Confusion about checkboxes in Duplicates

Discuss LairWare's app for fixing problems in your iTunes library.
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beastie
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Confusion about checkboxes in Duplicates

Post by beastie » Wed Jan 13, 2010 11:14 am

Song Sergeant's "Duplicates" list is unusual, to say the least. I'm sure that this sort of sentiment isn't terribly uncommon:
I'm still unclear how to have SS scan AND MARK Dupe files for AAC priority when getting rid of Dupe's. I now still have to manually Unmark all files shown and then manually check the boxes related to AAC.

Am I missing something; can you explain (including what pref's to check or not check) in order to do a sort/scan that will ID the AAC files and get rid or any Dupe's without manually checking off each AAC file box, if so that would make me very happy?
It might help to fire up Song Sergeant so you can look at it while reading this.

You can think of the green "audio data" columns on the right as the actual song files. For any given group of them, the checked one is the one you'll be keeping when you click Merge Marked. For example, if you always prefer AAC files over MP3 files, select that feature in the "Automark" section of Preferences. End of story.

The red "track information" columns on the left let you choose which song's information you want to keep. Just the info, nothing to do with the audio data. In many cases, the duplicate song file with the audio quality you wish to keep doesn't necessarily have the best track information associated with it -- a different duplicate with undesirable audio quality actually might have more complete information, artwork, lyrics, etc.

Song Sergeant "automarks" both rows of checkboxes for you after it finishes scanning your library for problems. This means that it uses the settings in the "Automark" Preferences to determine what track information you'd likely want to keep, and what audio data. For simplicity's sake, Song Sergeant will generally try to choose the same track for both information and audio data when it can.

When you click Merge Marked, Song Sergeant will work with all duplicate groups that have something checked in both left and right columns. For any given duplicate group, Song Sergeant first sees if different tracks have been chosen for the desired "track information" and "audio data". If so, it will copy the desired information to the song file containing the audio data that is marked for keeping.

Only then does Song Sergeant go about doing the things shown to the left of the Merge Marked button: adjusting playlists to replace occurrences of song files (audio data) that you aren't keeping, merging play date and count information, then disposing of the unkept song files in the manner chosen.

So there's a lot here that Song Sergeant is doing that most people take for granted without realizing what is actually happening. I'm happy to further clarify any part of the process for anyone who wants to know.
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