing a Set All or Clear All in Preferences-Tag Sets.
When an action was duplicated, the new action did not inherit the initial action's icon.
The Rename template IfExists and IfExists+ sequences were not working when a Variable was being tested.

New in Yate 3.11.0.2 Build 4885 (Mar 30, 2016)

New in Yate 3.11.0.1 Build 4881 (Mar 25, 2016)

New in Yate 3.11 Build 4879 (Mar 10, 2016)

General:
m4b files are now supported and are handled exactly the same as m4a files.
Main Window:
The main window's status bar now displays common path prefixes as well as unique folder paths.
New File>Save Selected Files submenu. (Also available on the context menu). This menu provides functionality previously only available via the Save action statement. Forced saves, forced free space removal, etc.
Grouping fields on the Info editing panel and on custom panels now have a drop down menu displaying previous values. Auto complete is configurable on the Edit >Autocomplete submenu. The list can be edited in the new Groupings Preference panel.
You can now drag items from the main window's file list area to a different application. This enables you to pass files directly into other various audio players, the Finder, etc. Note that the drag is advertised as a copy, so dragging to the Finder will effectively copy the last saved contents of the file.
ISRC is now available as a column in the main file list.
Artwork:
The Search for Artwork menu now has items allowing you to retrieve artwork from Fanart.tv, the Cover Art Archive and Discogs ... and all of them at once. Access to Fanart.tv requires a Fanart API key and you must have authorized Yate to access Discogs through the Force Discogs Authorization wizard.
You can elect to automatically fingerprint, download AcoustID metadata and extract the various MusicBrainz Ids which are required to access the artwork. Note that when required, Discogs Ids will be extracted, if available, from MusicBrainz.
The import of Cover Front images can be restricted to the single largest item.
Discogs searches will search releases and masters.
Cover Art Archive searches will search releases and release-groups.
For each artwork source there is an item to selectively choose the various artwork types which are available.
Every attempt is made to normalize the artwork across albums.
To make it easier to change the Fanart.tv, Cover Art Archive and Discogs artwork retrieval settings, they are optionally accessable from the Search for Artwork menu.
AcoustID:
The AcoustID action statements can now import the Year.
The Get Data from AcoustID functionality now sets a few artifical Network Response property codes to make it easier to determine the exact outcome of the function. The function will also now download release group information at the same time.
When using the AcoustID Import MusicBrainz Ids statement, pre-existing album metadata is used as a hint. You can now set it to be a requirement via the new Require Album metadata match option.
The AcoustID Import MusicBrainz IDs statement now provides presets for various option combinations.
Any AcoustID functionality which imports a MusicBrainz Release Id will now also import the MusicBrainz Release Group URL, if the information is available. This can avoid an extra access to MusicBrainz when deploying a Fanart.tv search.
The Create AcoustID Fingerprint now creates a UDTI to indicate creation failure.
Preferences - AcoustID has two new options to make it easier to test if a fingerprint should be generated and if AcoustID data should be downloaded. The options are used by the UI and associated Get Data from AcoustID and Create AcoustID Fingerprint statements.
The AcoustID menus now support various canned variants of the action statements to obtain the MusicBrainz Ids.
iTunes:
If you've ever changed the Album, Artist or Title fields and found that you can no longer link to iTunes, there is now a solution, as long as you have not yet saved the files. The Link to iTunes with Initial Values menu item performs the linkage based on the metadata initially obtained when a track was loaded.
Preferences:
New Preference section called Groupings. This section maintains a list of groupings similarly to the Artist and Composer sections.
Yate's ID3 audio encoding values allow you to choose the text encoding that best serves your local. Typically, UTF-8 is the preferred setting as it is appropriate anywhere. There are misbehaved applications which expect ISO-8859-1 characters and read the data as such, regardless of the encoding described in the metadata frames. You may find that these applications are incorrectly representing some accented characters. Rather than changing the encoding setting to ISO-8859-1 for all frames, which limits the characters you can represent, you can select the new ISO-8859-1 if possible option. The option will use the specified encoding where necessary, but if no data will be lost, a frame will be encoded as ISO-8859-1. This setting along with the Encode As statement gives you the option of validating the encoding for specific fields programmatically.
File to Tag templates now allow the specification of sets of delimiter characters as opposed to explicit strings. \*set will match contiguous occurrences of any characters in set. \?set will match at most one character in set. You can now use a single template to match filenames of track title and track-title.
The Titlecase algorithm has been significantly modified to provide better results. A description can be found in the Preferences-General-Configure Titlecase online help.
The Names Exception list in Preferences-Exceptions has support for a wildcard matching representation. For example: MacD* can be used to change MACDONALD to MacDonald. This was tedious with forms starting with Mc and O' as many possibilities had to be enumerated. There is a new wildcard form where a pattern can end with a ?. This form works as follows: If a word begins with the text before the ? character, it will use the text before the ?. The next character will be capitalized and subsequent characters will be in lower case. For example MCVIE matched against a name exception of Mc? will be converted to McVie.
The default unique value setting for new installations has been changed to UUID. These values are now used in various actions for temporary filenames and the historic Yate method may result in stranger filenames. There is no need to change existing Yate ID usages.
Action Statements:
The Export Replacement Set action statement has been renamed Extract Preference Set and has been significantly expanded. See the online help for more information.
The Save action statement now allows you to specify that you want free space reduced only if the file is otherwise being saved.
There is a new statement called Get Artwork from Cover Art Archive which allows you to filter the image types you wish to download.
There is a new statement called Get Artwork from Discogs which allows you to filter the image types you wish to download.
The Standardize Case and Fill Lists statements now allow manipulation of the new Grouping list.
There is a new statement called Get Discogs Release Ids from MusicBrainz.
More data is downloaded from AcoustID than in the past. The Get Data from AcoustID statement will reload the data even if AcoustID Data exists and it does not contain the lastest information.
The Normalize Artwork action statement now lets you choose which artwork types are to be normalized.
Previous to this release certain action statements took a special form of a path. \V# as opposed to supporting full escape sequences. This restriction has been removed. Further the restriction that a specified base path must exist has also been removed. The following statements are affected: Copy, Move, Export Metadata, Import Metadata, Import Metadata from Audio File, the four Symbolic Link statements and Artwork to Folder. In all of these statements, the constructed path must resolve to be absolute (/), relative to the home folder (~/) or relative to the source track (./) or (../).
The Write Text File, Log, Create m3u Files and Artwork to Folder statements will now create the destination folder, if it does not already exist.
The Create Track Database statement can now be run during grouped execution. Note that this only makes sense while Batch Processing as it allows you to selectively control which tracks get written.
The fields in the Delete Non Audio Files statement now support escape sequences.
The Extract Bracketed Text statement now allows you to insert markertext if you remove the text.
New escape sequence \+# where # is a variable number. The sequence reads the name of a Yate field from the specified variable and inserts the field's initial value.
New escape sequence \*# where # is a variable number. The sequence reads the name of a UDTI from the specified variable and inserts the UDTI's value.
Discogs & MusicBrainz:
The Mapping panel's context menu items used to modify the mapping of files to tracks have been removed.
The Mapping panels now allow you to show/hide the various mapping settings. These settings now include the ability to set a truncation pattern in Title fields so that you can remove qualifying information such as featuring lists which may hamper file to track mapping. Changes made to these settings remap the files on the fly.
MusicBrainz imported Artwork URLs now include the artwork type in the item name.
Bug Fixes:
Exporting individual Exception Sets from within Preferences was not working.
When importing Artwork URLs from MusicBrainz, only URLs for loaded artwork were imported.
When artwork was imported from Fanart.tv, the auto resizing settings were ignored.
If an Export Set was imported, the Preferences list was not resorted until the next time the application was started.
Some LyricWiki URLs were not being properly escaped.
The Artwork to Folder statement was flipping the Save All and Save First settings.
The Import Metadata from Audio File statement was creating the path to the source file if it could not be found.
The Link to iTunes and Link to iTunes if Modified statements were sometimes losing the use PID option.
Preferences-Search-Keep List Sorted was not immediately resorting when changed from off to on.

New in Yate 3.10.1 Build 4737 (Feb 15, 2016)

New in Yate 3.10.0.1 Build 4730 (Feb 11, 2016)

New in Yate 3.10 Build 4727 (Jan 4, 2016)

More work on interacting with database files. A new set of actions which support the querying of databases. Note that there is a new help topic called Query Databases. There are new sample actions on the website. Among them a group of actions to create, maintain and query an artist database for among other things, to look for all albums crediting any combination of artists.
For you shell script writers out there, you can now create and execute scripts on the fly.
Database Viewer & Databases:
New context menu item: Apply Cell Value to Selected Rows. Eases the setting of fields in multiple rows to the same value. Change a single cell, then apply...
You can copy the contents of any text cell to the clipboard.
Columns can be hidden and moved.
You can now change the font size in Database Viewer windows.
The ability to produce databases without an associated sidecar file has been removed from the UI (main window and Preferences-Export Sets) and action statements (Create Album & Track Database). The sidecar files are tiny and are were auto-created each time the Database Viewer was run.
New Query Database Action Statements:
Open Database for Querying is used to open a database for querying. The database remains open until the action or batch processor terminates. Changes are automatically committed. Named variables are automatically created which describe the properties of the database: the number of rows, the column names, the column used as the key column, the column mappings.
Close Query Database. Query databases are typically closed automatically. You can manually close a query database and save or discard modifications by means of this statement.
Add Item to Query Database. Creates a new item (row) in the given database with a specified key.
Remove Item from Query Database. Removes an item (row) in a given database with a specified key.
Access Database Query Cell. This statement allows you to extract or modify the contents of a query database cell. It also allows you to apply the contents of a cell to the current track(s) being processed.
Issue Database Query. You can issue text, numeric and date based queries against query database columns. The statement returns a list of matching keys which can be used in Access Database Query Cell statements. The queries operate either on the entire database or on a previous result set. This allows for complex queries to be formulated.
List from Query Database. This statement is used to produce a list of unique elements in a database column on the complete database or a previous result set from a Issue Database Query statement. The returned list either contains the list of unique elements or the unique elements and their associated occurrence counts.
Batch Processor:
A new batch processing mode which opens a dragged plist file's associated database for querying. An attempt will be made to locate an associated .csv, .tsv or .tab database file. The file is opened as if an Open Database for Querying statement was executed with the In file option for the key column determination.
In this mode, no folders are automatically traversed.
Running Actions:
Actions executed by the Batch Processor do not interfere with the responsiveness of the application as they run almost entirely on background threads. Interactive actions run at times on the application's main thread. Many action statements cause the Action Processor to relinquish control back to the system. Typically when this happens, functions are run on a background thread or interaction is provided with the UI. However, it is entirely possible that an action runs for too long a time without giving the system time to operate. When this happens a beachball will eventually be displayed. The Action Processor now keeps track of how long it has been since control has been returned to the system. If five seconds or more of uninterrupted action execution has occurred, the Action Processor will now automatically give up control for a short period of time. Due to this behaviour, you might see a beachball appear, then disappear, then appear, etc. This new behaviour also enables the Cancelling of all actions regardless of their execution mode.
Running External Scripts:
The Run External statement now supports escape sequences so that a script's name can be determined at runtime.
In order to allow you to create scripts on the fly and set the proper execution attributes, Yate will automatically adjust the file attributes of any script file which has a filename extension of yatesh.
The new sample action Dump Metadata creates, executes and deletes a script on the fly.
Other New Action Statements:
Load and Run is used to load an audio file and run an action against it. This is only valid while batch processing.
Repeat Forever. An indefinite loop construct.
Restart Repeat Forever. Regardless as to how many actions and statements are being processed, this statement will exit until an active Repeat Forever statement is found. If found the statement will essentially be restarted. If not found the statement is equivalent to Stop.
List from Column. Used to create a list of every element in a specific column of a list of lists.
Show in Log Viewer. Used to display the contents of a named variable in the Log Viewer.
Extract Replacement Set. Replacement sets are convenient for storing static lists of information that might be used in more than one action. There are three options: Save a replacement set to named variables, save a set to a simple list or save a set to a key-value list.
List Combine. Used to form a union, intersection or removal between two lists.
AcoustID:
The AcoustID Import MusicBrainz Ids statement has a new option to facilitate matching when you know that all the tracks being processed are in the same album. If the best match algorithm is failing, perhaps due to data inconsistencies, the Choose best option can be used in conjunction with the Allow matching to multiple releases option. When this set of options is chosen, the best match will be chosen if available. However, if a best match is not available, the MusicBrainz Release Id which can be associated with the most tracks is chosen for all files, including those without AcoustID data. Any previous MusicBrainz Recording Ids are removed and no additional data will be imported. This may be useful when attempting to find a release id to use with the fanart.tv search functionality.
Discogs:
While searching Discogs it is possible to explicitly constrain a pattern to a particular database field. In the past Yate has always done this for the Album and Artist search metadata. It has been found that there are special considerations with accented characters and various textual sequences. Yate has numerous workarounds for these behaviours but there are assuredly others. For this reason, you can now make either or both of the search fields explicit or non explicit. Explicit searches operate as before and are constrained to their associated fields. Non explicit searches are not constrained to any particular Discogs database fields. A search which is completely non explicit more closely matches the searches manually performed on discogs.com. It also appears that there are no special considerations for the search pattern for non explicit searches. As explicit searches may potentially return a more constrained set of search results, we are allowing you to pick and choose your search mode.
There is now a separate field on the search panel where you can specify a Discogs release or master ID. The ID field always takes precedence over the Album and Artist fields. Note that any id=# items previously stored in the Album field's drop down menu will no longer work. The values will be pushed out of the list eventually.
MusicBrainz:
There is now a separate field on the search panel where you can specify a MusicBrainz release ID. The ID field always takes precedence over the Album and Artist fields. Note that any id=# items previously stored in the Album field's drop down menu will no longer work. The values will be pushed out of the list eventually.
iTunes:
The Link to iTunes and Link to iTunes if Modified statements now support linking via an iTunes PID property saved to an iTunes PID UDTI. This functionality is primarily intended for users starting to work on tracks contained in iTunes which have little or no metadata. You can drag the tracks from iTunes to Yate, linking them, and save the PID for later use. Note that a retained PID has no meaning in any iTunes library other than the one from which it was obtained. Further, upgrading iTunes to a new version or rebuilding your iTunes database will invalidate any retained PIDs.
New convenience functions: Save iTunes PIDs and Remove iTunes PIDs. The Save function immediately unlinks the tracks so that the iTunes library contents are not overwritten when the files are saved.
Other Action Statement Modifications:
Most list functions now provide default values for empty delimiter fields.
The Access AcousticBrainz statement now has an Ignore Errors option.
The Close Database statement now sets the action test state to indicate if any files were closed.
The Database ID statement now supports sets only if the ID is missing or not consistant.
The following statements now fully support named variables: Case, Find & Remove, List Contains Test, Sort Form, Substring.
The Prompt for Text statement now supports the showing of a picker menu with a list of user set items.
The Replace statement now suports matching the last occurrence of a pattern.
The control variable in a Repeat With statement can now be a named variable.
The Prompt for File or Folder statement now allows you to specify a list of permissable filename extensions when prompting for a file.
The Read Track Database Sidecar File has been renamed Read Database Sidecar File as it works with any database sidecar.
The Encode as ASCII statement has been renamed to Encode as. The statement now permits encoding text as ASCII or Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1).
The Run, Test, Repeat With, Repeat Forever and Open and Run statements all display a soft error when an inline action is not defined. They also support Create and Open operations on inline actions.
User Defined. No changes but note that there is a new escape sequence to insert the current value of a UDTI.
New file property called Network Response. This property is set by functions which do network access on a per file basis. The property is currently supported by Access AcousticBrainz, Get Data from AcoustID and LyricWiki Access.
New file property called ID3 Version. See the Get Property statement's online help for a description as to how the value is encoded.
New Escape Sequences:
\~ inserts the default list delimiter character ⏎
\, inserts the default column delimiter character ➤
\@. Named variable name contains the name of the named variable to be inserted.
\ya will insert a track's Yate Album ID
\yt will insert a track's Yate Track ID.
\^name^ will insert the value of the UDTI item name. Note that the escape sequence also work if the UDTI is mapped to a custom variable.
\H will insert the path to the home directory.
Action Editor Windows:
Text fields have a new context menu to facilitate inserting escape sequences.
Text fields have a new context menu to facilitate inserting common UDTIs.
You can now do text searches via the standard Edit>Find menu items.
New Action Groups added and we (hopefully) cleaned up what appears in each group. Of import to note is that the Variable group is gone. Most of what was in there is in the new Assignments group. The Dump Variables statement is in the Prompt category as it always was.
Main Window:
New Actions menu items named Save iTunes PIDs and Remove iTunes PIDs. These menu based functions are convenience methods to save and remove the PIDs.
When all selected files are in the same folder, the status bar will display the path as well as the track counts and duration.
There are no longer restrictions as to the number of image files which can be dragged in at a time.
There are no longer restrictions as to the number of m3u(8) files which can be dragged in at a time while in Playlist mode.
New Open Mode toolbar item which does not have the Link/Do Not Link to iTunes button.
Auto Search for Artwork:
If you get an error indicating that you have been searching too much, there is a new Artwork menu item called Fix Too Much Auto Searching Error. The function allows you to respond to a catcha to prove that you are not a robot.
Snapshot Editor:
The Snapshot editor can be opened if more than one file is selected. The editor will display the tags in the first selected file.
The Properties subtree now displays all properties available via the Get Property statement.
You can copy the value field of any displayed item to the clipboard.
Preferences:
When exporting a single Export Set, you can now export the set, export a sidecar file, export an empty database or export an empty standalone database. The empty database option is useful for creating database files for use in another application and is a way of creating empty Query Databases.
In General Preferences you can now configure the Titlecase algorithm.
File List preferences has a new option to update open databases whenever you Save files. Note this option is equivalent to selecting File>Databases>Update Databases whenever a Save, (File or context menu), is issued. The option has no effect when saving from an action statement, closing files, or quitting the application.
Bug Fixes/Modifications:
Scrolling Database Viewer tables while accumulating images often displayed a beachball on El Capitan.
Artwork Thumbnail controls on custom panels were not always positioned correctly.
Improvements to the AcoustID functionality to better handle invalid data.
Certain keyboard shortcuts were not being preserved after restarting the application.
Most database statements were not properly handling Unique File Identifiers and named Comments.
The Read Track Database Sidecar File statement had a few issues. In order to maintain compatibility with the Open Database for Querying statement it now uses \~ as the delimiter as opposed to \n.
On El Capitan, the Window menu's Full Screen Mode item can now be modified in Preferences-Shortcuts.
The Database view has to remove the current filter before looking for duplicates.
The Evaluate Expression statement was messed up when run stepwise.
The Set Open Mode statement was displaying the wrong mode for Album-Replace.
Importing iTunes values while on the 'Compare iTunes Values' panel did not always import.

