calibre-tytpe program for gutiar tabs

[cybmole]

does anyone know of a program like calibre which can be used to organize guitar tab files please? ( guitar pro, powertab....)

I have googled to no avail, except for one abandoned freeware project & I had a most disappointing reply from the publishers of guitar-pro:
no we have no plans to write a library program, and
no - we will not tell you how to extract title, artist etc metadata from our proprietary file formats: GP5, GPX...

A very basic level of support would be to be able to add such files to calibre , and to manually set title and set artist as "author", then configure an open-with plug in for viewing. Is that on anyone's wish list or am I the only one in search of such a a facility ?

[fidvo]

I don't know much about guitar tab files, but you should be able to use Calibre for them, assuming all of the following are true:

1. Each document is a single file.

2. You can associate these files with a particular reader or editor program in your OS. (e.g. if you double-click on one of the files, it opens in the right program)

3. The viewer/editor can open files with arbitrary names and from arbitrary locations on your hard drive.

Import the files as you would normally in Calibre. You'll have to fill in the metadata by hand. When you view the file, Calibre will not recognize the format, so it will send it out to the operating system to open it. If you have the file type association set up correctly, it should open just fine.

[cybmole]

ok - I thought that calibre only accepted file types which were on it's " I understand these" list

but yes I see that it works as you describe. So if I have the patiece to set metadata, then I can go ahead and add as many files as I wish

can I set a specific rule for extracting metadata from file name, to apply only to these new formats ( i.e. no change to how I import actual ebooks) . I doubt my file naming has been historically consistent, but I should be able to get at least one descriptive field from a file name

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by cybmole

ok - I thought that calibre only accepted file types which were on it's " I understand these" list

but yes I see that it works as you describe. So if I have the patiece to set metadata, then I can go ahead and add as many files as I wish

can I set a specific rule for extracting metadata from file name, to apply only to these new formats ( i.e. no change to how I import actual ebooks) . I doubt my file naming has been historically consistent, but I should be able to get at least one descriptive field from a file name

@cybmole - You can get author & title from the file name providing your file names conform to what you have in the Add Books->Configure metadata from filename->Regular Expression

That regex edit box operates as a MRU list - so you have to change it before you add different 'types' of books - eg regular books, guitar lessons, movies etc. But if you only have a few 'types' it should be liveable with - I have different regex's for my books, journals and media libraries.

BR

[cybmole]

learn a new acronym, every day. Today's is : MRU list ( thankyou google) .

OK thanks, so I have to flip between add ebooks and add guitar tab settings but as you say, it is liveable-with

[Sabardeyn]

I remember suggesting that calibre allow saving the regex from Add Books. Kind of like the Edit Metadata dialog does, which would allow the regex to be named and facilitate re-use. Not sure what the response was... anyway...

I just wanted to add that if you don't have enough space in the MRU list (unlikely but), you can always create a text file with two columns: regex name and expression. You could use this text file as a kind of library, cutting and pasting the necessary regex into the field as needed.

[cybmole]

what is a tad annoying is that guitar pro files have a rich set of metadata fields, i't just a case of reverse engineering the file formats to get at them.
the six available metadata fields in a gpx file are, title, subtitle, artist, album, words, music ( the last 2 would be used to name the writers of the words & of the music )

in the hope that some one with time on their hands can puzzle this out, I attach a zip of a "new" gpx file with test words in each of those fields and not a lot else.

but i see only gibberish if I open it with notepad++, so I guess it uses some form of compression

update: as explained here:
http://tuxguitar.herac.com.ar/forum/...o-6-gpx-files/

[mikeayers]

have you looked at tabledit? http://http://www.tabledit.com/
It is an editor and midi player for tabs, but I think it has some organization ability....
even if it doesn't you should still look at it. its editor and player are great

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by mikeayers

have you looked at tabledit? http://http://www.tabledit.com/
It is an editor and midi player for tabs, but I think it has some organization ability....
even if it doesn't you should still look at it. its editor and player are great

sorry , but we have have different definitions of "great"

that (ancient) program has about 5% of the functionality of guitar pro - which is why your choice is free, mine is ~60 euro

FYI there is another abandoned freeware project called guitartux, which can read & displayguitarpro files. It is tediously slow to install & open ( written entirely in java ) but check it out & open some proper full band guitar-pro scores if only to see what you are missing

even the almost as ancient free powertab editor has 10x the functionality of tabledit. but that's 10+years old, i'ts a miracle it still sort-of works in windows 7,; its only a matter of time before a future version of windows totally refuses to run it. ( 16 bit code, I think) .

still, we digress. I'll drop a line to Santa asking for a Guitar Pro metadata calibre plug-in for xmas