Mp3 Filter Glossary
Mp3 Filter and it's help file use a couple of technical words that not everyone might understand.
This is why this help file includes this glossary. Most technical words in all the help links directly
to their explanation written in the page.
- Carnage:
Havoc, massive destruction, might turn into a genocide if uncontrolled. A seven nation army could make
a carnage, but it could never hold Jack White back. There can also be a mp3 carnage
if your duplicate threshold is low. Watch out, you don't want to delete false duplicates huh?
Yes, this is an official easter egg, a token of appreciation for those who read the whole documentation.
- Check:
Checking an item is a different action than selecting it. When you check an
item, you change the state of the little box at the left end of the item so the box displays a little
check icon. Clicking on a checkbox usually toggle it's state unless it is grayed, which is the case
for the reference files. You can also press Space, and all selected items
will toggle their check state.
- Copy action:
When the copy action is initiated, Mp3 Filter asks for a destination directory. It then asks if you
want to recreate directory structure in destination. If you choose no, all files will be copied
directly in the destination directory. If you choose yes, the source directory structure will be
recreated in destination directory. For example, if the you copy D:\myartist\mysong.mp3 to
C:\copydir, the file will be copied to C:\copydir\myartist\mysong.mp3. Mp3 Filter also merges
paths in a smart way. For example, if you copy C:\mymusic\myartis\mysong.mp3 to C:\mymusic\copydir,
the final file will be C:\mymusic\copydir\myartist\mysong.mp3 and not
C:\mymusic\copydir\mymusic\myartist\mysong.mp3.
- Delete action:
The delete action sends checked to recycle bin. Be careful: If your recycle bin
is full, the files will be forever deleted.
- Directory priority:
There are 6 directory priority levels: 1 through 5, and Reference level. Level 5
weights more than level 1, and Reference level weight more than everything.
The directory priorities are used to represent the relative importance of each directory. For example,
your directory "Full Albums" worths more to you than your directory "Nightly downloads" right? And your directory
"Unclassified high quality" worths slightly more than "Nightly downloads" huh? Thus, if I were
you, I would set "Full Albums" to Reference (so you never delete any file from there),
"Unclassified high quality" to level 5, and "Nightly downloads" to level 1. This way,
you could find that you downloaded files of lower quality than your unclassified quality files, and thus, delete
them, and you could also see that you have some high quality files that you already had in your full albums.
- Dupe file:
(The word "duplicate" was already taken, I had to find
something :) ) There can be more that one dupe file in a duplicate. If the dupe has automatically
been flagged as dupe by Mp3 Filter, it is because it weights less then the
reference file. In the scan result window, the dupe file has a black checkbox (checkable) and is the
target for dupe actions. If you think a dupe should be reference, you can always
switch it.
- Duplicate:
A duplicate in Mp3 Filter is an association of one
reference file and one or more dupe files. This is what Mp3 Filter is all
about: Finding those associations.
- Duplicate actions:
There are 3 basic type of actions that can be performed on duplicates: delete, copy
and move. In the scan result window, the actions are ONLY performed on
checked items.
- False positives:
I borrowed this expression from the anti-spam jargon. a false positive is something that an automated
system flags as positive (In Mp3 Filter's case, positive means duplicate), and is wrong.
The more you loosen your duplicate parameters, the more likely you will get false positive. False
positives are dangerous, because if you are not careful, you could delete a file that has no
duplicate file, and you sure don't want that.
- Fields:
A field is a group of words separated by the beginning of string, the end of string, or a dash.
If your profile uses the One Field comparison type, you don't
have to think about the fields. If it uses Dash separated fields or ID3 Tag comparison types however,
fields play a very important part in the comparison. In these types of comparison, ALL fields must
meet the minimum percentage for the filenames to match, because the final percentage will be the
LOWEST matching percentage of all fields. And if the number of fields is different,
the files automatically DO NOT match. Example:
- Filename1 = word1 word2 - word3 word4.
- Filename2 = word1 word2 - word3 word5.
- Total words for lowest field = 4.
- Total words matching = 1 (lowest field) (*2 = 2).
- 2/4 = 50%.
- File criterias:
There are 5 file criterias in Mp3 Filter: directory priority, extension, size, duration and
bitrate. The first criteria considered is always directory priority. The order of the other criterias depends
on your profile settings. These settings are in Duplicate scanning | File comparison | File priority. The
higher is the criteria in the list, the more weight it will worth. The criteria comparison of size,
duration and bitrate are quite straightforward: The more the worth, the heavier is the file weight. The
extension criteria is a bit different, see the glossary word for more information.