New in Yate 3.9.1.1 Build 4590 (Dec 14, 2015)

New in Yate 3.9.1 Build 4588 (Nov 3, 2015)

New in Yate 3.9 Build 4581 (Oct 29, 2015)

Apply Track Database Metadata Changes:
Available from the Actions menu, this function is a special form of the Batch Processor. You supply a Yate Track Database, (a CSV/TSV file with a File Path column) which is automatically read. All changes in the file are applied to the associated tracks. Changes can be optionally pushed to iTunes as well.
This means you can take a CSV/TSV file anywhere, make changes and apply them at a later date without having to open the database or load the tracks.
Note that this is not a synchronization. The metadata in the audio files is updated with any different data found in the database file.
The Batch Processor:
The Batch Processor automatically sets three named variables before executing Batch Start, the main portion of the action and Batch End. The variables are:
Batch Root Folder
The folder passed to the Batch Processor.
Batch Auto-Save
1 if the Auto-Save Files option was selected, 0 otherwise.
Batch Verbose
1 if the Verbose option was selected, 0 otherwise.
Support for fanart.tv:
fanart.tv is an excellant source for a variety of artwork. You must register and then request a Personal API key at their site and enter the API key into a new field on the Preferences-Artwork panel. Unlike other Artwork functions which attempt to group albums, this functionality uses MusicBrainz Ids to request the artwork. Only tracks with MusicBrainz Release IDs will be processed. Other required MusicBrainz IDs will be downloaded if required. See the new action statement's online help for additional information.
The functionality can be accesed in the UI from the Search for Artwork menu and via the new Get Artwork from fanart.tv action statement.
We're happy to be able to provide access to the fanart.tv site. Artwork contributions are appreciated.
AcoustID, Discogs & MusicBrainz:
The Access Discogs and Access MusicBrainz statements have a new mode called Track Matching. Only those tracks which have a release ID and the same qualifying IDs required by Release Matching will be processed. The release ID does not have to be the same in all tracks. Tracks which have the same release ID are processed as a group. This method is useful when you have tracks from different releases in the same folder.
The AcoustID Import MusicBrainz IDs statement has a new option called Allow matching to multiple releases. This option will look at all the available tracks and assign them to releases by trying to match the largest number of tracks possible to any one release. This method is useful when you have tracks from different releases in the same folder. The AcoustID MusicBrainz release ID extraction functionality can be summmarized as:
AcoustID Import MusicBrainz IDs - Allow matching to multiple releases-unchecked
Try to find a single release containing all tracks.
AcoustID Import MusicBrainz IDs - Allow matching to multiple releases-checked
Find the minimum number of releases to contain the tracks.
AcoustID Import Track Metadata
Only look at individual tracks.
All AcoustID functionality automatically imports the MusicBrainz Release Country if a MusicBrainz Release Id is imported.
The AcoustID functionality now better handles the case of duplicate tracks (ie. the same fingerprint) in the same folder. It is also much better at matching tracks in compilations.
Multi Field Editor:
The Replace function has a new mode to replace all occurrences of individual characters in the match pattern.
Action Statements:
New escape sequence \=# where # is 0-9. The sequence is used to indirectly load the contents of a Yate field where the name of the field is in a Variable. The escape sequence and the above Set Indirect statement use field names as they are displayed in the Multi Field Editor.
New action statement called Get Artwork from fanart.tv.
New action statement Set Indirect. The statement is used to set the contents of a Yate field where the field is determined at runtime. This is useful when processing metadata changes found in CSV/TSV files where the columns can be assigned to arbitrary fields.
New action statement Read Track Database Sidecar File. If you want to provide processing on an arbitrary database file you can use this function to obtain information on the column to field mappings.
New action statement Set List Index. The function is used to change the content of a Yate list at a particular index.
New action statement called Length which is used to extract the length of a field or named variable.
The List Contains Test functionality has been extended so that contains tests as well as equality tests can be performed. Using the function you can now search for column specific information such as a Yate Track ID or a File Path within a database file which has been formatted as a list-of-lists by the CSV Data to List statement.
The Preferences action statement has been expanded. See Preferences below.
The Transfer Metadata statement's functionality has been expanded.
Transfer metadata In - Set initial values
In addition to establishing the current values, this option sets Yate's initial values. This means that you can test for modifications made after the transfer.
Transfer metadata in - Create Properties list
As the Transfer Metadata statement imports metadata to a staging file, you do not have access to the source file's audio properties such as Stream, Bit Rate, etc. With this option a Key-Value list is created which contains most of the source file's properties. The List Key statement can be used to read the properties.
Transfer metadata out - Only if modified
When set, the transfer out will only occur if the staging file has been modified.
The Prompt statement has a new Plain Text option. While batch processing the option forces the saving of the text to the log file without the associated issuing action information.
Major enhancements to the AcoustID Import Track Metadata statement. See the online help for more information.
The AcoustID Import MusicBrainz IDs statement has a new option called Allow matching to multiple releases.
The Sort List statement can now sort based on sub-list items.
The Artwork to Folder statement now allows the saving of artwork matching a specified picture type.
The Rearrange Artwork statement now bases the largest test on width*height as opposed to width+height.
The Replace Text function has a new mode to replace all occurrences of individual characters in the match pattern.
Preferences:
When exporting a single Export Set which is valid for use with a Track Database, you are presented with the option Export as Track Database Sidecar. This means that you can now produce CSV/TSV files external to Yate and later provide the appropriate column mappings so the the Database Viewer bi-directional passing of metadata can be performed.
Preferences - Export Sets has a new field type called OOB for Out of Bounds. This field type can be used to map to unknown column types in CSV/TSV files generated external to Yate.
Preferences - Actions has a new option to configure how Yate generates unique values. Yate generates unique values with the Database ID statement and via the \u escape sequence. In the past a proprietary method was the only available type of unique value generated. You can now choose to generate Yate (old style), UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) or GUS (Global Unique String) values. The Preferences action statement has been modified so that you can override your default setting in an action.
Preferences - Actions now lets you choose from a few possible backgrounds for the Action Manager and the Action Editor statement panel.
Preferences - Artwork has a new field for the fanart.tv personal API key.
AcoustID settings have been moved to a AcoustID preference panel.
There is a new Preferences - AcoustID setting to prioritize complete albums over country codes.
Main Window:
You can now close files which are not selected.
Multi line panel editor fields now display blue if they contain invalid characters. Note that while newline characters are not invalid in these fields, carriage control characters are.
Custom Panels:
Named Comments, User Defined URLs and Unique File Identifiers can now be added to custom panels. Along with User Defined Text Info items, these item types are the only items which can be added to a panel more than once.
Bug Fixes:
The Multi Field Editor's Remove & Insert function had issues retaining its numeric settings properly.
The Multi Field Editor's Remove & Insert function was not correctly calculating the remove from the end index. The last character is at index 0 when removing from the end.
If only a single artwork item was preloaded from the Cover Art Archive when running the MusicBrainz Wizard, specifying that the remainder should be loaded only did one more.
Fixed a hang when running Access MusicBrainz while Batch Processing. The hang was metadata dependant.
User Defined Text Info items on custom panels were not always updating their change indicators. They also had issues with choosing values and reverting to a previous state.

New in Yate 3.8.1.3 Build 4484 (Oct 11, 2015)

New in Yate 3.8.1.2 Build 4481 (Oct 7, 2015)

New in Yate 3.8.1.1 Build 4480 (Sep 30, 2015)

New in Yate 3.8.1.0 Build 4479 (Sep 29, 2015)

New in Yate 3.8.0.1 Build 4461 (Sep 13, 2015)

New in Yate 3.8 Build 4458 (Sep 8, 2015)

Main features this release:
Yate now handles video tagging in MPEG-4 containers. (m4v now supported and mp4). Note that the files must contain at least one audio track.
The downloading of Discogs artwork is back.
There is a new snapshot editor which lets you see all the tags in a single file.
Metadata can be imported from Beatport.
The is a new companion application called Audio File Health Check which can be downloaded from the Help menu. Audio File Health Check is an application used to scan your audio collection and produce a log file of errors in the files. An action can be downloaded to repair the files identified in the log.
Application:
Previously, Yate always used m4a as a descriptor for m4a and mp4 files. With the introduction of support for m4v files the container type is now referred to as MPEG-4. Note that the file format is the same for m4a, m4v and mp4 files.
All references to Audio Stream including column headers, filters, etc. have been changed to Stream.
A new wizard is provided to authenticate Yate to access Beatport.
Main Window:
Single line text fields now display blue if they contain any control or newline characters. Previously the highlighting only occurred for newline characters.
Yate text field context menus now have a Remove Invalid Characters menu item.
New editing Video panel.
The Sorting editing panel has additional video based fields.
Audio properties now refers to the Stream as opposed to the Audio Stream. MPEG-4 files will display video after the audio stream type, if appropriate.
New columns added for Episode, Episode ID, Season, Show Name.
New column called A/V which displays either Audio or Video.
Three new toolbar items called Action 1, Action 2 and Action 3. These toolbar buttons will run actions which can be assigned to them from the Action Manager context menu. Note that the tooltips for the buttons will name the associated action.
A new toolbar item for the Beatport Importer.
Made the selection of dragged and loaded files more consistant. When you drag files or open files, they are selected, regardless of the Open Mode and regardless as to if the files are already loaded, hidden or not.
The function menu for Musician Credits and Involved people now has an Append to Values menu item when more than one file is selected. It's an easy way to add common roles to files containing different values.
The function menu for Initial Key now has a Key Notation submenu where you can change the field's value to a different representation.
There are new options to draw a grid around the table cells.
Double clicking on a row in the main file list will display the Artwork Viewer if clicked in the Artwork Column. Double clicking in any other non inline editable column will display the Snapshot Editor.
The Subtitle field has been renamed Description. This makes more sense as the field maps to the iTunes Description field, it is used on the new Video panel and is used by the Beatport importer to store the mix name. The ID3 specification calls the field Subtitle/Description. If you were using the escape sequence \[Subtitle] in an action, it will continue to work as expected, however \[Description] is now the preferred form.
Snapshot Editor:
You can now view and edit a snapshot of all the tags in a single file. Access via the Edit menu, the main window's context menu or a toolbar icon.
Video Editing Panel:
There is a new editing panel called Video.
New tag fields: Classification, Episode, Episode ID, Hi Def Video, Network Name, Season, Show Name, Show Description and Video Description. Sort Show Name is available on the Sorting panel.
The new fields can be synched with iTunes. See Preferences below for more information.
The function button for the Episode ID field has a Synthesize item which is used to build a S##E## string from the Season and Episode fields.
The function button for the Classification field has a Classification Presets submenu allowing you to easily choose predefined classifications.
Yate now handles the iTunMOVI atom so that cast, producers, directors, codirectors and screenwriters can be synchronized with iTunes. There is a new option to enable this functionality as it overwrites information in the Musician Credits, Involved People and Label fields.
Discogs Artwork Changes:
The downloading of Discogs artwork is now rate limited to twenty per minute per IP address. This is far better than 1000 per day per application. Thanks Discogs!
The downloading of Discogs artwork has been reintroduced into the MusicBrainz and Discogs Wizards.
The artwork requests are not time sliced. Time slicing the requests would allow one to be sent every five seconds. The implemented algorithm bursts the requests to obtain as may images as possible. This means that if a release you're looking at only has five images they will come down in about five seconds as opposed to twenty five seconds. Yate synchronizes all image requests to Discogs to ensure that the rate limiting requirements are met. That means it is possible that after rapidly downloading twenty images you may have to wait 40-50 seconds before another request can be made. The application displays the wait state and the next go time wherever appropriate.
Discogs & MusicBrainz Wizards:
Both wizards feature a redesigned artwork viewer which contains an image strip of loaded artwork. Hopefully this is better then next, next, next....
The image strip tags images which are Cover (front) with a star.
The new artwork viewers display the state and origin of loaded and pending artwork. They also display the time that Discogs artwork loading can be resumed.
You can now control how much artwork gets preloaded when loading a release. (See Preferences). You can initiate the download of unloaded artwork the artwork viewers and from the Release panels which now display the new image load state information on the Artwork metadata item.
More work has been done on sanitizing album fields passed to Discogs in order to achieve better search results.
AcoustID:
A new matching algorithm to match tracks as single entities. This is useful to extract basic metadata when a best match for a release cannot be found.
Beatport Support:
Beatport metadata extraction is provided via an action statement named Access Beatport. The function requires a Beatport Track Id which is embedded in purchased mp3 and aiff tracks. All purchased tracks have the Track Id as a prefix in their filename. Yate will look for the Track Id in a variety of places. The function is of most use for purchased WAV files which come with no metadata.
There is also a UI based Beatport Importer which allows you to interactively search and select best matches based on metadata, file names or Track Ids. Note that if you have the required Track Ids, the action statement is far more efficient.
Text Encoding:
The ID3 specification uses ISO-Latin-1 as its 8 bit text encoding. In the past before UTF8 was supported, many people specified their mp3 fields in a variety of languages which contained characters not supported in ISO Latin-1. When these files are read by Yate, fields which specify an encoding of ISO Latin-1 may not display the correct characters if in fact they were not ISO Latin-1 characters.
Yate now allows you to specify the original encoding and will attempt to re-encode the text according to that encoding. Note that if a field currently contains characters which cannot be represented in ISO Latin-1, no modifications will occur.
The re-encoding can be performed in the Multi Field Editor, via the new Re-encode action function and via the Yate Transformations submenu in a text field's context menu.
Action Functions:
Variable fields are no longer cleared when executing a Save or Revert action statement.
The Trim statement now supports the normalizing of newline sequences to Mac based newline characters.
When trimming the Comments, Lyrics, Terms of Use, Commercial Information Webpage or Official Artist/Performer Webpage fields only the default items are modified. If you would like the trim statement to modify all of items for any of these field types, select the new deep option. The option has no effect on other field types.
New property called Has Video which can be used to determine if a file contains video track(s).
The Save function now exposes an option which was previously only available as a hidden feature. The Save if mp3 has leading padding will do as it says. Note that leading padding is typically benign. However, If you have files which are not playing correctly or which cannot be fingerprinted, removing the leading padding may fix the issue. We do not like messing with the audio stream. Only do this if for some reason you feel that the audio track is not behaving correctly.
The Field List Enumerator statement now supports Unique File Identifiers. You can also specify that you want an index list as opposed to a list containing descriptor names. This is useful when looking for duplicate items. Note that when enumerating Artwork an index list is always produced.
The User Defined Fields statement now supports Unique File Identifiers. You can also now match items by index as opposed to matching a name. More information and limitations are described in the function's online help.
The is a new Access Beatport statement.
New AcoustID Import Track Metadata statement.
New Re-encode statement used to change the encoding of text.
New Key Notation statement used to change the representation of the musical key between a variety of notations.
There is a new escape sequence \{field name}. This sequence will insert the initial value of a field. The initial value of a field is the value when the file was loaded or last saved. Most action text fields have a new context menu submenu called Insert Initial Yate Field which can be used to pick the field names.
New Transfer Metadata statement. The statement is used to transfer metadata in from or out to an audio file. The statement can be used when parsing text files to apply changes to files.
The Preferences statement has been expanded to support all the special exception/replacement sets currently available. It also now supports setting single preference values from a drop down list in order to override the value associated with the setting. Currently only the new Named Variables Persist option is supported. Preference changes made via this statement get reverted when the batch processor terminates or an action being run from the UI stops.
Action Manager:
New context menu items to set asociations with the main window's new toolbar Action 1, Action 2 and Action 3 items.
You can display a popup window which contains an action's description by means of the Description... context menu item. An actions's description is the first non empty text in leading Force Grouped or Comment statements. Hitting the space bar has the same effect.
The Dump Variables action statement is now displayed in red to make it easier to quickly locate debugging statements.
The Multi Field Editor:
The Trim function now supports the normalizing of newline sequences to Mac based newline characters.
When trimming the Comments, Lyrics, Terms of Use, Commercial Information Webpage or Official Artist/Performer Webpage fields only the default items are modified. If you would like the trim operation to modify all of items for any of these field types, select the new deep option. The option has no effect on other field types.
Added a Re-encode function.
Preferences:
Preferences-File List
New option called Do not enforce formatting of the Year field. When set, the Year field will not be UI restricted to a single integer. The field will be able to contain anything. Changing the option only takes effect when the application is next started.
New options to draw a grid around table cells.
Removed the Auto select tracks on open (Album mode, Replace) option. File selection is hopefully now more consistant.
Preferences-Actions
By default, named variables are erased whenever an action started from the UI terminates or after each folder is processed while batch processing. There is a new option called Named variables persist while batch processing which allows you to use named variable content across folders while batch processing,
Preferences-Audio
All
New option to automatically set File Type to a file's extension when loading a file.
MPEG-4 has two new options to assist in synchronizing fields to iTunes. Yate attempts to avoid writing empty tags fields to files. iTunes however, will never overwrite a tag field in its database when rereading a file which does not contain the tag field. Yate typically handles this case programmatically when refreshing iTunes. However, certain fields cannot be written to iTunes programmatically. For these fields you must write empty tag values or iTunes will not update when refreshed.
Write Empty Content Advisory will cause the associated field to always be written. This was the previous behaviour. If you do not wish to do so, you can now disable it.
Write empty video fields handles the empty value case for the new video fields which cannot be programmatically set. This only affects the Classification, Hi Def Video, Network Name and Show Description fields. Note that empty fields will not be written, if the file does not contain a video track.
Process iTunMOVI for files with video will do as the name suggests. When enabled, the Musician Credits, Involved People and Label fields will be synchronized with the video role information that iTunes maintains.
Preferences-Discogs
Import all artwork is analogous to the same option in the MusicBrainz preferences.
Always use imported artwork metadata is analogous to the same option in the MusicBrainz preferences.
A new artwork preload popup button which allows you to preload no artwork, a single artwork item or all artwork.
Preferences-MusicBrainz
A new Cover Art Archive Artwork preload popup button which allows you to preload no artwork, a single artwork item or all artwork, coming from the Cover Art Archive (the artwork location referenced from MusicBrainz content).
A new Discogs Artwork preload popup button which allows you to preload no artwork, a single artwork item or all artwork, coming from Discogs.
Preferences-Rename
New template items:
Episode
Episode Pad2
Episode Pad3
Episode ID
Hi Def Video
Season
Season Pad2
Show Name
Sort Show Name
Preferences-Replacements
The from string associated with a replacement is typically a simple text string. You can now specify that a replacement is only to be made if the from string is at the beginning of the source string, follows a newline character or follows a list of supplied characters. Note that when searching backwards for one of the previous conditions, space characters are ignored. The special characters are specified by starting the from string with the sequence \{characters\}. For example a replacement of:
from:
\{.-([

New in Yate 3.7.1.2 Build 4276 (Jul 23, 2015)

New in Yate 3.7.1.1 Build 4265 (Jul 3, 2015)

New in Yate 3.7.1 Build 4262 (Jul 1, 2015)

New in Yate 3.7 Build 4184 (Jun 19, 2015)

