File filter, mp3s, folders, and tags

[drgibbon]

I'm trying to create a simple workflow to find mp3 files and folders (sometimes I want to load a whole album folder), and then pass them to an audio player (in this case, Vox). My keyword is 'play' and my workflow is "File Filter" -> "Open File".

 

My test mp3 file has the path ~/music/The Necks/Open/01 Open.mp3

 

I can get the file in Alfred with "play open" or "play necks". However, "play necks open" or "play open necks" both do not work. I guess this is because "necks" only matches the folder type, while "open" only matches the filename, and combined they matche neither.

 

"open" is not a very specific search, and it actually brings up a lot of music files with "open" in the title. I'd like to be able to specify the artist/album/track title or whatever to narrow searches. Can I perhaps bring in mp3 tags to the search somehow? Ideally I'd like to incorporate track title, artist, and album. Thanks!

Edited January 8, 2014 by drgibbon

[jdfwarrior]

I'm trying to create a simple workflow to find mp3 files and folders (sometimes I want to load a whole album folder), and then pass them to an audio player (in this case, Vox). My keyword is 'play' and my workflow is "File Filter" -> "Open File".

 

My test mp3 file has the path ~/music/The Necks/Open/01 Open.mp3

 

I can get the file in Alfred with "play open" or "play necks". However, "play necks open" or "play open necks" both do not work. I guess this is because "necks" only matches the folder type, while "open" only matches the filename, and combined they matche neither.

 

"open" is not a very specific search, and it actually brings up a lot of music files with "open" in the title. I'd like to be able to specify the artist/album/track title or whatever to narrow searches. Can I perhaps bring in mp3 tags to the search somehow? Ideally I'd like to incorporate track title, artist, and album. Thanks!

 

The Mini Player built in to Alfred already does a lot of this (if the music is imported into your library in iTunes).

 

If you still insist of using a workflow, then yes you are correct about how alfred matches the files and folders. It would look at each folder/file as a separate item and wouldn't match a multiword query. You could create a script filter to search for you and show the results in Alfred.

[drgibbon]

The Mini Player built in to Alfred already does a lot of this (if the music is imported into your library in iTunes).

 

If you still insist of using a workflow, then yes you are correct about how alfred matches the files and folders. It would look at each folder/file as a separate item and wouldn't match a multiword query. You could create a script filter to search for you and show the results in Alfred.

 

Unfortunately I'm using this to search through a number of folders in different locations around the drive, not just my iTunes collection. Can the file filter read mp3 tags somehow? If not, how would I go about making a script to search?

[jdfwarrior]

Unfortunately I'm using this to search through a number of folders in different locations around the drive, not just my iTunes collection. Can the file filter read mp3 tags somehow? If not, how would I go about making a script to search?

 

Well.. it really depends on what you wanna be able to do. If the files have metadata associated with them correctly, then yes, a filter would work to easily let you search. If they don't, that could be a bit of a pain to get to work efficiently.

 

You could go to your files and run mdls on them and see if they have the kMDItemAlbum and kMDItemTitle set appropriately. For instance, I tested on the song Vicarious by Tool on the album 10,000 Days. If I do "mdls 01-tool-vicarious-ud.mp3" it shows me the metadata on that file. In there, it has the album name and track name and could get artist from the file name if it had to. So I would adjust my filter under the advanced tab to look through the kMDItemTitle and kMDItemAlbum fields as well. That would find the files