- File extension criteria:
The file extension criteria is configured in the same window as file criterias window.
check the extension if you want Mp3 Filter to include this kind of file in the scan.
The higher the extension is in the list, the heavier it will be. For
example, if Extension is the first item in criterias window, and MP3 is higher than WMA,
a MP3 file of 1kb will weight more than a WMA of 9999kb. However, if Size if the first item in
criterias window, the WMA will weight more.
- File weight:
The file weight represents the importance of a file relatively to another file.
The weight of a file is determined by several criterias. The first criteria considered if the
directory priority. A file with a directory priority of 3 and size of 1kb will always be heavier
than a file of directory priority of 2 and a size of 99999kb. If the directory priorities are the same, then
the other criterias determine the file weight depending on profile settings.
- MPL:
MPL stands for Mp3 List. It is a virtual list of your media files. The main purpose of MPL is to perform
duplicate scans between your removable media supports (CDs for most people). Add all your CDs to the MPL
once, and then, from now on, you can scan which files are duplicate to ANY file on ALL your CDs! pretty
neat huh? You can also give your mpl around, and your friends can scan all mp3 you have that they don't
have, and then copy them to their hard drive (The copy is very nice, it will event prompt you when
you need to insert a new CD).
- Move action:
Behaves like copy, but the source file is deleted, if possible.
- Profile:
A Mp3 Filter profile is a set of settings bound to a name. Mp3 Filter is a multi-profile system, which
means that you can create, edit and run more than one profile. For example, you could have a profile named
"hdd_scan", which is set to scan your whole hard drive, and a profile name "scan_strict"
which could have a higher duplicate threshold. That would allow you to delete
duplicates without being worried about
false duplicates. And if you're in a mood for a duplicate carnage, you can always create and run
a profile named "scan_loose", which would have a low duplicate threshold. You would have
to look very carefully for false duplicates, but after cleaning them all, you could be quite sure to
be duplicate free.
- Reference directory priority level:
This level is a special directory priority level. It behaves like a level 6, except that if it
ever finds duplicate within this directory OR another Reference directory, the duplicate will be discarded.
Thus, if you set a directory ro reference priority, you'll be 100% sure to never ever delete a file from
there.
- Reference file::
The reference file is the "heaviest" file of a
duplicate. The file weight depends on your profile settings. In the scan result window,
the reference is displayed with a gray checkbox (uncheckable) and slightly offsetted to the left, and
can never be selected for dupe actions. This is a security mesure to make sure you always keep
one version of the file (The heaviest version).
- Select:
Selecting an item is a different action than checking it. When you select an item,
it becomes highlighted. If you use the default Windows theme, highlighted items have a navy blue background.
You can usually select multiple items by using the SHIFT or CTRL keys. Holding CTRL while clicking on an
item will keep all previous selection, and toggle selection for clicked item. Holding SHIFT while clicking
on an item will select all items between the last focused item and the clicked item. Pressing the Space key
usually toggle checking state of checkable selected items.
- Switch with reference:
As smart as the Mp3 Filter criterias system can be, it might consider a file as dupe when it
should be reference. There is a button called "Switch with ref." in the scan result
window. To use it, select the file that you want to be reference, and click on the button.
The dupe will become reference, and the reference will become dupe. Tadaa!
- Wizard:
The wizard in Mp3 Filter is a profile edition wizard. It's there to help you configuring your
profiles. It asks you several simple questions. This way, you can build
customized profiles without being a Mp3 Filter Wizard yourself. The New Profile button automatically
launch the profile edition wizard. Some people might misunderstand the word "wizard",
especially after having watch Lord of the Rings. Don't worry, the wizard in Mp3 Filter is
innofensive, and will never unleash it's wrath to wreak havoc and carnage.
The Mp3 Filter wizard is also Ent-Safe(TM).
- Word:
Mp3 Filter compare files by counting the number of matching words in each filename. A word is
a sequence of character delimited either by the end of string, the beginning of string, or a whitespace.
- Word comparison:
The word comparison process itself is quite simple, it is the processes around it that can
become complex. To compare two filenames, we first count the combined number of
words. Then, we count the number of words matching, multiply by 2, and divide
by the total number of words. That gives us the final percentage. If that percentage is higher or
equal to the profile' minimum percentage, we got a match! Example:
- Filename1 = word1 word2 word3 word4.
- Filename2 = word4 word2 word5 word6 word1.
- Total words = 9.
- Matching = 3 (*2 = 6).
- 6 / 9 = 66%.
Things can be a little different if the words are grouped in fields.
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