32 Bit Support Dropped:
We polled you over a year ago asking for opinions on our support for Snow Leopard and 32 bit architectures. We didn't rush into this decision, but based on your feedback 32 bit support has now been dropped. Not to worry...Snow Leopard support is not being dropped!
Support for DFF Files:
Support has been added to directly tag DFF files. While there is no firm standard in place, the same approach was taken as is used in WAV files. Various other applications and hardware rippers are starting to use the same convention.
File Browser:
The File Browser now attempts to return to the previous selection state when the Back button is hit.
Database Viewer:
Yate's CSV viewer has been renamed the Database Viewer. It will now read/write CSV (comma separated values) and TSV (tab delimited values) files.
The Save As functionality now supports the explicit specification of the field delimiter, the character encoding and the line terminators to be used.
Main Window:
You can now write the data displayed in the main file list as a CSV or TSV file via the new File>Save As CSV/TSV File... menu or context menu item. All visible columns with the exception of the change status column and the Artwork, and iTunes columns will be processed.
Thumbnail artwork views outside of a full artwork display now have tooltips describing the associated properties.
The file list has four new columns: Creation Date, Modification Date, Mood and Play Count.
The file list Select Files context submenu now has new items: Not in Same Folder, In Same Folder, With Different Column Data and With Same Column Data.
You can now hide and select files based on the same or different Album data. The Select Files sub menu is now available on the application's File menu so that items can be assigned to shortcuts.
Edit Panel button context menus now display custom panel assigned names.
The column header context menu now displays the current names assigned to Custom fields and the Mapping columns.
New toolbar item to open the Recent/Sticky Items menu.
A new File menu, context menu and toolbar item to refresh the loaded files. The Refresh command tests all loaded files to see if they were externally modified. If they were, you will given the option to reload the files. You can optionally set that all modified files be reloaded if no changes will be lost. This is a convenience function that need only be used in you are possibly modifying the same files in Yate and at least one other application at the same time.
The Filter function has a new test called Externally Modified, which can be used to filter on files which would be identified by the new Refresh command.
The Filter function has a new test called Modified, which can be used to filter those files which have been modified with unsaved changes. (Red dots).
The Multi Field Editor:
New layout...hopefully far less cluttered.
Copy now supports Only copy if the source field is not empty and Only copy to empty destination fields. The function now supports copying fields or property values.
Replace now supports Or matching.
Sort Form added as a function.
All content is now retained when Yate is closed.
AcoustID:
When the Import AcoustID Recording Information window is displayed, an attempt will be made to find the best release containing all of the selected tracks. More than one track must be present. A new context menu function is available to select the best release for all tracks. More information in the online help.
New action statement AcoustID Import MusicBrainz IDs. The statement will attempt to find the best release containing all the selected tracks. If a release can be identified, the MusicBrainz Release and Recoding IDs will be imported. Optionally the Album, Artist and Title fields can be imported as well. If the function succeeds there will be sufficient metadata in place to use the Access MusicBrainz statement while batch processing. This means that MusicBrainz can be accessed while batch processing even if the Release and Recording ids are not initially available.
The is a new preloaded action (on new installs) called Unattended Metadata Lookups. You can get the action off the Sample Actions web page or you can import the set of updated preloaded actions by holding down the Alt (Option) key and selecting the Yate>Reset Built In Items>Import Actions menu item. Note: make sure that you hold down the Alt (Option) key, otherwise you will overwrite your existing actions. After the import the action manager will have a Preloaded Actions folder.
Discogs & MusicBrainz:
When on the Search page of the wizards, if you have a properly formatted Release Id in the system clipboard, you can paste it in via the Command-I (⌘I) keyboard shortcut. The Album search field will be set appropriately and the Artist search field will be cleared.
In order to use the above command more effectively when copying a release from the Discogs site, enclosing square brackets and a leading r will be removed when constructing the id=release id sequence. ie. [r12345] in the clipboard will be identified as release 12345.
Found and now account for new out of spec Discogs method to separate disc/track numbers.
The weight algorithms used for mapping files have been tweaked once again. Matching albums with multiple instances of the same title should be better.
Added Remap Using Custom Settings and Configure Custom Remap Settings... context menu items. These give you full control over remapping the files based on your own knowledge of the formatting of the filenames and what metadata is available.
The Access Discogs and Access MusciBrainz action statements both have a new mode called Loose Release Matching. This mode requires a consistent Release Id but does not require ordinal positioning metadata. This method increases the likelihood of accessing the online sources when batch processing. If sufficient metadata is present such that loose matching is not required, the option will automatically be removed.
When using Access Discogs or Access MusicBrainz, the action test state will be set to true if an attempt is made to contact the service. If there is insufficient or inconsistent metadata, the action test state will be set to false.
File to Tag:
File to Tag menus can now display a sub-menu called File to Tag Actions. Any action where the first executable statement is Filename to Tags will be displayed in the sub-menu. This is to make it easier to locate actions which are essentially providing additional metadata manipulations after performing an initial extraction from the path.
Preferences:
A new Preferences-MusicBrainz option to specify a list of preferred country codes (two character codes). The country code list is used by the AcoustID best release matching algorithm to determine the best MusicBrainz release id.
Disc, Title and Track are no longer treated as special Export Set fields. They are now in the lower portion of the export type list with the other standard field types.
All items that can be displayed as columns in the main list of files can now be specified in Export Sets (with the exception of the change status column, and the Artwork and iTunes columns).
The full Rating Mapping display in Preferences-Audio now has a picker for preset settings.
Preferences-Audio now has a picker for preset settings.
When reading the rate atom as configured in Preferences-Audio-m4a, Yate's default rating storage method is preferred on a mismatch. There is a new option called preferred on mismatch which places the rate value at a higher priority.
The Custom Field configuration in Preferences-File List now has presets for Acoustid Data and Acoustid Fingerprint.
Token Editor context menus now display the names currently assigned to Custom fields. Note that the token being inserted is associated with the Custom field number and not the current name. This is only a convenience.
You can elect to play a sound for the Batch processing finished notification. The sound option is only used in conjunction with Notification Center.
A few context menus and submenus now display a How to Use this Menu item. There is a new General option to hide these menu items.
When a Tag Set is loaded into a field table display (various actions such as Append and the Multi Field Editor), the sort is now automatically changed to descending by the state column. This is to make it easier to quickly see what is enabled. The context menu in any Tag Set display now has an Enable/Disable Auto Sort item. Note that the setting is global and affects all Tag Set displays.
Action Statements:
New action statement AcoustID Import MusicBrainz IDs described above.
The following action statements now support named variables: Append, Get Next Line, Prompt for Text, Prompt for File or Folder, Replace, Stop and Open Files, Set Action Test State from Variable and Set Variable to Action Test State.
The Dump Variables statement is now valid while batch processing. By default the statement writes to the log file. There is a new UI option to force display to the UI.
The Export Metadata action statement has a new Text only option. When enabled, only a single plist file will be created. Artwork, General Encapsulated Objects and Private Information Items are ignored.
The Close Database, Open Database, Remove Items from Database, Save Database and Update Database statements now require paths with filename extensions of .csv, .tsv or .tab
The Create Album Database and Create Track Database statements now allow the implicit specification of a Comma or Tab field delimiter. The field delimiter chosen determines the set of valid filename extensions. When the Standalone option is selected you can now opt to disable the sidecar file.
New action statements called Validate Discogs Metadata and Validate MusicBrainz Metadata. These statements can be used to test for consistent release ids and the presence of the secondary track identification metadata.
The Prompt for Text popup window now has a Multi Line Editor button which allows you to edit more conveniently edit multi line text.
Rewrote the Move Non Audio Files statement to be able to move files from multiple sources to multiple destinations. The Move files... field can be left empty to imply all files. The Move files... and Exclude files... lists can now specify files and/or file types. In order to accomodate spaces in filenames, the item separator has been changed from a space to a slash (/). Existing actions have been updated accordingly.
The Delete Non Audio Files statement Delete files... and Exclude files... lists can now specify files and/or file types. In order to accomodate spaces in filenames, the item separator has been changed from a space to a slash (/). Existing actions have been updated accordingly.
There is a new escape sequence \. which inserts a centered dot character. This can be useful as a replacement character when debugging and looking for spaces in fields.
The User Defined Fields statement has an All option which changes the setting of the action test state in stepwise mode from any file to all files. There is also a new test condition to verify that an item exists, is not empty and has the same value across all files.
m4a Files:
Evidently there are now three places to store personal information in a purchased iTunes album. The out of bounds identification field, the apID (owner email) atom and the ownr (owner name) atom. Yate will now save apID and ownr information to its Owner field. Either or both fields will be written when appropriate. Processing of the out of bound identification has not changed.
The 'xid ' atom can be used as a vendor specific field which may contain the label and some sort of ISRC value. The information is now saved as a UDTI named iTunes Vendor xID.
WAV Files:
Found an alternate way that the ID3 tag can be identified in a WAV file which is now handled.
Bug Fixes:
The clear AcoustID data and fingerprint functionality was not checking if the associated items were mapped to custom fields. This only affected the Clear... menu and action functions. The code interacting with the data was working fine.
The Copy Metadata functionality was not copying artwork.
There was a documentation issue with the normalized names for the Acoustid UDTIs.
A Track Count or Disc Count was not saved in ID3 or m4a files if the associated track/disc number was zero or empty.
AcoustID fingerprints were not being saved when the Fingerprinter threw warnings along with a produced fingerprint.
When running the Batch Processor and accessing MusicBrainz, an invalid Discogs Release Id would pop up an error dialog intended for non batch processing and the wizard would hang.
The normalized UDTI value for Track Position in ID3 and m4a files was incorrectly assigned to TRACK_NUMBER_TEXT as opposed to Track Number Text. When performing Discogs lookups, Yate will now process the correct normalized value of Track Position and the alternate of TRACK_NUMBER_TEXT.
The Sort Track List action statement was broken.
Fixed a potential crash when setting Yate Album Ids across multiple albums.
You can optionally specify to use a monospace font in Action Editor windows. On certain Retina display Macs the font was cropped.
Fixed a File to Tag error where a space delimiter was not working when in the middle of the filename.
Edit Panel preset buttons and Custom Panel buttons were not accepting Control-Left Click as a Right Click.

New in Yate 3.6.0.3 Build 4002 (Jun 15, 2015)

New in Yate 3.6.0.2 Build 4001 (May 4, 2015)

New in Yate 3.6.0.1 Build 4000 (Apr 29, 2015)

New in Yate 3.6 Build 3999 (Apr 28, 2015)

General:
Direct support for Notification Center has been added. You can now issue notifications through Growl or Notification Center. You can choose which classes of notifications you would like to receive. If you previously had notifications enabled they will still be issued via Growl unless you change the setting in Preferences - General. Note that if you are running OS X 10.6 or 10.7, a setting of Notification Center will automatically be treated as Growl. Notification Center support was introduced in 10.8.
Main Window:
If you are running on OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) you can now Hide/Show the main window's tile bar via the Window menu.
UDTIs and Mappings:
An earlier version of Yate moved the display of the MusicBrainz Recording Id to the Unique File Identifier (UFID) panel. This is where the value is stored in ID3 files and it seemed like a good idea at the time. In practice, however, not having the information in the same place as other MusicBrainz metadata (on the UD Text panel), was not a terribly good idea. The Recording Id is now displayed as a UDTI. Yate takes care of making sure it is loaded from and stored to the correct place in ID3 based files.
In the past, Yate normalized some FLAC metadata to use the same field names as those used in ID3 and m4a files. This was done for UDTIs which Yate directly manipulated (mostly various Discogs and MusicBrainz metadata items). FLAC metadata item names are only stored in upper case alphabetic characters and the normalization process ensured that there was a common name which could be referenced.
Starting with this version, Yate is far more aggressive with the normalization process and normalizes FLAC, ID3 and m4a UDTI metadata in order to produce a list of more meaningful names representing the function as opposed to the low level frame/atom/comment name which might have been chosen for arbitrary reasons years ago.
If you have written actions to manipulate UDTIs, they may break as the names may have changed. The Frame Mapping Table available from the main Help page describes the current values in the Field column and the older values (where appropriate) in the ID3 Frame column.
If you do not have the time to modify your actions, you can revert to the earlier behaviour by means of the Do not normalize UDTIs option in Preferences-Audio. We feel the new names displayed by the normalization process make much more sense and you should only remove the functionality if you really think it is necessary.
FLAC UDTI Mappings:
In the past, if you were adding your own metadata items as UDTIs and you wanted common names to be displayed for FLAC, mp3 and m4a files, you had to use uppercase names. FLAC mappings to User Defined Text Info items are now used as alias names. If you want to add a metadata item called My Metadata, mapping it as a User Defined Text Info item will preserve the alphabetic case. This is a fully optional step for aesthetic reasons only and in no way affects what is stored in the audio files.
Custom Mappings:
When assigning custom mappings you can now choose from a list of commonly used mappings to set their associated values. Note that as was always the case, Custom Mappings are based on the actual metadata frame/atom/comment names stored in the audio files.
Custom Panels:
User Defined Text Information (UDTI) items can now be mapped to custom panels. This is the only component type which can appear more than once on a single custom panel.
There are now ten custom panels.
Custom panels can now have components which resize vertically which are not anchored to the bottom of the panel. You must now mark components as vertically resizable. Components anchored to the bottom of a panel are no longer automatically resizable. Custom panels built before this release will have been modified to have the same render behaviour as before. Components marked as vertically resizable will be resized when rendered unless they are adjacent to another resizable component which does not have the same first grid row or has a different number of initial grid rows.
Edit Panel Picker:
If you've been using the Edit Panel Picker, you will have to rearrange the button order as seven new edit panels have been added (Custom 4 through 10).
The drawer based Edit Picker, was intentionally designed to be a single column display so that the drawer hugged the window as much as possible. With the introduction of the new Custom panels, it is now possible that not all the panel buttons can be displayed as a drawer cannot be larger than its parent window. If your main window does not have sufficient height to display all the buttons, buttons for which there is no room will not be displayed. A ... indicator will be displayed at the bottom of the drawer to indicate this fact. If you want to move buttons around, you may have to resize the main window in order to see them all. Note that the window based Edit Panel Picker is not affected.
Artwork:
You can now crop non square artwork items from any full artwork control's large image well via the Crop Artwork... context menu item.
Batch Processing:
You can now optionally run an inline action before any files/folders are processed and after all file/folders have been processed. The special inline actions are named Batch Start and Batch End. The actions are always run stepwise even if the main action starts with a Force Grouped statement. Remember that information can only be retained in system variables between executions of the main action on individual folders.
Actions:
New action statement called Normalize Artwork which ensures that every track in an album has the same artwork items.
New action statement called CSV Data to List. The function will convert one or more lines of CSV data to a list of lists representing the content.
New action statement called List to CSV Data. The function is used to format list data for CSV files.
New action statement called Stop Batch Processing.
The Remove Artwork statement now has an option to remove duplicates.
The Compare Text statement now supports the relational operators: . A fuzzy compare has also been added.
The following statements can now be executed when batch processing: Copy to Clipboard, Text from Clipboard, Ask, Prompt for File or Folder and Prompt for Text. The intent is to use the statements in the Batch Start and Batch End inline actions.
The Prompt statement by default gets written to the batch log file when executed while batch processing. There is a new UI option which will direct the prompt to be issued to the UI. The intent is to use the statement in the Batch Start and Batch End inline actions.
If you wish to create a CSV file which does not contain the minimum field requirements to be an Album or Track database you can now do so. Use the new standalone option in the Create Album Database and Create Track Database statements.
Bug Fixes:
The Content Advisory and AAC Kind fields were editable.
Selecting an empty Content Advisory did not work if tracks were selected with multiple values.
When importing from Discogs, Part of a Compilation values of 0 were incorrectly identified as being different from a Yate value of empty.
The Set Variable to Action Test State was broken in the last release.
The Set Named Variable had some UI issues since the last release.
The Set System Variable had some UI issues since the last release.
The Prompt for File/Folder statement sometimes incorrectly hid the New File option.

New in Yate 3.5.0.1 Build 3920 (Mar 27, 2015)

Retina Display Aware:
The application is now Retina Display aware. If you've been halving your scale factor in Preferences-Artwork to get the size you wanted, please stop doing so. Forcing images to greyscale and the square images functionality was also affected by the pixel multiplying.
General:
A new case modification type is available wherever the Title Case option is present. The new function called lower-Title Case is a hybrid mode used to bypass the fact that the title case algorithm ignores words with contained capital letters. The title case algorithm is implemented in this fashion to prevent names such as CCR and REM from being modified. The Lower-Title Case function first converts the text to lower case before applying the title case logic.
Action Functions:
Count Items and List Item at Index now support saving the result to a named variable.
List Key now supports the entry of an alternate key/value separator. The function also now supports fields as well as named variables.
The Prompt function has a new Log option. When enabled the prompt will be sent to the system log and will be viewable with the Console application.
Force Grouped now allows an inline comment.
The User Defined function has been enhanced. There is a new test only mode which supports various test scenarios. The setting of the action test state is now documented for each individual mode.
The Scale Artwork function now lets you specify a compression factor when forcing jpg artwork items.
The Run, Test and Repeat With statements all have a new Indirect option. The option enables the use of escape sequences in the text field where you specify the name of the action to be run. This enables you to choose the action to be run based on the contents of Variable fields or any other constructed pattern. The action name is only validated at run time. If the evaluated name is empty, no action is run... this is by design. You can setup lists using the various list functions to contain the names of actions; inline or not. By using the List Item At Index function, you can pull an action name and place it in a variable which can then be specified as an indirect action name.
The List Contains Test statement now has a Save Index option.
The Add to List statement now allows the insertion of an item at a specified index.
New action statement Field List Enumerator which produces lists which can be used to enumerate Artwork, User Defined Text Info, User Defined URL and Comment items via the Repeat With statement.
New action statement Indexed Artwork which can be used to get and set information from artwork items based on their index in the artwork list.
New action statement Remove List Item at Index.
Action Editor Windows:
Action statements which support fields and named variables now use a single text field to represent the choice.
There are two new context menu items in an Action Editor Window. You can save the entire action to the clipboard as text or as an HTML snippet.
Main Window File List:
You can now configure the alignment and text cropping location for most columns in the main file list window. This is performed via Preferences - File List - Customize column display attributes - Configure.
New main window column called File Type which displays a file's filename extension.
Column fields which display sizes are now formatted for GB (dsf files are large), MB, KB and B. Common usage is used for the calculations as opposed to rigid actual sizes.
Main Window Edit Panels:
New Edit Panel Picker which displays a list of all 26 possible edit panels and provides fast access to the panels. The Picker is enabled from the Window menu. The Picker can be viewed as a drawer attached to the left or right of the main window or alternately as a stand alone window which can optionally be configured as always on top. The layout of buttons in the picker can be rearranged by dragging a button to a new location.
You can now disable/enable autocomplete on the combo box controls which use the Artists, Composers and Genre lists. The settings are maintained individually for each list type. The settings are accessed from the Edit menu. The items may be assigned to keyboard shortcuts.
Combo box controls which use the Artists, Composers and Genre lists now have new menu options to manually add items to and remove items from their respective lists.
Function button context menu links to a field's associated multi item editor panel no longer display counts. The counts were somewhat meaningless as they reflected total items offset by the default item. The actual multi item editor panels display merged items so the number never lined up.
Link controls such as the User Defined Items link on the More Info panel no longer display counts. As before, the links only appear if there is data on the destination panel.
The URLs panel now has potential links to the Commercial Information Webpages and Official Artist/Performer Webpages panels.
If a single line field in a panel contains text which contains a newline character, the text will be displayed in blue. You can then use the field's associated function button's Choose Value context menu item to view/edit the full content.
The Format... function button menu item, now operates when the selected files have different values.
Custom Panels:
You can now crop Custom fields in Custom Panels when they are single line items.
New Custom Panel controls named Thumbnail (1), Thumbnail (2), Thumbnail (3). The number in parenthesis indicates the fixed number of rows occupied by the control. The controls can be cropped.
Audio Information Panel:
ID3 version information is now displayed where appropriate.
Sizes are now formatted for GB, MB, KB and B. Common usage is used for the calculations as opposed to rigid actual sizes.
Artwork:
When saving artwork items to the file system from a file dialog, you can set the compression factor for jpg images.
Preferences:
Preferences - File List allows you to configure main window file list column attributes.
Preference - System Variables allows you to view/edit the content of a system variable in a multi line editor.
AcoustID Recording Info Display:
Title and Recording ID are now available for import when a release is selected.
Import all Metadata will now pull Title and Recording ID when a release is selected.
Bug Fixes:
You can no longer resize the lower right panel in an Action Editor window to be smaller than the required minimum size....at least we hope so.
The Audio Properties control is now handled properly on Custom Panels.
Custom fields were described as resizable when they occupied a single row on a Custom Panel. They are only resizable when the occupy two or more rows.
When exiting the Custom Panel Editor, the modified name and/or tooltip of the displayed panel was reflected though the UI. Name and/or tooltip changes to panels other than the displayed panel were not reflected.
If you had load on double click set in the File Browser View options, the Open menu item was always treated as a Load.
Lot's of UI labels were cropped in OS releases earlier than Yosemite.
When the MusicBrainz Id descriptive names were changed in v3.4, a few AcoustID menu items were not updated.
When displaying the Artwork Save As panel, the Keep a Copy option was not properly enabled/disabled.
Format Credits via action or the UI would stop if a selected file had an empty credits field.
There were circumstances when using the value chooser to select an empty value would not remove the display of the ??? multiple value placeholder.
When an image was squared, the Mime type display was not being changed to image/png.

