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Mass Update Lyrics

Started by ChrisMikolaj, August 07, 2023, 06:37:53 AM

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ChrisMikolaj

Is there a chance to mass update all lyrics at once? I know about the mass update for different fields, etc., but not for lyrics.

Basically all our lyrics are currently set up with individual headers for each section, such as VERSE, BRIDGE, REFRAIN. However, I'd like to exchange the word REFRAIN to CHORUS, as that's more what it actually is in 99% of the time.

As there are hundreds of songs in our account, that would be really cool not to do each one individually :) If there's not a function built in for that, maybe it's also somehow possible to extract the data into a file and replace the word there with a text edit and re-load the file into the account?

Many thanks for any help!

Cheers,
ChrisMikolaj

arlo

A search and replace across all songs is on my wish list and I'll add a vote for you. Meanwhile you would need to click through your songs and edit them individually. There's no way to export songs, edit them externally and then update the existing songs by importing the edited file.

ChrisMikolaj

Oh, that's kind of sad news. Hope this function has a lot of votes then sometimes :)

I saw that I could export the .json file per project and on that I could change the value of the Lyrics field, when I search for REFRAIN with checking for capitalized letters with Notepad++ for example. That would at least work to edit that file.

Would it be a possibility to import that .json file then again in the import session? Or if I delete the whole database then and import this file again as a new project? Then it wouldn't need to override anything, but only create new songs, etc.

Just thinking. But I guess if that would be a possibility, you would have already said that :)

Was just hoping, cause in that .json file I found the word to exchange 1,090 times :') would be cool to not do that manually...

Anyway, thanks as always already!

arlo

The project import/export function is meant for transferring a project to a different account. You could export the project file, edit it and re-import it into a new project in the same account, but you would then have to redo the links to users, documents and recordings, then delete the original project. Personally I would just edit the songs. Even if it takes a while, you would avoid the risk of mixing up, losing or duplicating your data.

ChrisMikolaj

Okie dokie. Then I'll try my best :) Thank you :)

Darug

Quote from: arlo on August 07, 2023, 11:57:11 AM
A search and replace across all songs is on my wish list and I'll add a vote for you. Meanwhile you would need to click through your songs and edit them individually. There's no way to export songs, edit them externally and then update the existing songs by importing the edited file.
I think I did suggest this in my early days of BH. I had to do a bulk search and replace using Windows.


JerryK

Obviously, "Containing the text..."  in the Songs screen's search criteria will find all the songs containing a hopefully rarified word but I guess 'Refrain' is in the majority of your songs.  If it's good enough, Save and Next might be a bit of a shortcut for you.
Within a song's webpage, in Windoze anyway, Ctrl-F will let you search for and highlight the word, and without re-entering it in each song.

ChrisMikolaj

Thanks everyone. I found a Chrome Extension to have a search and replace function for text fields and not only search. That helped quite significantly - also because usually all the headers for sections are fully capitalized and the extension could also check for that. So in case ,,refrain" was part of the lyrics, it wouldn't be replaced.

It was still kind of tedious, but worked out well in the end :)

JerryK


arlo

Can you share the name of the extension or a link to it?

ChrisMikolaj

Sure! I've used the Chrome Extension "Find & Replace for Text Editing" (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/find-replace-for-text-edi/jajhdmnpiocpbpnlpejbgmpijgmoknnl). With that I've opened each song individually and could use the same search and replace for every song. With the mentioned case sensitivity I was able to find and replace, what I needed pretty accurately.

Afterwards I used a smart list to filter all songs to include "REFRAIN" or "refrain" and couldn't find a song anymore. To double check I've changed one header back to "REFRAIN" and the song was shown in the smart list. So I'm pretty confident all my songs are now edited correctly.

Hope this helps you, Arlo!

theacousticmayhem

Quote from: ChrisMikolaj on August 07, 2023, 06:37:53 AM
Is there a chance to mass update all lyrics at once? I know about the mass update for different fields, etc., but not for lyrics.

Chris,
You mention a mass update capability for different fields.  I am interested in selecting multiple songs (say 10 or 12) and setting the artist (for example) for all of them in a single edit operation using the web interface, but I have not been able to figure out how to do that.  Can you please indicate how you do "mass updates" for fields such as this.
Thanks

arlo

On the Repertoire > Songs page of the website, you can select the checkboxes for multiple songs in the list, then use the Set To Field ... To Value options in the left sidebar and click Update.