New in Yate 3.5 Build 3919 (Mar 26, 2015)

Retina Display Aware:
The application is now Retina Display aware. If you've been halving your scale factor in Preferences-Artwork to get the size you wanted, please stop doing so. Forcing images to greyscale and the square images functionality was also affected by the pixel multiplying.
General:
A new case modification type is available wherever the Title Case option is present. The new function called lower-Title Case is a hybrid mode used to bypass the fact that the title case algorithm ignores words with contained capital letters. The title case algorithm is implemented in this fashion to prevent names such as CCR and REM from being modified. The Lower-Title Case function first converts the text to lower case before applying the title case logic.
Action Functions:
Count Items and List Item at Index now support saving the result to a named variable.
List Key now supports the entry of an alternate key/value separator. The function also now supports fields as well as named variables.
The Prompt function has a new Log option. When enabled the prompt will be sent to the system log and will be viewable with the Console application.
Force Grouped now allows an inline comment.
The User Defined function has been enhanced. There is a new test only mode which supports various test scenarios. The setting of the action test state is now documented for each individual mode.
The Scale Artwork function now lets you specify a compression factor when forcing jpg artwork items.
The Run, Test and Repeat With statements all have a new Indirect option. The option enables the use of escape sequences in the text field where you specify the name of the action to be run. This enables you to choose the action to be run based on the contents of Variable fields or any other constructed pattern. The action name is only validated at run time. If the evaluated name is empty, no action is run... this is by design. You can setup lists using the various list functions to contain the names of actions; inline or not. By using the List Item At Index function, you can pull an action name and place it in a variable which can then be specified as an indirect action name.
The List Contains Test statement now has a Save Index option.
The Add to List statement now allows the insertion of an item at a specified index.
New action statement Field List Enumerator which produces lists which can be used to enumerate Artwork, User Defined Text Info, User Defined URL and Comment items via the Repeat With statement.
New action statement Indexed Artwork which can be used to get and set information from artwork items based on their index in the artwork list.
New action statement Remove List Item at Index.
Action Editor Windows:
Action statements which support fields and named variables now use a single text field to represent the choice.
There are two new context menu items in an Action Editor Window. You can save the entire action to the clipboard as text or as an HTML snippet.
Main Window File List:
You can now configure the alignment and text cropping location for most columns in the main file list window. This is performed via Preferences - File List - Customize column display attributes - Configure.
New main window column called File Type which displays a file's filename extension.
Column fields which display sizes are now formatted for GB (dsf files are large), MB, KB and B. Common usage is used for the calculations as opposed to rigid actual sizes.
Main Window Edit Panels:
New Edit Panel Picker which displays a list of all 26 possible edit panels and provides fast access to the panels. The Picker is enabled from the Window menu. The Picker can be viewed as a drawer attached to the left or right of the main window or alternately as a stand alone window which can optionally be configured as always on top. The layout of buttons in the picker can be rearranged by dragging a button to a new location.
You can now disable/enable autocomplete on the combo box controls which use the Artists, Composers and Genre lists. The settings are maintained individually for each list type. The settings are accessed from the Edit menu. The items may be assigned to keyboard shortcuts.
Combo box controls which use the Artists, Composers and Genre lists now have new menu options to manually add items to and remove items from their respective lists.
Function button context menu links to a field's associated multi item editor panel no longer display counts. The counts were somewhat meaningless as they reflected total items offset by the default item. The actual multi item editor panels display merged items so the number never lined up.
Link controls such as the User Defined Items link on the More Info panel no longer display counts. As before, the links only appear if there is data on the destination panel.
The URLs panel now has potential links to the Commercial Information Webpages and Official Artist/Performer Webpages panels.
If a single line field in a panel contains text which contains a newline character, the text will be displayed in blue. You can then use the field's associated function button's Choose Value context menu item to view/edit the full content.
The Format... function button menu item, now operates when the selected files have different values.
Custom Panels:
You can now crop Custom fields in Custom Panels when they are single line items.
New Custom Panel controls named Thumbnail (1), Thumbnail (2), Thumbnail (3). The number in parenthesis indicates the fixed number of rows occupied by the control. The controls can be cropped.
Audio Information Panel:
ID3 version information is now displayed where appropriate.
Sizes are now formatted for GB, MB, KB and B. Common usage is used for the calculations as opposed to rigid actual sizes.
Artwork:
When saving artwork items to the file system from a file dialog, you can set the compression factor for jpg images.
Preferences:
Preferences - File List allows you to configure main window file list column attributes.
Preference - System Variables allows you to view/edit the content of a system variable in a multi line editor.
AcoustID Recording Info Display:
Title and Recording ID are now available for import when a release is selected.
Import all Metadata will now pull Title and Recording ID when a release is selected.
Bug Fixes:
You can no longer resize the lower right panel in an Action Editor window to be smaller than the required minimum size....at least we hope so.
The Audio Properties control is now handled properly on Custom Panels.
Custom fields were described as resizable when they occupied a single row on a Custom Panel. They are only resizable when the occupy two or more rows.
When exiting the Custom Panel Editor, the modified name and/or tooltip of the displayed panel was reflected though the UI. Name and/or tooltip changes to panels other than the displayed panel were not reflected.
If you had load on double click set in the File Browser View options, the Open menu item was always treated as a Load.
Lot's of UI labels were cropped in OS releases earlier than Yosemite.
When the MusicBrainz Id descriptive names were changed in v3.4, a few AcoustID menu items were not updated.
When displaying the Artwork Save As panel, the Keep a Copy option was not properly enabled/disabled.
Format Credits via action or the UI would stop if a selected file had an empty credits field.
There were circumstances when using the value chooser to select an empty value would not remove the display of the ??? multiple value placeholder.
When an image was squared, the Mime type display was not being changed to image/png.

New in Yate 3.4.0.2 Build 3869 (Mar 6, 2015)

New in Yate 3.4.0.1 Build 3853 (Feb 25, 2015)

Main Window File List:
New filtering functionality for the main file list. You can now define compound filters and hide, close and select files which either match or do not match a filter. You can filter in one way or another on any pretty much any metadata associated with a track. (There are more than 120 test points.) The filters can be saved, modified and exported. You can hide filter options that you're not interested in. The new functionality is available from the File>Filter... menu item, the main window's Filter... context menu item and from the new Filter toolbar item. Saved filters are available from the Close Files , Hide Files and Select Files submenus.
The filtering options added in v3.3 and Close Under Mask have been removed as the new filtering functionality is far more powerful.
A Randomize option is available from the main window's file list column header's context menu.
AcousticBrainz Support:
AcousticBrainz provides access to an online database used to maintain acoustic information extracted from audio files. At this point we're supporting the importing of BPM and Initial Key values.
Track Renumbering:
The Renumber and Calculate Track of functions (via the UI or actions) have per disc and per album variants. The per album methods are essentially what existed before. The per disc methods will do the functions in discs within albums. Note that the toolbar items for these functions remain the per album variants.
There is now a Renumber from... UI function.
There is now a Renumber Random UI function. The function renumbers selected tracks from 1 in a random order. This can be useful if you are creating your own compilations and you want to randomly number the tracks.
Playlist Support:
The Create m3u Files action function has been enhanced. You have control as to whether relative or absolute paths are used; you can relocate the paths and you can supply specific file names. You can also randomly order the tracks in the produced playlist.
The Create iTunes Playlist function has a new Randomize track order option.
Custom Fields:
There are now 10 custom fields Custom0...Custom9. The new fields are available as File List columns, and in Rename and File to Tag templates.
Custom fields in Tag Sets and action editor statement lists now show the current name associated with the field.
You have always been able to set the mappings for Custom fields in FLAC files. You can now do so for ID3 based files and m4a/mp4 files as well. This means that you can map your custom fields to specific file frames/atoms used by other applications. This will be useful for users who access the extended classical fields used by some applications. Note that in ID3 based files the Custom fields can be mapped to COMM, TXXX and WXXX frames. The functionality is accessed via the Column Mappings and Custom Fields - Configure button in Preferences - File List. Custom fields are properly synchronized with their low level mappings as you would expect. For example if you map a custom field to the Discogs Release Id, the Discogs Wizard will set the appropriate custom field even though it lives as a UDTI in the file.
Action Manager:
The Action Manager now keeps track of modification date/times for actions. There is a new column in the window to display the data. Note that older actions which do not as of yet have a recorded modification time, will display the field as empty. You can configure the format for the display of the date/time information in Preferences-Actions.
You can now search for actions in the Action Manager.
The entire Action Manager display can be sorted ascending and descending by clicking on the column headers. You can also sort a selected folder or the folder containing the selected action via the Sort Folder context menu items.
Action Editor:
When doing a SaveAs in an action you can now choose to have the new action replace all references to the old name. The initial action is not deleted or modified.
You can now choose to display the list of action statements in an action editor window with a monospace font. See Preferences-Actions.
Comment statements are now highlighted to make them more visible.
Action Functions:
There are new escape sequences, \C0, ... \C9 to insert the value of a custom field.
There is a new escape sequence, \[field name] which used to insert the contents of the specified field within a file. The field names are case insensitive and are available for easy insertion from context menus. If the specified field name cannot be matched the sequence will simply be removed. Note that Variables and Custom fields can only be inserted via the \v and \c escape sequences.
The Start function allows you to specify an inline comment.
The Copy function now has an only if the source is not empty option.
The Create m3u function has been enhanced.
The Renumber Tracks function has been enhanced.
The Compare Text Test function now has a like operator.
The User Defined Fields function has a new Set state option. If an item match was made the action test state is set to true, otherwise false. This is only a meaningful result when the action is executed grouped.
New function called Index Of which returns the index of a string in a field or named variable.
New function called List Item At Index used to return a list item by its position in the list.
New function called List Key to make it easier to store and access key-value pairs in lists.
New function called Finder Tags used to read and write Finder tags on OS X 10.9 and greater.
New function called Scanner. Successive Scanner statements can be used to form complex field analyzers.
New function called Access AcousticBrainz. If you have tracks with MusicBrainz Recording Ids, you can use extract BPM and Initial Key values from the AcousticBrainz database.
Preferences:
There is a new Preference section called Actions.
Preferences - Audio has a new option for m4a files used to choose the mapping for the Conductor field. There are two mappings commonly used: CONDUCTOR (Yate's default) and Conductor. Yate now let's you choose whichever mapping you wish to use. See the online help for more information. The setting is imported/exported with the m4a custom field mappings.
Preferences - General Use Yate Context Menus has been removed. Yate now does it automatically.
General:
Yate is now far more aggressive about protecting you against changing field mappings when files are open. Changing field mappings in application preferences is now disabled when files are open. Resetting preferences, resetting FLAC items and reimporting FLAC items are also disabled. You will not be allowed to import preferences which can change the field mappings when files are open.
Modification: The Show in iTunes Playlist UI and action functions will now display all selected files in the Yate-Work playlist. The previous interpretation was too vague.
Custom Panel Editor:
The Custom Panel Editor now supports the import/export of the current panel. This will allow you to share custom panels with others.
MusicBrainz Fields:
Once again we're attempting to standardize the names of some MusicBrainz fields so that Yate's aligns with theirs. In the MusicBrainz Wizard's Release View, Track Id is now Recording Id and Track Position Id is now Track Id. None of your settings have changed as only the descriptive names have been modified. Hopefully this will clear up some confusion.
Bug Fixes:
Some action editor context menu items were not correctly disabled when running an action.
When renaming an action the Discogs and MusicBrainz Run action after import actions were not renamed if affected.
When quitting Yate, holding down the Shift key was not disabling the auto export of a preference file (if enabled).
The Format Credits action statement would insert an = for an empty field.
Right clicking on Unused grid elements in the Custom Panel Editor under Snow Leopard was not working.
Scrolling in single line text fields on Custom Panels was not working.
Fixed a crash after moving files if the OS could not maintain the file tracking.

New in Yate 3.3.0.1 Build 3711 (Jan 5, 2015)

New in Yate 3.3 Build 3708 (Jan 3, 2015)

Artwork Viewer:
Enhanced the database artwork viewer to work in conjunction with the main window.
New Artwork menu item Show Artwork Viewer
The image in the Artwork panel's large image panel, (or in any full artwork display on a custom panel), can be opened in the Artwork Viewer by double clicking on the image or via the context menu.
The Artwork Viewer can be configured to follow selection changes in the file list or an album/track database via new options on the Preferences-Artwork panel. You can force images to always open at 100% via preferences.
The image in the Artwork Viewer can be dragged out, can be copied, zoomed and saved.
The Artwork Viewer displays the pixel dimensions of the displayed image and the percentage of its size as currently displayed.
Images in the artwork Viewer can be zoomed to 100% by double clicking on the image.
Main Window:
Added new filtering items to the main window's Hide context submenu. You can now hide files based on having or not having content in any field. Where appropriate, you can also hide based on multi item fields having values other than their associated default value.
Multi Field Editor:
Enhanced Find and Remove
Enhanced Trim
Enhanced Replace Text
Added a Copy field section.
Preferences:
Preferences-iTunes has been rearranged. Auto import and export of iTunes settings is now supported. Be careful when using these settings as values in iTunes or Yate will be overwritten. The options are useful when importing metadata that you only change in one location. For example, you might want to import the current play counts from iTunes whenever linking tracks. If you only change ratings in Yate, you might want to export the current ratings to iTunes whenever saving files.
New Preferences-General option called Use Yate context menus for text fields. This option enables the substitution of the system's default text field context menu for one which supports all of Yate's case transformations and space compression. This only affects context menus in the Edit Panel and sheets displayed by the Edit Panel.
New Preferences-Audio option to write an ID3v1 tag in addition to the ID3v2.4 or ID3v2.3 tag being written. This is mostly to help satisfy some older hardware based players which unfortunately still require the older (1996) format.
Preferences-Audio now supports the customization of the internal rating mapping. The internal rating mapping also controls which values get written out for the Full (0-255) ID3 and FLAC rating settings. You can now customize the mappings to be the same as any of the competing rating mappings out there if you so desire. There is a new action function called Translate Rating which can be used to modify the rating values in files between different mappings.
Preferences-Audio now allows you to choose to write m4a/mp4 ratings in an alternate format in addition to the standard Yate format. Yate writes ratings to m4a/mp4 files using a standard container extension method. If your ratings are not showing up in a media player (other than iTunes) you may be able to fix the issue by enabling the new rate atom settings.
Preferences-Audio now allows you to map the m4a/mp4 stik (Media Kind) atom to the Media Type field. Yate will let you export the Media Type as Music or Audiobook. Any other value will be changed to Music. This is really only useful if you want to tag files as being audiobooks before adding them to iTunes. The stik atom is only read once by iTunes when files are added. The atom is not written by iTunes.
Preferences-Artwork has new options for the artwork viewer.
Actions:
The following actions have been modified to accept named variables: Compare Date Test, Compare Numeric Test, Compare Text Test, Copy to Clipboard, Decrement Variable, Increment Variable, Set Action Test State from Variable, Text from Clipboard and Set Variable to Action Test State.
The Text from Clipboard function has been enhanced to allow you to copy only the first non empty line or the entire contents.
The Scale Artwork / Change Type function has been enhanced to support the squaring of images. An image is squared by resizing an image to the larger of its width and height by introducing transparency. The old image is centered in the new area. The resultant image is a png image.
Added a new action function called Artwork Information to extract various information about the artwork available in one or more files.
Added a new action function called Add Folder to Recently Opened List. Useful when you move tracks and you want a quick reference to the new location.
The Set action function interprets values as 0 to 5 stars when setting the rating field. If you wish to specify a specific value for the internal ID3 format enter the value as a negative number from -1 to -255.
New action function called Translate Rating used to modify the rating values in files between different mappings.
The Prompt for Folder/File action function has a new option displayed when File is chosen. The New File option causes a save dialog as opposed to an open dialog to be displayed.
Added a new action function called Set Action Test State from File Type. Yet a any even more convient method of testing file types than the Audio File Type property introduced in v3.2
Album and Track Databases:
Two new columns can be created when building the databases. The Artwork Size column will contain width x height for the default artwork item. The db column will contain the online database associations as described in the main window's db column.
Bug fixes:
When a rating was changed inline in the file list, the change indicator was not updated until the focus changed.
The Copy function was not letting you copy the Rating field. Note that copying the default rating copies the unmodified rating value. You can use the \R escape sequence to get the value as a number of stars.
At some point the Preferences-Exception set Remove Special Status menu item was disabled.
False "modifications made" warnings were sometimes issued when closing actions where Text Item Lists were sorted.

New in Yate 3.2 Build 3562 (Nov 20, 2014)

Warning if you are on Yosemite and use Dropbox, please make sure that you go to Dropbox Preferences - General and uncheck 'Enable Finder integration'. While this will get rid of the fancy green check marks in the Finder it will also stop crashes when displaying File Open or Save dialogs. Dropbox will still operate normally. Thanks to the folks at Dropbox for describing the work around at this link.
Feature Request: Added the ability to identify multiple occurrences of files and potential duplicates in your collection. The functionality is available from within Track Databases. See the new help topic Duplicate Identification Using Track Databases for more information.
To go hand in hand with the new Duplicate Identification Using Track Databases feature, the database Query system has been enhanced. Queries with the same Key and Data columns now eliminate the redundant Key names in the results. As opposed to only allowing the path to the file as accumulated metadata, you can now accumulate any single column. Examples can be found in the help for the Duplicate and Query processes.
Feature Request: If you want the ability to replace files on an open while in Playlist Mode, you can enable the functionality via the new Preferences-File List-Allow Playlist Replace Open Mode option.
You can now view a summary of the contents of a Yate preference file via the new Yate>Examine Preference File Contents... menu item.
Feature Request: Yate preference files can now be imported by dragging them to the main window's file list area. You configure what is imported and how by the new Preferences - File List - Dragged preference file import settings - Configure option. If you hold down the Shift key while dragging, the contents of the file will be displayed as opposed to importing.
Feature Request: When multiple artwork items are selected in any full artwork panel, you can now change the Picture Type.
Preferences - File List has new options to control padding the display of the Track, Track Count, Disc and Disc Count fields. You can force minimum widths of 1 (no padding) to 4. The Track and Disc options can specify smart padding where the padding automatically matches the length of the associated Count field.
There's a new Preferences - Audio option to write the padded representations of the Track, Track Count, Disc and Disc Count fields to the audio files.
Feature Request: There are new options for both Discogs and MusicBrains called Join Exception. If you want to force your own separator string as opposed to using what is specified by the database (or defaulted by Yate), you can use these options.
You can now configure the Discogs credit mappings to any of Composer, Conductor, Involved People, Musician Credits or Remixer. The mappings are set in Preferences - Discogs - Credit Mappings - Configure. Also, 'Music By' now defaults to being a Composer alias.
Feature Request: Lots of AIFF files have +-1 issues in the element of the file describing the contained data's length and other minor formatting issues in the audio container, (not the tag metadata). Most applications, in fact almost all, work around these issues and ignore the minor spec glitches. In our testing about 35% of all tested files have a minor format/spec issue. Unfortunately, it seems as if a few applications cannot process a wide variety of AIFF files. The files that cause problems do not have to have ever been processed by Yate which typically avoids modifying the container. Starting with this release Yate will repair all detected container format issues whenever saving the file. We are not sure which container issues cause these applications problems so we simply do a sweep and fix them all. If you are not experiencing problems with your files these issues can be treated as benign, as they should be. The Sample Actions web page, available from the Help Menu, contains pre-built actions to test for and fix these issues.
There is a new property called Audio Container Status which returns 0 for an audio file which has recoverable formatting/spec issues in the audio container. The property returns 1 to identify a file with no detected container issues. Note that at this time, 1 is always returned for non AIFF files.
New convenience properties to get a track's path or original path without a filename extension.
There is a new property called Audio File Type. This property provides a better means of testing a file's audio type than by looking at the filename extension. The possible values are documented in the Get Property help.
For those of you that are interested in audio file properties, Yate now differentiates when describing mp3 Xing and Info header variants.
There is a new escape sequence which can be used in actions. @0 through @9 will be replaced with the contents of the named variable whose name is in the specified variable. eg. if variable 1 contains test, @1 will be replaced with the contents of named variable test.
The Repeat With action statement can now be used to repeat on list elements or on every character in a field or named variable.
Added a new Encode as ASCII action function. Essentially the function can be used to remove diacritical marks from fields. This is a lossy conversion and it is possible that characters are lost.
Added a new flow control statement Exit Repeat.
Added a Sort List action statement.
Added a Copy Unhandled action statement.
The Format Credits action function and its UI equivalent, can now specify the source separator used to delimit people as well as the resultant people separator to be used in the formatted data.
The Trim action function can now remove control characters. You can also specify that all characters in the excluded set are to be removed.
The Dump Variables action statement can now display the current value of the action test state.
Entering newline characters in User Defined Text Information items is not allowed by the ID3 specification. However there are so many instances of items which break this rule that Yate will now allow you to insert newline characters when editing them.
Bug Fix: It has been reported that Yate stops system restart on some Macs when there is no reason to do so. This build should fix the issue.
Bug Fix: Discogs: Removal of (#) sequences in names could leave spaces at the end of the name field.
Bug Fix: Discogs & MusicBrainz: When importing Involved People and / or Musicians Credits it was possible that some data was misplaced.
Bug Fix: The Discogs post import action was not not executed when enabled.
Bug Fix: The Repeat With and Build List functions when set to 'As Found' were not constructing the list properly.
Bug fix: It seems as if Yosemite from time to time has issues auto hiding progress indicators when they become inactive. This can cause some dirt to be left on a display. We're back to showing and hiding the indicators manually.
Bug Fix: Some full Artwork control menu items were incorrectly enabled when multiple artwork items were selected.

New in Yate 3.1 Build 3408 (Oct 21, 2014)

The context menu for most field types in editing panels now have a Multi Field Editor... item. Selecting the item will display the Multi Field Editor with the field type selected.
The context menu for field types which support multiple items had a menu item called Multi Item Editor. The menu item name is now the actual display name of the appropriate edit panel.
On Yosemite, the highlight colour for the Editing Panel's preset buttons has been changed to reflect the the system's highlight color (as displayed in the main window file list). The white text on a light gray background was too washed out.
The Musician Credits and Involved People fields are now internally stored as displayed. This will make no difference to you unless you have written actions to directly parse the fields. The external format used to write the data to audio files has not changed nor has the user facing representation of the data. Note that the fields are automatically formatted when saved to files removing blank lines and extraneous whitespace. The fields can now be directly edited on any editing panel where they occur. The fields have a new option to format the data. This is essentially a UI based implementation of the Format Credits action function.
The Prompt for File or Folder action statement now allows you to create folders when prompting for a folder.
The Save Variables and Restore Variables action statements now have options to save/restore per track copies of the variables while in stepwise execution mode.
The Dump Variables action statement can now display variable snapshots (previous functionality), per track variable contents, system variable contents and named variable contents.
The Verify Same and Verify Same Test action statements have been renamed to Compare Fields and Compare Fields Test. The help and descriptive text have been modified to better reflect what is being tested.
The Action Pending Window displayed for the Prompt and Dump Variables statements now has a Copy button which will copy the displayed information to the system clipboard.
Some new action functions used to maintain the concept of lists of items in fields or named variables. A list is any field where items are separated by a known delimiter:
Build List is used to construct a new list in a field or named variable based on the contents of a field or a named variable. The source delimiter can be a single string or a set of characters.
Count Items is used to count the number of items in a list in a field or named variable. The list delimiter can be a single string or a set of characters.
Add to List is used to add an item to a list in a field or named variable. Items can be added to the start or end of the list.
List Contains Test. The function looks for an occurrence of an item in list in a field or named variable. The action test state is set to reflect a successful match. If found, the item can optionally be removed.
New action function Copy Field to Named Variable. This is a convenience function which avoids the necessity of copying a field to a variable then to a named variable.
New action function Extract Bracketed Text. The function is used to look for text within a field bracketed by one of (), [ ], < >, or { }. The first or last occurrence can be matched. Matched text can optionally be removed. The action test state is set to reflect the occurrence of a match.
New action function Split Field used to split a field into two parts at a specified delimiter.
The Repeat With action function has been enhanced. It now allows empty delimiter fields. Support has been added for delimiters which are a set of characters to use as separators. The function can now use a field or named variable as the content source. Various parameter passing and list construction options have been implemented.
Tweaked the Discogs Master Matching search string for better results.
When doing Discogs Master Matching, those masters which only reference video content are now ignored. They will still be listed in the log file.
When specifying a Discogs release directly via id=, you can now reference a master by prefixing the id with an m. ie. id=m#
The CSV database Artwork Viewer can now be resized. Artwork can be dragged to the the main Yate window, the Finder, etc.
Rename and File to Tag templates can now specify Disc Count and Track Count.
Open Path in Clipboard now handles multiple paths separated by newline characters.
Variables are now consistently displayed as Variable space number. ie. Variable 1, not Variable1.
New Help menu entry to access the forum.
New Help menu entry to access sample actions.
Bug Fix: Undo was not working inside multi-line text fields on Custom panels.
Bug Fix: The Sort Form action statement's item table was not showing the count of selected items.
Bug Fix: The Prompt for File or Folder action function only worked when saving the results to Variable 0 through Variable 4.
Bug Fix: On Snow Leopard you were able to drag an image in the large artwork well to itself.
Bug Fix: Dragging from a display only artwork display such as the one next to the Comment field on the Info panel, only worked if a single file was selected.
Bug Fix: Launching of the Default Action was broken in v3.0.
Bug Fix: The Replace action statement was applying escape sequences on the 'from' pattern prior to splitting when OR matching was specified.

New in Yate 3.0.2 Build 3353 (Sep 29, 2014)

New in Yate 3.0.0.2 Build 3349 (Sep 26, 2014)

New in Yate 3.0.0.1 Build 3348 (Sep 26, 2014)

New in Yate 3.0 Build 3346 (Sep 23, 2014)

Major UI and functionality changes.
Application:
Throughout the application the white checkmark on green background character, used to imply linked or default, has been replaced with a simple black checkmark. The check on a green background character does not exist in Snow Leopard and changes to a blue background in Yosemite.
The Preview system has been enhanced so that you can easily switch a preview from one track to another. Preview multiple tracks. More information in the new help topic: Previewing Tracks and Other Files.
The online help is now always browser based.
File List Panel:
The status bar now displays n/m when loading files.
Previously files were loaded on a background thread but the scanning of folders to determine which files to load was done on the foreground thread. The scanning is now also done on a background thread. The name of the folder currently being examined is displayed in the status bar.
New table columns: Publisher and Label.
The iTunes and db columns have tooltips explaining the various indicators.
Edit Panel Changes (Overall):
The Edit panel now displays two rows of preset buttons used to select a specific content view.
The preset buttons resize automatically.
Abbreviations are used for views associated with controls with long names. eg. Artist Sites for Official Artist/Performer Website. When this is the case tooltips are available.
The order of the preset buttons can be changed by by dragging a preset button to a desired position.
The content displayed when a preset button is selected can be changed by right clicking on a preset button and choosing a content view. All content views (with the exception of Empty) can be associated with only one preset button at a time.
The context menu contains a submenu named Others. This menu is a convenient place to store those views you never or rarely use. A view is moved in or out of the Others menu by holding down the Shift key and clicking on the view's name in the context menu.
Three preset button layouts can be saved and loaded from the context menu.
Three custom panel views can be configured from the context menu.
The last preset button position (lower right) is somewhat special. Various controls have the ability to jump to an enhanced view which displays multiple items. If the activated view is not already mapped to a preset button, it will automatically be mapped to the last preset button replacing whatever was there before.
The biggest change to the edit panel is the removal of the checkboxes and disclosure triangles previously associated with controls. A single round function button immediately to the left of a field replaces these items. The colour of the function button reflects the change status of the field. Five colours are possible:
Clear implies that the field is in an inactive state.
Green implies that no changes have been made to the field.
Orange implies that the field contains a value different that the initial value.
Yellow implies that the field has been changed since the editing state was set. (File selection changed or an action finished).
Red implies that the field is different that the initial and editing state values.
Every menu associated with a function button has a colour code submenu which describes the colours.
All functionality associated with a field other than simple editing, is accessed by clicking on the function button which will display a menu with the available functions. These functions include:
Activating a value chooser panel which replaces the old advanced editors. This panel presents differently depending on the number of files currently selected.
When a single file is selected, the panel allows you to choose the initial, edit or current value and optionally edit the value.
When multiple files are selected you can choose from among any of the unique values, restore the current value and optionally edit the value.
Setting a field to empty when ??? is displayed for multiple values.
Possible date/time functions.
A link to the view which displays all the values for a field type as opposed to the default value. For example the Comments field displays the default comment for the selected files. However, there can be multiple comments in the metadata. The link will take you to the Comments view which is used to access all the comments.
Various fields have been moved to different views. Some new fields have been added to represent the default for multiple item metadata objects such as Terms of Use.
Artwork View Specific Changes:
The artwork panel now automatically hides the image table if only one artwork item is present. All artwork items are prefixed by a status display indicating: default (star), present in all files (completely filled circle), not present in all files (half filled circle), initial no longer present image (down arrow), editing state no longer present image (pencil). All functionality for an artwork item is accessed from a context menu. The possible functions are:
Add Artwork
Apply to All Files
Delete Artwork
Revert All to ... Initial Values
Revert All to ... Editing State Values
Change File Selection (change the file selection to the files containing the item.
Save to Folder Icon
Save to Folder Icon of Chosen Folder...
Save to folder.jpg
Save to folder.jpg in Chosen Folder...
Save Artwork to... This function operates differently based on the number of artwork items selected. When a single item is selected you supply the destination file name and can perform various transformation functions. When multiple items are selected you specify the output folder and the naming conventions.
The pasting of image files into the large artwork panel now works as expected.
Saving Artwork from Menus and Toolbars:
Previously you could save artwork from the application's Artwork menu, the application toolbar and from the context menus on the Artwork Panel. The toolbar and application menu functionality no longer makes sense as they can no longer refer to a single fixed Artwork panel. (Custom panels may contain full artwork functionality). The toolbar items and application menu items for Save Artwork, Save Artwork to folder.jpg and Save Artwork to Folder Icon have been removed.
The context menus on any full artwork control now have additional menu items so that you can save to folder.jpg files or folder icons based on a chosen folder or a single unique folder.
Multiple Item Views:
Multiple item views replace the former advanced editors for Comments, User Defined Text Items, etc.
Multiple item views all follow the same format. The views are: Artist Sites, Comments, EQ, GEOB, Info Sites, Lyrics (All), Ratings, Relative Vol, Terms of Use, UD Text, UD URLS, UFIDs.
Every item displays a status. See the status displays described in the artwork panel writeup above.
Functionality is available via a context menu which can include the following:
Copy... used to copy various portions of the item to the system clipboard.
New... used to create a new item.
Edit
Apply to all Files
Delete
Revert All to ... Initial Values
Revert All to ... Editing State Values
Change File Selection
Recreate Item(s). Used to recreate individual removed items without reverting all items.
View (in the Log Viewer for binary data items)
Export (as binary data)
Dump (as a hex dump for binary data items).
The Unhandled view is much the same as the multiple item views with somewhat reduced functionality.
All multiple item views have the ability to display a list of referencing files when more than one file is selected. The option is unique to each view and is controlled by the Show/ Hide File References context menu items.
Custom Views:
There are three Custom views/panels which can be named and edited using the new Custom Panel Editor. You can design content views which reflect your own usage. You layout any Yate field type including the new five custom fields.
Custom Panel Editor:
The custom panel editor is activated from a preset edit panel buttons's context menu. The Edit>Custom Panels... menu item will open the panel editor. You choose which panel you want to configure and can work on all three panels before saving your changes.
The edit panel allows you to name a custom panel, supply a tooltip for the panel and to layout controls in a 12 row by 2 column grid. Unoccupied grid elements are displayed in yellow, occupied in white and selected in cyan.
To assign a component to a grid element, right click on an unoccupied grid element to receive the upper left of the control. A popup menu will list the available components.
Every component has a minimum number of rows and will be created with the minimum number required. Components which can be resized vertically can use the Expand Up and Down buttons to grow the area occupied by the component.
Initially an assigned control will occupy a left or right grid element. For components which can be resized, the Expand Left and Right buttons can be used to grow the area occupied by the component.
Components can be moved by the Move Up, Down, Left and Right buttons. Additionally a component can be moved by by dragging the field and pointing to the new position for the the upper left hand corner of the field. If the Shift key is down when the drag terminates you are pointing to the new position for the lower left hand corner of the field.
The Shrink buttons can be used to reduce the size of components.
Certain components appear cropped and by default do not occupy a full half of the panel. This includes components such as Track/Track Count, Disc/Disc Count, Year, etc. Components adjacent to cropped components will automatically horizontally expand to use the additional space. This is much like the default layout on the Info panel.
If a component has none below it and is vertically resizable, it will automatically be resized when the window size is increased. This is good for the Artwork component which can be created as occupying a minimal number of rows but which can expand vertically.
When adding Custom fields (Custom 1...Custom 5) they will be rendered depending on the assigned number of rows. A single line Custom field will be rendered much the same as the Title field. A multi line Custom field will be rendered much the same as the Comments field.
The 12 row by 2 column grid is based on the minimum window size allowed in the main window. If you want additional grid rows simply resize the panel editor vertically. When saved the main window will be resized if necessary and the main window's minimum size will be the greater of the absolute minimum size and the largest size required by any custom panel. To reduce the number of grid components simply make the Panel Editor window smaller. Depending on how much you reduce the size, components may be shrunk or eliminated entirely.
There are three artwork oriented components. Artwork Full is essentially a full featured artwork control. It will display multiple artwork items and is fully editable. Artwork Display is a read only view of the default artwork item. It is identical in functionality to the popup artwork display to the left of the Comments field on the Info panel. Artwork Metadata is a read only display of the metadata associated with the default artwork item.
Limitations:
Only vertically resizable components with no components below them will be automatically vertically resized.
When exporting preferences to a Mac with a lower display resolution it is possible that the minimum size requirements are greater than the size of the display. If this happens open the Custom Panel Editor, reduce the visible number of grid rows and then save the panel. This may have to be repeated for all three custom panels.
File Browser:
A File Browser panel can be added to the main window (at the left or right). This browser lets you traverse the file system and open content in the Yate file list.
You can load audio files, artwork, csv files and m3u files via a context menu or by dragging the files into the file list panel.
Files can be dragged from the File Browser to the desktop or a Finder window.
Files displayed in the File Browser can be revealed in the Finder. Open files in Yate can be revealed in the File Browser.
The content and format of the display can be controlled via a View context menu item.
All content can be previewed.
Audio Information Panel:
The bottom area of the File Browser vertical panel can be used to display an audio information panel. This is equivalent to the audio information area in the built in Audio panel.
Yate now displays the bits per sample for ALAC encoded m4a or mp4 files.
Field changes:
Yate used to internally maintain the Disc Count and Track Count combined with the Disc and Track fields. This was done largely due an adherence to the ID3 standard. This was becoming a liability for a lot of functionality. All four fields are now individually maintained. This change will only be meaningful if you used an action to cheat and set both values in a single operation. Note that this does not change how the values are stored in the audio files.
Every track now has five Custom fields named Custom 1, ..., Custom 5. These fields can be mapped onto custom panels using the new Panel Editor.
Action Changes:
The Clean Multiple Items, More than One Item and More than One Item Test actions have been modified to handle all multiple item fields which have the concept of a default value.
When exporting a single action you can now do a smart export. This mode will export the action, all called actions and all other Yate components which are referenced in the action. A prefix string can be supplied which will be used to change the name of all referenced items. This makes it easier to import without collisions.
A new escape sequence, U has been added. \U is used to create a unique pattern based on a time stamp. If you are using Yate on more than one Mac, the pattern is unique as long as both Macs have the correct time and you are not running more than one version of Yate at a time. The format of the pattern is number.number{+number}.
A new escape sequence \I# has been added. The sequence will insert the leading integer value in variable #. If there is no leading integer value, 0 will be inserted.
A new escape sequence \F# has been added. The sequence will insert the leading number in variable #. The inserted value will have at least one decimal and one fractional digit. If there is no leading number, 0.0 will be inserted.
Added a new function named Database ID. This is a convenience method used to create/clear User Defined Text Items named Yate Album ID and Yate Track ID.
Added a new function named Test If File Exists. The function can test if a file system item exists and is a file, folder or either. If the criteria is met the action test state will be set to true, otherwise false.
The Import Metadata from Audio Files function now preserves the current Variable values.
The Import Metadata from Audio Files function and the Copy Metadata UI based functions will no longer remove existing Unhandled metadata items. (Unhandled items are not copied).
New properties accessible via the Get Property function to make it easier to determine the name of the folder containing a track's folder. Parent Folder Name, Path to Parent Folder, Original Parent Folder Name, Original Path to Parent Folder.
The Trim function has been significant enhanced. You can now choose a combination of different character sets from: All non alphanumeric characters; whitespace characters; newline characters and punctuation characters. You can optionally remove any combination of leading and trailing characters. You can also change any sequence of the specified characters to a single space or newline character. You can perform the trim operation on a named variable or on any number of fields.
Import Text File has been renamed Read Text File.
Added a Write Text File function.
Added an Evaluate Expression function used to evaluate an arithmetic expression and return the result in a variable.
Added an Exit Grouped function which successively returns out of all actions being run grouped and then resumes processing at the next statement.
Preference Changes:
iTunes settings now have their own preference section.
Preferences-General has a new option called Use strict iTunes definition of 'default' comment. Many audio players define the default comment as the first comment with an empty description field. iTunes seems to also require that the language is eng.
Preferences-General has a new option called Update Preview on selection changes. When enabled changing a selection while previewing will update the preview.
In Preferences-File List you can now configure the file list context menu, excluding items which do not interest you.
In Preferences-File List the User Defined Text Information column mappings are now called Mappings as opposed to Custom. When mapping the columns from the file list table headers context menu they are called Mapping 1, Mapping 2 and Mapping 3.
In Preferences-File List you can now choose to auto-select files after loading if the Open Mode is Album-Replace Existing Files.
Custom fields can be assigned display names in Preferences-File List. The display names are used as file list column headers and when the custom fields are used in custom panels.
The help button for the window is now displayed on a toolbar. The toolbar can be hidden via the Window menu or from the toolbar's context menu. If you have assigned the Menu>Help for Current Context to a shortcut the same help will be displayed.
In Preferences-Search templates you can now specify that you want Title metadata to be included while searching. If more than one file is selected while searching only one title is used.
Track and Album Databases:
You can now filter out data. For example remove all items with the same content where I clicked.
You can now issue simple queries against a database to obtain counts of items and paths to items.
The file list context menu item Show in Database now removes the current filter if the tracks are located.
There is a new file list context menu item called Show in Database (Original). Tracks are located in a album database by matching a track's Album metadata and the tracks' containing folder. Tracks are located in a track database by matching the file path. If any of this data has changed the Show in Database function will fail. The Original variant uses the data in place when the tracks were first opened (or last saved).
Album databases which have a Yate Album ID field have stronger references to each row's associated album. This field allows you to change an album's title or folder and still be able to associate the items. When this field is present in a database it will be used as the default matching criteria when associating database items with open tracks. When the field is not present or an album id match cannot be made, the default criteria of the Album field and folder path will be used.
Track databases which have a Yate Track ID field have stronger references to each row's associated track. This field allows you to change a tracks's location and still be able to associate the items. When this field is present in a database it will be used as the default matching criteria when associating database items with open tracks. When the field is not present or a track id match cannot be made, the default criteria of the file path will be used.
Discogs and MusicBrainz Wizards:
The function button in the Releases step of the wizards has been replaced with a context menu in the lower table.
Both wizards now support the manual specification of a release id by specifying the Album search field as id=release id.
AcoustID:
There is a new menu/context menu function named Fingerprint, Get Data, Import... which successively performs the three functions: Create AcoustID Fingerprint, Get Data from AcoustID, Import AcoustID Recording Information...
A main window toolbar item to represent the above function has been added.

New in Yate 2.7.7 Build 2151 (Aug 21, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.6.1 Build 2148 (Aug 12, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.6 Build 2143 (Jul 30, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.5.2 Build 2128 (Jun 7, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.5.1 Build 2125 (Jun 4, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.5 Build 2124 (Jun 3, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.4 Build 2121 (May 19, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.3 Build 2112 (May 9, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.2.4 Build 2103 (Apr 28, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.2.3 Build 2102 (Apr 26, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.2.2 Build 2101 (Apr 22, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.2.1 Build 2100 (Apr 15, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.2 Build 2098 (Apr 3, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.1 Build 2083 (Mar 25, 2014)

New in Yate 2.7.0.1 Build 2069 (Mar 14, 2014)

AcoustID, Discogs and MusicBrainz changes:
A new option in Discogs and MusicBrainz preferences called Show filename to title Score column in the file mapping table. When the option is enabled, the displayed column will describe a percentage score based on a fuzzy comparison between the Discogs/MusicBrainz title and:
the title contained in a track's metadata
the track's filename
the track's filename run through all available File to Tag templates. This is used to correctly extract the title from the filename which may contain other metadata components.
Three colors are displayed with the score as follows: 0%-49% red, 50-99% yellow and 100% green. The fuzzy comparison ignores alphabetic case, accents and will discard all words in the Weight Exception set. Removing the words in the Weight Exception set improves the accuracy. eg. If the word the is in your weight exception list, matching The Best of nnn against Best of nnn will result in a 100% match.
The Discogs and MusicBrainz file mapping algorithms have been modified to use the new fuzzy string compare code (utilizing weight exceptions). The new algorithm seems to improve the mappings, especially in those albums where the album artist is Various.
AcoustID changes:
The AcoustID import panel now has context menu items which can be used to import the earliest release information found in the data downloaded from AcoustID. This data includes: Original Release Time, Original Album, Original Artist, Original Title (stored in Original Filename), the MusicBrainz original release ID and a URL to access the original release at MusicBrainz. The panel displays the earliest release by preceding the country code in a release with a check mark. You can highlight the earliest release for a track from the context menu. The algorithm ignores recordings with a duration differential of five seconds or more and those without release year information. The best match is found by examining release dates and doing a fuzzy comparison between the name contained in a track's Title field and the title information associated with recordings in the AcoustID data.
Artwork changes:
You can now assign rules to automatically determine an image's picture type, based on words matched in the opened, imported or dragged file name. The functionality is enabled in Preferences-Artwork via the new Extract image type from file names option.
The Import All Artwork in Folder function has been completely reworked and is now called Import Artwork. You can now specify which folder is to be the source; the picture type; and the description. You can also use the function to do a deep search for particular files.
The Artwork to Folder function can now optionally append the picture type to the file name.
The Scale Artwork / Change Type has a new option to restrict the changes to items with a particular picture type.
Main window changes:
You can now save multiple presets for main window column configurations. You manage and access presets by right clicking on a table column header and selecting the Presets menu.
Preference changes:
Artist preferences now has an option to auto accumulate data from Original Artist fields.
New Discogs and MusicBrainz preference options Show filename to title Score column in the file mapping table.
Action changes:
For all you die hard action writers ... you can now have inline actions. The new Start name statement specifies the start of an inline action. The inline action continues until the end of the file or the start of a new inline action. The Run, Test and Repeat With functions have a new Inline option to specify that an inline action is being called. Inline actions can only be called from with the declaring file. Note that the required presence of an inline action is only validated at run time. Force Grouped cannot be specified in inline actions. You must explicitly set the groupwise state when calling them or the current execution state is inherited.
A new action function called Extract Earliest Release from AcoustID with various options to control when data gets overwritten.
A new action function called Empty Line used to insert a blank line in an action's list of statements. It is essentially a Comment which displays as a blank line with no Comment indicator.
The Replace action function now has the ability to force whole word matching. See the function's help in an action editor window for a definition as to what determines a whole word. The function's Set state option now sets the action test state based on a match, as opposed to a change. This is a more well defined state as not all matches cause a change.
Added a new file property called File Count
which returns the number of files being manipulated by an action.
Added a new action called Import Text File which reads the contents of a file and saves it to a named variable. A named variable is used as there is only a single instance of a named variable across all files being manipulated.
The Fill Lists action function can now accumulate Artist list data from Original Artist fields.
All action escape sequences now accept \- as a tab character. Sorry, \t was already used for current time.
Bug Fix: The Save Variables action function had its groupwise/stepwise handling flipped. This could cause an action to exit prematurely.
Bug Fix: It was possible that downloaded AcoustID data was ignored in FLAC files after the files were saved. The downloaded data is intact and does not have to be reacquired.
Bug Fix: Type completion in Artist and Composer fields was not working correctly.

New in Yate 2.6.0.1 Build 1994 (Feb 20, 2014)

New in Yate 2.6 Build 1992 (Feb 19, 2014)

A comprehensive redesign of the application preferences UI:
You no longer have to remember to save changes as changes are saved automatically.
A completely new template editor has been written which allows for the introduction of formatting in rename, file to tag and search templates. The introduction of tabs and newline characters can make it easier to understand complicated templates. Read the online help for information on shortcuts, etc.
Previews of search templates are now supported.
A new Composer preference section which retains a list of composers. Composers can be auto accumulated and are available from drop down lists wherever composers are edited. The Fill Lists action function now supports the filling of the new Composers list.
You can now configure what metadata gets synced for Syncing Preferences Between Multiple Copies of Yate.
On Feb 1, 2014 the Discogs API stopped serving artwork as it has done in the past. The API changes require user authentication and limit any one application to downloading 1000 artwork items a day for the entire user base of the application. 1000/day for all our users is not feasible. For now we have removed the code to import and view artwork. The following Discogs changes are in this release:
Can no longer automatically import Discogs artwork from the Discogs wizard.
The View Artwork button on the release metadata panel now takes you to the Discogs site.
Added a Catalog Number column in the releases panel. The display of the column can be suppressed in Preferences-Discogs.
There is a new Discogs option called Pre load releases. When enabled lazy loads of releases will be performed after a Discogs search. Disc and track totals will be displayed in the search results panel.
Due to the changes made to the Discogs API, the MusicBrainz wizard can no longer automatically import artwork from Discogs directly via the API. A View Discogs Artwork button has been added to the release metadata panel which takes you to the Discogs site.
For you users of Catalog numbers:
A new field named Catalog Number has been added to the More Info panel next to the Label field.
The field may be displayed as a table column in the main list of files.
The field may be referenced in Rename and File to Tag templates.
The field may be included in Export Sets.
Wherever appropriate, action functions can access the field.
Both the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards can now import catalog numbers in two ways. The old method has been renamed to Catalog number (per label) and accumulates a list of per label catalog numbers stored as User Defined Text Information items. Catalog Number now stores the first available catalog number in the new Catalog field.
The Seller field will now display an m4a file's contained iTunes store country. eg. iTunes Canada. The field will display an integer if the country code is not known to us. If you see this send us the number and associated country and we'll build it in. The field can basically be emptied or you can choose a different country (and hope it's built in). Any other changes will effectively clear the field.
m4a files now support the Price Paid field.
New built in FLAC mappings for: Owner, Price Paid, Purchase Date and Seller.
On the artwork panel, clicking on an item's checkbox with the Alt key pressed, will select the clicked item and deselect all others.
The Replace action function now has a Set state option. When selected, the action test state will be set to true if any changes occurred. If no changes occurred, the action test state will be set to false.
The Find & Remove action function also has a new Set state option.
The Variable to System Variable function has been renamed to Set System Variable. The function now takes a single text parameter which may contain escape sequences so assigning a variable is still possible. All previous occurrences of Variable to System Variable will automatically be changed.
The System Variable to Variable function has been eliminated as it is redundant. The far more powerful Set function can perform the same operation. All previous occurrences of System Variable to Variable will automatically be changed.
The artwork preferences now allows you to enter a scale size as opposed to using a drop down with pre-set values. 0 implies do not scale.
All actions which preformed functions based on testing artwork size now have a text field for the size as opposed to a drop down with pre-set values. 0 implies do not test.
Added a new action function Scale Artwork/Change Type. The functions will scale and/or force an image to jpg or png. The function operates on the first, all but the first or all artwork items in a file.
Enhanced the Artwork to Folder function so that you have complete control as to where the files go and how they are named.
Unhandled frames will now be displayed for m4a files and for FLAC files. In FLAC files unhandled implies an out of bounds APPLICATION frame.
Spaces in unhandled frame descriptions are now displayed as centred dots in the Audio>Unhandled Frames table, to make them more visible.
When starting the Discogs or MusicBrainz wizards, if you hold down the Shift key retained import settings will be ignored. The last used values will be displayed.
A new topic called Functions Affected by Modifier Keys is now available from the main help page under Reference.

New in Yate 2.5.4 Build 1862 (Jan 10, 2014)

Added a new method of synchronizing preferences between multiple copies of Yate. New options in Preferences>General. New help topic named Syncing Preferences Between Multiple Copies of Yate.
Added new Rename tokens. The token menu has been rearranged to use submenus in order to make them easier to access. The rename token Original is now called Start Filename. The rename token Original Folder is now called Start Folder. These tokens represent the values in place when the rename operation is started. Added tokens Open Filename and Open Folder which represent the values when the files were first opened.
Added new File to Tag tokens to mirror those added to Rename. The token menu has been rearranged to use submenus in order to make them easier to access.
Added a new action statement called Stop and Open Files. The function will stop all action processing and open the files/folders (depending on the Open Mode) specified by a path contained in a variable.
Added a new action function called Set Open Mode. The function is intended to be used primarily with the Stop and Open Files function.
Added a new action function called Dump Variables. This function is similar to the Prompt function. The current values of the variables will be appended to the constructed prompt. The function is not available while batch processing and is intended to assist in debugging actions.
Added a new action function called Make Numeric. The function sets a variable to the value of its leading numeric value, or zero if there is none. You can optionally also pad the numeric value to two or three digits with leading zeros.
The action function Set Named Variable now allows you to specify escape sequences in the name field. This allows for the dynamic creation of named variables.
The action function Remove Artwork now allows you to specify that invalid artwork, (with data that cannot be rendered), be removed.
For you power action writers running out of variables, we've added action functions called Save Variables and Restore Variables. These functions allow you to save and restore selective variables to/from named variables. This makes it much easier to restore modified variables when a sub-action terminates.
Renamed two properties in order to make them clearer. Parent Folder renamed to Folder Name and Original Parent Folder renamed to Original Folder Name.
Added new context menu items to assist with the mapping of files to tracks in Discogs and MusicBrainz releases. They are primarily intended for those albums which have no metadata but have a leading track number in the filenames. See the online help for the wizard's Mapping panels for more information.
Added a new Preferences-Artwork option called Do not issue errors on invalid artwork.
Spruced up the display text for many action functions.

New in Yate 2.5.3 Build 1836 (Dec 27, 2013)

New in Yate 2.5.2 Build 1820 (Dec 9, 2013)

New in Yate 2.5.1 Build 1791 (Nov 22, 2013)

Added a Use retained Paths option to the Move Non Audio Files action function. This saves copying the retained paths after a Move function to variables.
Added an Ignore errors option to the Run External Script action function. Some scripts return text to stderr not implying an error situation.
Added a \m escape sequence. The sequence is replaced by the multi-value delimiter.
Added the ability to disable action functions. The disabled functions are not comments! They must be well formed functions and are merely disabled during execution. Disabled functions are displayed starting with a # character. Disabled functions can still be edited. You disable and enable functions from the Action Editor context menu.
The Find and Remove and Format Credits action functions now support escape sequences as expected.
Changed the layout of the single file audio fields on the Audio tab to make room for creation and modification dates.
Uses the Mavericks SDK to properly control App Nap (Mavericks only).
Added a Window>Flip Focus menu item to flip the focus from the file list to the edit panel. Intended to be assigned to a keyboard shortcut.
Added a Dup # rename template token. The token is only valid in IfDup sequences. The token is replaced with the first number 2, 3, etc. which causes the filename to be unique. Note that this token is only valid when the rename template is used with a Rename function. It is not currently valid in Move, Copy and the symbolic link functions.
The Discogs Wizard can now save a URL to the master release.
Added the ability for the Access Discogs action function to do release master/main release matching without mapping files. Only non track oriented metadata can be imported. Matching is based on consistant Album and {Album} Artist names. More detail is supplied in the help for the function.
Added a BPM token to the Rename templates and File to Tag templates.
Added support for Lyricist, Remixer, Skip When Shuffling, Tagging Time, Release Time, Original Artist, Original Lyricist, Original Release Time and Original Album columns.
Track and Album databases can now launch URLs for URL fields or fields containing Discogs or MusicBrainz ids which can be synthesized into URLs.
Track and Album databases can now launch the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards for fields containing Discogs Master ids, Discogs Release ids and MusicBrainz Release ids.
Export Sets in preferences now has a convenience button to add common Discogs and MusicBrainz User Defined Text Items.
Fixed a bug in Run External Script where error text could be lost or truncated due to timing.
Fixed a bug where multi-entry items were incorrectly logged for Access Discogs and Access MusicBrainz.
Fixed a crash in the MusicBrainz wizard when Discogs artwork retrieval failed due to a URL referencing a non existant image.
Fixed a bug where testing context validity in an Action Editor window was sometimes incorrectly returning invalid for Run and Test functions.
Fixed a timing issue when adding files to Yate by an Automater/keyboard service.
Multi line edit controls now disable smart quotes and dashes by default. (Response to new global Mavericks settings which made these controls not consistant with single line edit controls).
The Log Viewer now accepts File>Save as well as File>Save As.... They are treated as equivalent. The non standard Save As... context menu item has been removed.
Fixed the tons of iTunes/Sandbox console errors on Mavericks. Evidently rounding numbers "as taught in school" is a privileged operation in a sandboxed application.

New in Yate 2.5 Build 1724 (Oct 22, 2013)

New in Yate 2.4.0.1 Build 1672 (Oct 3, 2013)

New in Yate 2.4 Build 1671 (Oct 2, 2013)

Two new file types handled: WAV and DSF. Also major additions to the Discogs, MusicBrainz and ...... AcoustID this release.
Added support to calculate AcoustID fingerprints. (64 bit, mp3, m4a, flac, aiff, wav only). Presence of the data displays as Ⓕ in the db column. Perform by Actions>AcoustID>Create AcoustID Fingerprint, via the context menu or via the Create AcoustID Fingerprint action function.
Added the ability to extract MusicBrainz release information from AcoustID.org based on a fingerprint. Presence of the data displays as Ⓐ in the db column. Perform by Actions>AcoustID>Get Data from AcoustID, via the context menu or via the Get Data from AcoustID action function.
Added menu and context menu items to clear the fingerprint and AcoustID data. Added Clear Fingerprint Data and Clear AcoustID Data action functions.
Manipulate AcoustID data via Actions>AcoustIDImport AcoustID Recording Information. A new window is displayed which describes information on any selected track which has AcoustID data. A tree structure is displayed with tracks containing recordings containing releases. Missing Title, Album and Artist information can be directly imported. The MusicBrainz wizard can be directly launched with a specific release. Note that when the wizard is started in this mode the automatic track fill and post action processing options are disabled. Lots more information in the online help.
The MusicBrainz file matching algorithm has been enhanced. It now utilizes recording and track IDs as well as standard metadata fields. The Consider tracks preferences have been removed.
The Discogs file matching algorithm has been enhanced. The Consider tracks preferences have been removed.
Added MusicBrainz and Discogs preferences to ensure that empty values do not replace non empty values.
Added MusicBrainz and Discogs options to merge the genre field into the mood field.
Bug fix: Join support in Discogs data was sometimes mishandled.
You can now change the font size in all Discogs and MusicBrainz wizard displays.
Added the ability to specify an alternate MusicBrainz server.
The Discogs and MusicBrainz wizard metadata window now supports tri-state checkboxes. The mixed state (-) is used to imply only if empty. This provides far more granularity than was provided by the Only if Empty preference which has been removed. When the wizard is started, previous values for the checkboxes will be retained unless files which kicked off the wizard had saved the import settings. This allows per album import settings.
Discogs and MusicBrainz import settings can be saved as named items and reloaded at any time.
You can set Discogs and MusicBrainz exclusion settings on a per file basis. Display the appropriate exclusion window from the Action or context menu.
The following fields have been added to the MusicBrainz import list: Album Artist Sort Name, Composer, Conductor, Country, Disc Of, Import Settings, Involved People, Lyricist, MusicBrainz Album Release Country, MusicBrainz Recording IDs, MusicBrainz Track IDs, Musician Credits, Position, Release Status, Release Type, Remixer, Script, Track Of.
The following fields have been added to the Discogs Import List: Composer, Conductor, Country, Disc Of, Import Settings, Involved People, Lyricist, Musician Credits, Notes, Ordinal, Position, Remixer, Track Of.
Added a what's changed window to the MusicBrainz and Discogs wizards which display the new and current values associated with fields to be imported. You can change the import state and edit fields before importing. You can also save the list of changes to a text file.
Discogs and MusicBrainz can now be accessed via the batch processor. Changes can be logged and/or saved.
The Discogs wizard is much better at mapping media breaks and setting the correct numeric values for track numbers. Vinyl releases no longer bump the disc count for sides.
Added a Position column to the Discogs Track listing table. This column displays the Discogs symbolic track positions. This helps in ensuring that Yate is correctly interpreting the disc breaks as the track numbers are free form text as opposed to numeric.
The following changes were made to the main window:
Sorting information is better maintained in the main window file list.
The Credits panel now displays Musician Credits and Involved People in an expanded read only view. Use the advanced editor for editing.
A single artwork item can now be added by dragging it to the main file list.
When saving artwork to a file from from a menu, you can choose various image formats, scale the image down, convert to grayscale and optionally keep a copy of the modified image in Yate.
Added a Copy Information context menu item to the inline User Defined Text Item inline table.
Added a new close menu item named Close Under Mask. The mask is provided by a tag set. If you have many files open, all files in the same folder which have the same value for each field in the mask will be closed. For example you can close all files which have the same Album Artist, Year and Artwork.
Added a new Position column for the main file list. This column displays the symbolic track position which may be imported from Discogs and MusicBrainz.
Added Custom 1, Custom 2 and Custom 3 columns. These columns may be mapped to User Defined Text Items in the Preferences>File List section.
New and modified action functions:
Implemented named variables. Named variables persist across all files while an action is processing. The variables are assigned by the Set Named Variable action function. They are accessed from within an field which supports escape sequences as: \.
Added an Access MusicBrainz action function. The function, only valid while batch processing in stepwise execution mode, looks up MusicBrainz information for a release and logs and/or imports the changes. The import settings saved in the tracks can be used or a named import setting can be specified. Read the function's help for the requirements.
Added an Access Discogs action function. The function, only valid while batch processing in stepwise execution mode, looks up Discogs information for a release and logs and/or imports the changes. The import settings saved in the tracks can be used or a named import setting can be specified. Read the function's help for the requirements.
New action function Next File. In stepwise mode the function is equivalent to Exit. In grouped mode the function exist out of running actions until the next file will be processed.
New action function Move Non Audio Files. The function is used to move files not directly handled by Yate such as pdf, jpg, etc.
The User Defined Fields action function now also supports Comments as well as User Defined Text Info and User Defined URL items.
New action function Sort Form. This function uses the Natural Sort Exception Set to set fields to sort form or to remove sort form from fields. (eg. Bob Dylan & The Band --> Bob Dylan & Band, The)
Added Import and Export metadata action functions. The functionality was previously only available from menus.
The Verify Same and Verify Same Test action functions can now be used to compare artwork across files.
New action function Remove Artwork. The function is used to remove artwork items based on supplied criteria.
The Get Property function has new properties to access components of a file's initial path before it was modified by a Rename or Move. Using these properties you have access to the original components even if the Rename or Move was done via the UI.
The Get Property function has a new property Linked to iTunes.
New action function called Import Base Settings from iTunes. If your files and iTunes are out of sync and you prefer the values in iTunes, you can use this function to load the values from iTunes. Note that this function will not load the artwork or special iTunes settings which are loaded by other functions. This function is particularly useful when you have .wav files which have been tagged in iTunes and you want to initialize the tag information Yate stores in the files. Drag the tracks from iTunes to establish the initial linkage then perform this function.
New action function called Modified Test. This function sets the action test state if all or any of the current file selection is modified.
New action function called Get Date Added to iTunes.
Added support for .dsf files.
Added support for .wav files. This file type may be linked to iTunes. Note that iTunes does not store any tag metadata inside the .wav file. Yate performs a custom refresh when updating iTunes.
Added an Action menu item called Import Base Settings from iTunes. Same functionality as the new action function of the same name.
Comment description fields are now maintained for m4a and flac files.
Bug fix: If you created a genre starting with an integer, Yate was always treating it as a canned genre in mp3 and aiff files.
Gapless interaction with iTunes has been removed. The gapless setting was removed in iTunes 11 and at this point it is doubtful that it will ever reappear. Yate will continue to read and write gapless (playlist delay) values to audio files where supported.
When creating an iTunes playlist from the UI you can choose to include all open files or only those files which are selected.
Fixed auto removal of Yate-Work iTunes playlist option.

New in Yate 2.3.2.2 Build 1466 (Aug 28, 2013)

New in Yate 2.3.2.1 Build 1464 (Aug 13, 2013)

New in Yate 2.3.2 Build 1463 (Aug 10, 2013)

New in Yate 2.3.1.1 Build 1455 (Jul 31, 2013)

New in Yate 2.3.1 Build 1451 (Jul 24, 2013)

The parameter mechanism for the Run External Script function has been enhanced. You can now pass any number of parameters. A parameter can be the file's path, containing folder's path or any variable.
Feature Request: Added the ability to optionally write mp3 and aiff files according to the older ID3 v2.3 specification as opposed to the default ID3 v2.4 specification.
Feature Request: Differentiate between Label and Publisher. The field previously named Publisher has been renamed to Label as that was the usage. Rename and File to Tag templates will automatically have any Publisher tokens renamed to Label. A new field named Publisher has been added. A FLAC mapping for the new field will automatically be created.
The new Publisher field and the ISRC field have been added as tokens to Rename and File to Tag templates.
Feature Request: Properties have been added for Creation Date, Modification Date and iTunes PID.
The Compare Date Test, Compare Numeric Test and Compare Text test functions can now directly specify a text field as well as a variable. The text field supports escape sequences. The Compare against Zero checkbox in the Compare Numeric Test function has been moved to the popup button.
If a path is not specified to the Close Database, Remove Items from Database, Save Database or Update Database functions, the operation will be applied to all open databases.
New Action menu item Create iTunes Playlist. You will be prompted for a playlist name. All open tracks which are linked to iTunes will be placed into the named playlist. Note that if the playlist already existed the previous contents will be lost.
New action function Create iTunes Playlist. You specify the name of the playlist to be created. Note that the field takes escape sequences so you can issue a Prompt for Text function and access the results. Note that if the playlist already existed the previous contents will be lost.
When a single file is selected in the main window, the status bar will display the file's path.
Added a new File List - Preference option called Follow state changes. When this is enabled the list of file's will be scrolled to keep track with updates caused by operations such as Save, Link to iTunes, etc. By default, the scroll operation will move items to the top of the display in order to minimize redrawing. If you prefer a more continuous scroll effect you can set the Smooth option.
Added an Artwork column in the main window. It will display a thumbnail of the first artwork item in a track.
Added a new Remove from Databases item to the File and main window context menu. This is equivalent to the Remove from Database action function for all open files and all open databases.
Bug Fix: Under certain rare circumstances, the most recently opened list would be empty until something was actually opened.
Bug Fix: Fixed some display issues when resizing the main window and the edit panel was on the left.
Bug Fix: You could not assign a keyboard shortcut to the File>Update Databases menu item.
Clarification: The Update Database action function operates on the current file selection, not on all open files.

New in Yate 2.3.0.2 Build 1418 (Jul 17, 2013)

New in Yate 2.3.0.1 Build 1417 (Jul 13, 2013)

New in Yate 2.3 Build 1416 (Jul 13, 2013)

The Run and Test action functions now allow you to force that the action be run in Grouped mode. Normally the grouped/non grouped state is carried over into a called action.
Any action can be forced to run Grouped by placing a Force Grouped Execution function as the first step of the action. The function is treated as a runtime error when encountered elsewhere.
The number of Variable fields has been bumped to ten, named Variable0 through Variable9.
The Action Editor window now has context menu items to validate an action for a particular execution context.
Added a Copy Files action function. Based on the same template as Move and Create Symbolic Links, this function can be used to copy files.
The Create Symbolic Links function has been split info four functions: Create Absolute Symbolic Link to File, Create Absolute Symbolic Link to Folder, Create Relative Symbolic Link to File, Create Relative Symbolic Link to Folder.
The Move, Create Symbolic Links and Copy Files action functions now support the specification of the absolute path as \V0 through \V9. This implies that the path should be taken from the Variable field with the same number. Note that the path must exist.
Added a Get Property function which is used to extract various read only properties from a file and save them to a variable. These properties include the path, file name, bit rate and more.
The Move, Create Symbolic Links variants, Copy Files and Rename functions all set the Retained Path 1 property to the destination on success. On failure, the property is emptied.
The Create Symbolic Links variant functions set the Retained Path 2 property to the contents of the link on success. On failure the property is emptied.
The Move, Copy Files and Rename functions all set the Retained Path 2 property to the source on success. On failure, the property is emptied.
A Delete empty folder option has been added to the Move function. If after moving the file, the containing folder has no visible files, it can be deleted. You can also specify that an empty parent folder should be deleted as well.
Added if, else and endif functions. They do what you'd expect and can be nested. The if function triggers on the current action test state.
Added a Prompt for Text action function which allows you to enter text and save it to one of the Variable fields. You can also optionally seed the text entry field with the contents of a field. You can set the prompt's text color to one of Default, Black, Blue or Red. You can also elect to issue a beep with the prompt.
Added a Prompt for Folder action function which allows you to choose a folder and save it to one of the Variable fields. You can also elect to issue a beep with the prompt.
Added a Prompt function which displays a simple prompt to pause an action or post a message to the batch processing log file. You can set the prompt's text color to one of Default, Black, Blue or Red. You can also elect to issue a beep with the prompt.
The Ask function now allows you to set the prompt's text color to one of Default, Black, Blue or Red. It also supports an optional beep.
The Preference Sets function has been renamed Preferences. The function now has an option to set the default text color for the Action Pending window's prompt.
The Ask, Prompt, Prompt for Text, Prompt for Folder and Set functions now all allow escape sequences in the supplied string. In addition to the previously supported \T (date & time) and \D (date) sequences you can now specify \V0 through \V9 to insert the contents of the Variable field with the same number. Similarly you can specify \S0 through \S9 to insert the contents of the System Variable with the same number. \n is also supported to insert a line break.
Added a Copy to Clipboard action function which allows you to copy a field to the system clipboard.
Added a Compare Text Test function which allows the setting of an action's test state based on various text comparisons.
Added a Compare Numeric Test function which allows the setting of an action's test state based on various numeric comparisons.
Added a Compare Date Test function which allows the setting of an action's test state based on various date/time comparisons.
Added a Substring function used to save a substring of a field to a Variable field.
Added a Remove/Insert function to remove characters and insert text to a specified field.
Added a Get Modification Date from iTunes function. The function extracts the iTunes equivalent of the Tagging Time field and saves it to a specified Variable field.
Added Set Action Test State to Variable and Set Variable to Action Test State functions.
Added Run Context Test function so that you can test the current run context from within an action.
Added Increment Variable and Decrement Variable functions.
Added Clear All System Variables, System Variable to Variable and Variable to System Variable functions.
Added Adjust Comment for iTunes function. In mp3 and aiff files, iTunes will only process comments with an empty description field and a language code of eng. If you are editing files previously edited by a different tagger it is possible that the default comment has a language code of xxx which may be used for don't care. This function will traverse the comments in a file and if no valid default comment is found it will look for comments with an empty description and a language code other than eng. If one is found, the function will change the language code to eng so that it is recognized by iTunes.
Added a Linked to iTunes Test function which sets the current actions's test state to true if the track is linked or false if it is not.
Added a Remove from iTunes function which removes any liked tracks from the iTunes library.
Added a Run Application function. USe this to directly call OS X applications.
The Exists, Bit Rate and More than One Artwork Item functions operate as you would expect in all execution modes. The Once option has been removed. In stepwise execution, the functions and the Test variants will all terminate on the first file which has the tested condition. The same holds true for the Search for Artwork function except that the Once option has been preserved to eliminate the amount of items written to the log while batch processing.
The More than One Artwork Item {Test} functions have been renamed to More than One Item {Test}. The functions can now test for more than one artwork item, comment, lyrics and rating.
Implemented a Verify Same Test function which is a test equivalent of Verify Same.
Added a Stop function which immediately stops all action processing.
Added a Exit function which exits the current action.
Added a Save Database function.
The Update Database function now has an option to save the database after updating.
The Remove Items from Database function now has a Save after removing option.
All database functions now allow you to specify that the path is to be taken from a variable. \V# form.
The Link to iTunes and Link to iTunes if Modified now have an Ignore errors option.
In addition to the Set function, the Append, Remove/Insert and Replace functions all support escape sequences.
User Defined Fields functions now have a case insensitive option. Also when the Remove function is chosen, there is an All option available. Additionally, the supplied name may contain escape sequences.
Action functions in the Action Editor window can be duplicated from the context menu.
You can now drag action functions from one Action Editor window to another.
Action functions can be copied, cut and pasted.
You are now warned when you run an action if action editors are open with unsaved contents.
Growl messages are no longer issued for user initiated prompts.
All action functions which take absolute paths will also accept paths relative to the home folder (~/).
Added a new Preferences section named 'System Variables'. The panel displays ten persistant variables which can be utilized from within actions.
Added a Preferences-General option named Action Pending window default text color. The choices are Black, Blue or Red. The selected color is used for the prompt field of Action Pending windows which are emitted as the failure of an action function.
Dramatically speeded up the 'already open' detection code when adding tracks.
Advanced editors now automatically disable live update if it seems as if the update process will take too long. The updates will be performed when the panel is closed or an external event requires the updated values (for example Save). While updating the status bar will display the progress.
The reason field in the Pending Action Window is now scrollable and supports multi line values in order to work better with the various Prompt action functions. The window is also now resizable.
The Disable Unique Fields on Multiple Selections option will now also disable editing of the Initial Key, Original Filename, Subtitle, Play Count, Length, Sort Title and Lyrics fields.
If you rename a template or an action, all actions, open and closed, which reference the renamed item will be updated.
Added an Audio Stream field on the Audio tab. The field displays the format type of the audio stream. The information is also available as a column in the main window and is accessible in Export Sets and via the new Get Property action function.
Bug Fix: if m4a files with multiple artwork items were edited by Yate, then were edited in a different tagger, then again saved in Yate, it was possible that artwork items other than the first would be lost. This was the result of Yate's attempt to retain artwork items' description fields. This has been fixed and the description fields are still retained. Saving the files in Yate also restores the ability of iTunes to display multiple artwork items for the files.
Bug Fix: The Action Editor sometimes reported that changes had occurred when none had.
Cleaned up the operation caches in action processing to ensure that each action step can get done at least once. Remove Folder Icon followed by Set Folder Icon would previously not do the set on the same folder.
Bug Fix: The Test action function was requiring an action to run which should have been optional.
Bug Fix: The first time the modify name sheet for an Export template was displayed, the window was not sized correctly.
Bug Fix: The Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards were not that pleased if you closed the window while inline editing a field.
Bug Fix: The Preference Sets action was not properly switching the Title or Name exception sets.
Bug Fix: The underscore option on the Move and Create Symbolic Links functions was being applied to the entire path. It should only have been applied to the new constructed path components and not to supplied placeholders.
Bug Fix: The Run External Script function was not processing the Once option while batch processing.

New in Yate 2.2.0.3 Build 1290 (Jun 12, 2013)

New in Yate 2.2.0.2 Build 1289 (Jun 10, 2013)

New in Yate 2.2.0.1 Build 1286 (Jun 3, 2013)

New in Yate 2.2 Build 1281 (May 31, 2013)

Feature Request: Track databases! Produce a database which contains all the tracks in your library. Same editing functionality as with Album databases. Preview tracks, etc.
Feature Request: Locate misplaced tracks. This involves using Discogs or MusicBrainz and the new track databases. For more information see the new help topic Locating Missing Tracks in an Album.
Feature Request: Added a Create Symbolic Links action function. This function works the same as Move, except symbolic links are created as opposed to moving the files. You can choose the Create Folder Links option to create a link to the track's containing folder as opposed to the file. In this case you can optionally choose to perform the function only once per set of files.
Feature Request: The Move and new Create Symbolic Links action functions now allow you to enter placeholders for missing values. Errors will be issued if a value is empty and no placeholder is specified; essentially the previous result. The functions also allow you to choose Default, Skip or Replace as the desired action for a file already existing. Default prompts you to decide via Cancel/Skip/Replace/Apply to All while not Batch Processing. The Default for Batch Processing is to log an error. While Batch Processing, Default and Skip are equivalent.
Feature Request: The Move and new Create Symbolic Links action functions now support usage of a rename template. This template allows you to construct an additional path component (via the rename template Folder Start construct) and the file name. More information in the associated help in the Action Editor window. There is now a preview button which will apply the function to the file's currently selected in the main window. The preview results will be displayed in the Log Viewer.
Feature Request: Added a Run External Script action function. The function allows you to save the output of an external script to the a specified field. You can elect to not pass any parameters or the path to a file or folder. You can also specify that the script is to be run only once per set of files. You can also choose to ignore error output or to stop the script.
Feature Request: New Open Mode setting to enable/disable auto linking of opened files to iTunes. Note that this does not apply to files opened while batch processing.
User Defined Work Field has been renamed to Variable1. There are now five fields which can be used as variables in actions. The new fields are named Variable2 through Variable5.
The User Defined Fields action function now allows you to specify any one of Variable1 through Variable5 to be used.
The Text from Clipboard action function now allows you to specify any one of Variable1 through Variable5 to be used.
Rename and File to Tag templates now have Variable1 through Variable5 tokens and more standard field tokens.
Rename templates now support IfExists field token Else endIf constructs. The tokens operate as standard if-then-else and nesting is permitted. The test condition is the non empty state of the field following the IfExists token. IfExists Album ... is true if the album field is not empty. IfExists+ is a convenience method where IfExists+ Album ... is equivalent to IfExists Album Album. ie. If Album exists, include it. The Else token is optional. Else is also permitted with the IfDup token. All outstanding IfExists, IfExists+ and IfDup constructs are terminated by a Folder Start token.
The Rename and File to Tag preference sections now have a disclosure button to open a resizable sheet with a larger view for template editing.
The Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards do a much better job of matching tracks regardless of their order.
Preferences-Export Sets now presents a list of canned templates when creating a new set.
Preferences-Exception Sets has a new special type in the Weight Exception List which is used in conjunction with the Locate Misplaced Tracks functionality.
New Preferences-General setting to automatically set the Length field.
New Preferences-General setting to automatically open all sticky databases when the application starts. Album and Track databases can be made sticky by holding down the Shift key when selecting them in the File>Recently Opened menu. This feature is disabled if Yate is started while holding down the Option key.
Import and Export Preferences now allow the saving and restoring of the recently opened list and the current warning values. (Both are enabled initially).
Added a new Preferences-General option to change the timeout value used when adding tracks to iTunes. The value zero implies the system default of two minutes. Hard as it is to believe, iTunes 11 has timed out for a few users when adding tracks with a two minute timeout. You can specify any timeout you wish as a number of seconds.
Preference changes for Discogs and MusicBrainz to support the Locate Missing Tracks feature.
Rename, Move and Create Symbolic Links will fall back on the Artist field if the Album Artist field is empty.
You can now flip between small and large thumbnails in an Album or Track database.
Non UTF8 CSV files display ratings using asterisks (*).
Added Show in Finder context menu items in Album and Track databases.
Added a File>Show in Database menu and context menu item. The first selected track will be highlighted in all open databases (if located).
New action function Create Track Database.
New action function Truncate. Truncate will reduce one or more fields to their first non blank line.
Action functions, Close Database, Open Database, and Update Database work on Album and Track databases.
Added a Remove Items from Database action function. Album and Track databases associate entries with open files by either a folder path or file path. When tracks are moved and possibly when renamed, these paths are invalidated. In order to solve the problem you can use this function to remove the database items associated with the current selected files before you move or rename files. After the move or rename function you can use an Update Database function to repopulate the moved files.
Added a new pseudo field called Incomplete to Export Sets. Yate will attempt to accumulate information on missing tracks or incorrect track information in Album databases. The field can be empty implying no errors, Missing Disc(s), Zero Based, Duplicate Track Numbers, or Missing xx% (yy) where xx is the percentage of missing tracks and yy is the number of missing tracks.
Added a Refresh Thumbnails option to the database context menu. This is useful if you add, change or remove a thumbnail source after the database has cached all of its thumbnails.
Sorting an Album or Track database will no longer mark the file as changed. Note that the current sort descriptors are always saved so a database will always display as last sorted when loaded. This preamble is only meaningful to you if you care about the order of the records in the file. Saving the file will always write the records in the current display order.
Album and Track databases now save their column sizes, window size and position.
New File menu and context menu item, Find in Database, will locate the first selected track in all open Album and Track databases.
New File menu and context menu item, Update Databases, is equivalent to selecting the Update Database Values from Open Files context menu item in all open databases.
The Create Album Database and Create Track Database functions validate the chosen Export Set's minimum field requirements when created and run.
Bug Fix: Modifying the Hidden or All File settings for an action while the action was open, would cause the values to be reset if the action was saved.
Bug Fix: Regression where Get Artwork from iTunes changes might be tossed. Also fixed action issues with the same function.
Bug Fix: Multi Field Editor - Remove/Insert had issues.

New in Yate 2.1.2.1 Build 1162 (May 1, 2013)

New in Yate 2.1.2 Build 1161 (Apr 30, 2013)

New in Yate 2.1.1 Build 1155 (Apr 23, 2013)

Feature Request: Support for auto-completion in artist fields...and drop down menus.
New Preferences section called Artists. You can manually create and edit a list of artists in this section. Don't worry, there's a far better method of accumulating the data. You can specify the auto accumulation of data entered in the Artist or Album Artist fields.
New action function called Fill Lists. This function's purpose is to optionally fill the Preferences Genre and Artist lists based on the values contained in tracks. Unique values are added. This function may be used while batch processing to accumulate all of your genre and/or artist information. This is the best method to accumulate the data for the new Artists list.
New Action function Update Album Database. The named Album Database will be updated with the values of the currently open tracks,
New Action function Stop Action and Close Files. All action processing will be terminated and selected files will be closed.
New action called File Maintenance used to hopefully fix issues where a file's artwork icon does not appear in the Finder. The function removes either or both of a file's resource fork and extended Finder attributes...neither of which should be necessary on an audio track. While this issue has nothing to do with Yate, people have been complaining about it for years and we thought we'd try to help out.
Album Databases now retain their last sort order.
Bug Fix: Resetting the preferences or importing preferences did not rebuild the User Defined Action menu.
Bug Fix: Genre modify button in Preferences could create a duplicate entry.
Bug Fix: Automatic Genre organization was not treating genres as case insensitive.
Bug Fix: If you changed an Explicit or Clean Content Advisory field to empty (unrated), iTunes did not update when refreshed. Note that iTunes does not update its display of the content advisory when refreshed. If you have iTunes open when Yate refreshes the field, you may have to click on/off the track in iTunes to see the updated value.

New in Yate 2.1.0.2 Build 1123 (Apr 22, 2013)

New in Yate 2.1.0.1 Build 1122 (Apr 15, 2013)

New in Yate 2.1 Build 1120 (Apr 9, 2013)

Incorporates more UI tweaks and a new feature to create album databases which can be displayed and edited in Yate and which can be viewed in any CSV viewer.
Yate now supports the creation, viewing and editing of album databases. These databases are stored in CSV files with a sidecar file for enhanced Yate usage. The databases can contain common values across all tracks in an album and special aggregated fields such as duration, track count, lowest rating, average rating, highest rating and tag source. Because the content is stored in a CSV file, you can take these databases with you on your mobile devices. CSV viewers are available for iOS and Android devices. We know you hate reading online help but we strongly suggest you read the Album Databases & CSV Files topic accessable from the main help page.
There's a new Help menu item which describes how to fix online help issues... just in case you actually read the help on Album Databases & CSV Files and have issues. The menu item opens a PDF file :-)
Preferences Changes:
The Preference sections can now be reordered. Simply drag and drop the section names.
Many preference panels have had their UI tweaked.
General Preferences was getting quite crowded so it has been split into three sections: General, File List and Artwork.
General Preferences has a new option to disable loading of images from album folder icons in the Album Database Viewer.
Clear iTunes album rating... is on the General panel.
The Discogs and MusicBrainz shared Disable Cached Replies setting has been moved to General Preferences as it is used elsewhere as well. It is now called Disable Cached Web Replies.
File List Preferences has two new options. Use Natural Sorting and Use Sort Fields When Sorting. These options affect how the Album, Album Artist, Artist, Composer and Title fields are sorted. Natural sorting causes a set of small words such as The, A and An to be ignored at the start of a field while sorting. When Use Sort Fields When Sorting is checked, if any of the previous five fields have their associated Sort field set, the sort field will be used to sort.
Rename templates now support a bitrate token.
There is a new special set in the Exception Sets panel. ⓢ is used to denote the Natural Sort set which contains the list of words to be used when Use Natural Sorting. You denote the set to use via the context menu.
You can now remove an exception or replacement set's special status via the context menu. Previously you had to assign the status to a different set.
Previewing in Preferences File To Tag and Rename operates on the current selected item, not necessarily the displayed values. You are now warned if they differ.
Preferences Exceptions and Replacements now each have a splitter between the two tables they contain.
A new preference section for Export Sets. Export Sets are used when exporting album information to an Album Database. The sets allow you to specify field mappings, column headers and qualifying information if you want to export User Defined items.
User Defined Text Information has been moved off the Audio tab into the More Info tab. The custom fields can now be viewed directly on the tab. As with the User Defined URLs you have to used the advanced editor to edit the values (disclosure triangle).
A new m4a only field on the More Info tab called Content Advisory. The available values are empty, Clean or Explicit.
Added a Growl notification for Batch Processing Done.
Three new action functions related to Album Databases. There are Create, Open and Close Album Database functions.
Bug Fix: in certain circumstances after a successful Auto Search, the URL moved into the Commercial Information Web Page field had only one slash(/) after http: or https:
Bug Fix: changing the Preferences File List values for Start Time, Stop Time and Volume Adjustment were not updating the file list on the fly.
Bug fix: Lyrics were not being output to m4a files.
Bug fix: The tab order in the Multi Field Editor was messed up.
Bug fix: Growl messages for moved files were delayed.
Bug Fix: Fixed inability to assign a shortcut key to the Auto Search menu item
Bug Fix: The Price Paid field may have had a garbage character at the front of the field.

New in Yate 2.0.2 Build 980 (Mar 8, 2013)

New in Yate 2.0.1.2 Build 959 (Feb 27, 2013)

New in Yate 2.0.1.1 Build 957 (Feb 25, 2013)

New in Yate 2.0.1 Build 936 (Feb 19, 2013)

New in Yate 2.0 Build 923 (Feb 2, 2013)

Actions are now treated as documents. You can have as many open at the same time as desired. Actions are saved by File>Save and File>Save As menu items. New actions can be created from the Action Manager or via the Action>New Action menu item.
The action manager now supports folders for actions and a trash bin for deleted actions. (Persistant while the application is running).
The Action Editor windows now utilize a multi-panel approach for the selection, display and editing of action steps. Full undo support is provided.
Both modified windows use context menus for their operations. Remember that ⌘F1 always provides context sensitive help.
Some overloaded action steps have been split into different items. In particular all steps which supported a Test option now have separate Test variants. You do not have to manually change any of your existing actions.
New Auto Search for Artwork function to automatically download artwork from the web. The highest resolution image which can be automatically located will be downloaded. The artwork will be scaled if a scale factor has been set in Preferences-General. The menu item is found under Artwork>Search for Artwork. For more information view the Action Editor Window's help for the Auto Search for Artwork function. The action step has more options than the menu based function. We're pretty excited about this feature. It provides a fast convenient method of looking for hi-res artwork. but....there's always a but isn't there! This is new. Some of the stuff we're doing is pretty funky. When it works, it works great. When it can't find anything it certainly doesn't mean that the artwork does't exist. When it gives you a totally bogus result, enjoy it and and the Revert function even more. Have fun with it!
A new Move action step has been provided which is used to relocate tracks to an absolute or relative path with additional path components selected from tag fields.
New action steps called More than One Artwork Item and More than One Artwork Item Test.
New action step called Revert.
New action step called Ask which is used to interact with a running action.
New action step called Text from Clipboard.
New action step called Import All Artwork in Folder will import all jpeg, jpg and png files in a tracks's containing folder.
All action steps which have an artwork size test now have a w & h option. By default, Yate tests for width or height less than the specified size. When w & h is selected, the test will be for width and height less than the specified size.
General preference Set description to URL has been renamed Save metadata on imported artwork. When set, the source URL of the image will be saved to the image's description field. Additionally, if there is associated commercial information it will be saved to a Commercial Information Webpage item.
Yate now creates a backup of your application preferences each time you start the application. Ten backups will be retained. You can import from these backups via the Yate>Import from Backup menu item.
Most built in items can be imported as opposed to being reset by holding doen the Option key while displaying the Yate>Reset Built in Items menu. The menu entries which display Import can be imported.
The context menu in both of the User Defined URL displays now has a Copy URL item.
The File>Open Recent menu now uses the Option key to toggle the Clear Menu item to Clear Entire Menu.
All image size/scaling menus now have 1100x1100 and 1200x1200 items.

New in Yate 1.4.1.2 Build 768 (Jan 3, 2013)

New in Yate 1.4.1.1 Build 767 (Jan 3, 2013)

New in Yate 1.4.1 Build 765 (Dec 17, 2012)

New in Yate 1.4 Build 748 (Dec 3, 2012)

New Features / Additions:
The checkbox to the left of the Rating field now shows a - for more than one value. To set no stars for all selected files, click in the rating field and drag all the way to the left. You'll notice that the checkbox will have a check mark implying changed.
The exception sets used as the Names List and Title Case List can now be assigned via the context menu in Preferences-Exception Sets. Note that the default exception set, the Names list and the Title Case list must all be different sets.
The Preferences action function now allows setting the Names list and the Title Case list.
Now have a default FLAC mapping for the Skip When Shuffling field.
Added a File>Open Recent menu item. The last ten folders, m3u and m3u8 files will be retained. Items can be made sticky by holding down the Shift key and clicking on an item. Ten sticky items will be retained. You can clear all the non sticky items by selecting Clear Menu. You can clear all items, sticky and non sticky by holding doen the Shift key and selecting Clear Entire Menu.
Added a Hidden column to the Action Manager. When an action is hidden, it will not appear in the User Defined action menu or the Batch Processor action menu.
When exporting selected preference items or actions, you can now choose to merge the exported content into an existing file. Note that the exported content replaces all previous content of the same type. For example, exporting actions with the merge option will preserve the previous contents of the file with one exception. The exported actions will completely replace any actions previously in the file.
The Link to iTunes action function has a new option. When Link if Modified is selected all selected files which are not currently linked and which have been modified, will be linked to iTunes. This is useful when running an action in the Batch Processor and you want to avoid linking unless necessary. Note that if you are going to modify the Artist, Album or Title fields you should always link before changes are made. If you are going to modify any of those fields use the Link option prior to making any changes as opposed Link if Modified.
Warnings have been added for deleting just about anything.
The Verify Same action function has been expanded. There are now three modes of verification.
When verifying by Files, each individual field must have the same value in every file. This is useful to check that every track in an album has the same value for Year.
When verifying by Fields, every field in a given file must have the same value. This is useful to check that the Artist and Album Artist fields in each file have the same value.
When Both is specified you are testing that all the specified fields in all the selected files have the same value. This is useful to check that the Artist and Album Artist fields across all files have the same value.
The previous incarnation was effectively Files but was documented as if Fields.
iTunes 11:
You can no longer set the gapless state of a track in iTunes 11 without getting an error. Part of a gapless album has been removed from the iTunes UI. The default for the Preferences-General-File List-iTunes Linked Fields ➡ (gapless) option has been changed to Off. For now, error messages are not displayed for a failure on setting the gapless value in iTunes. If you export a changed gapless value you will not get an error but it will not work. We will more than likely remove the ability to import and export the gapless state in a subsequent release.
Adding tracks to iTunes seems to take much longer, especially when adding an entirely new artist. This seems to be true when adding from the Finder as well as adding from Yate. When adding from the Finder, iTunes returns control to the user before actually completing the add. The album may be displayed but the metadata may not yet be available. In Yate's case we regain control when the add is completely done. Hopefully, this will be speeded up in a future iTunes update.
Bug Fixes:
The Next button was not displaying in the Batch Processor Wizard. The bug was introduced in v1.2.2.
The Import and Export to iTunes action functions, did not work if the Use Defaults option was selected.
Resetting the FLAC mappings was not updating the display.
The Find and Remove action function was displaying incorrect values for the Ignore Case and From End options. The action function was correctly formed and does not have to be modified.
The Get Artwork from iTunes menu function was not updating the display until the file selection changed.
The iTunes Album Rating:
iTunes allows you to set an Album Rating. When you manually set an Album Rating, all tracks which do not have an explicit rating will be displayed with an equivalent number of ☆'s for its rating value.  When an album has an iTunes Album Rating and you set a track's rating to no stars, then export it to iTunes, the operation will effectively fail. This is due to the fact that iTunes will display its default value for the album. You will notice that Yate still displays ratings differ even though you have just exported the new rating. In order to solve this problem you have to reset the iTunes Album Rating to no stars.  We now identify those albums which have had an Album Rating set via a ☆ in the iTunes column of a track's display. Preferences-General now allows you to control the display of the ☆ indicator. It also supports the setting of an Auto clear ☆ option. When set, the iTunes Album Rating will be cleared whenever data is exported to iTunes. You can also clear the Album Rating via the Export to iTunes action function and by the Compare iTunes Values panel.
Flow Control in Actions:
The User Defined Fields function has been modified so that if the field cannot be matched and the function is an Export function, the User Defined Work field will be cleared.
The Exists and Search for artwork functions have a new Test option used to specify that a test status should be set as opposed to the normal Pending Window or Batch Processing logging handling. Search for artwork sets the test state to true when a search notification would normally be issued, otherwise it sets the state to false. Exists sets the test state to true whenever its criteria is met, otherwise it sets the state to false. Note that the Test option is only performed once per set of files.
The new Test function is used to implement flow control within actions. Yate maintains a test state for the currently running action. The state is initialized to false when an action is started. When a second action is run by another action the previous state is restored when the second action terminates. Currently the Exists and Search for artwork action functions can modify the test state.  The Test function allows you to test if the state is true or false, to optionally run an action and then to continue, exit or stop. Exit stops execution of the current action. Stop cancels execution of all running actions and returns control to the user.  To run an action you must set the Run action option and choose an action to run from the drop down list.  Note that a Test function is run once per set of files and not individually for each file.

New in Yate 1.3 Build 708 (Nov 12, 2012)

Yate will now tag AIFF files (.aiff, .aif, .aifc)
The Open Modes can now be separated into two global states: Album Mode and Playlist Mode. Album Mode is what existed prior to this release. When in Playlist Mode, opening a track will not automatically open all other audio files in the same folder. In Playlist mode the other mode options are always Add and Do Not Process Subfolders. Note that while running a batch process, you are effectively in Album Mode.
There is now a status bar available for the file list. The status bar displays the number of tracks and duration of the tracks. If more than one track is selected (ala iTunes), the displayed information refers to the selection. The status bar is toggled on or off via the Window>Hide/Show Status Bar item. The state is maintained separately for the Album and Playlist open modes. The status bar will also provide feedback when a large number of files are being loaded.
There is a new Action menu item and associated action function called Create m3u files. When in Album Mode one m3u file will be created for each folder represented in the current file selection. When in Playlist Mode you will be prompted for the name and location of a file to be created. Every open track will be written to the file regardless of the current selection. If all of the filenames can be represented in Latin1, an m3u file will be created. If this is not the case, an m3u8 file will be created with UTF8 encoding. Yate will place relative file paths into the produced files as long as all the files are descendants of the folder where the file is placed. If this is not the case, absolute paths will be written.
When in Playlist Mode, m3u and m3u8 files can be opened or dragged into the file list.
Preferences-General no longer has the performance/responsiveness sliders. They were originally intended for the initial beta period and have now been set to the most appropriate values.
The Done button used in the advanced editor panels and the action editor can now have a shortcut applied. This can be set in Preferences-Shortcuts. There is a new section item called Key Bindings which contains the Done item.
Added an option to Preferences-General so you can choose the Picture Type for artwork dragged into Yate. You can choose a default value of Cover (front) or Other.
Added an option to display track numbers padded to two digits in the file list display and the associated edit fields. The option is found in Preferences-General-Pad track display. Note that this is a display-only option and does not affect how the information is stored in the tag.
Rename templates can now specify Genre.
File to tag processing has been expanded. All tag fields found in Rename templates can be specified. There is now also an Ignore token used to skip data. There is also a new Folder Start token used to specify the extraction of information from a file's folder name.
A note about online help: Apple strongly caches the help files associated with applications. As the help for Yate is updated fairly regularly, it is possible that you will download a new build and have older help displayed. Unfortunately, there is no current method to work around this issue from within Yate. Typically the issue only arises when additional help anchors are implemented. Our forum section Yate-Issues contains a sticky item describing how to flush and automatically rebuild the help cache.