Contents

Qoobar features

Qoobar interface

The Qoobar Menu

Menu File

Menu Edit

Menu Tools

Menu Tabs

Menu Help

The Upper Toolbar

  1. Add folder... - adds a directory with all its subdirectories Ctrl+O
  2. Add files... - adds a file / files Ctrl+Shift+O
  3. Split disc - splits an image of a musical disc (*.ape, *.flac, *.wav) by a cue sheet
  4. Save - saves all changes in the current tab Ctrl+S
  5. Reread tags - rereads tags in selected files and undoes all unsaved changes
  6. Undo / Redo last operation Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y
  7. Rename files... - renames / moves files according to its tags Ctrl+R
  8. Fill tags... - fills tags from file name, tags or Internet Ctrl+F
  9. Delete all tags - deletes all tags in the selected files
  10. Clear the list - clears the current tab Ctrl+Del
  11. Play selected - plays selected files in an external player Ctrl+P
  12. Cut - cuts selected tags of selected files Ctrl+X
  13. Copy - copies selected tags of selected files Ctrl+C
  14. Paste - pastes copied tags Ctrl+V
  15. Add new tag... - adds a new tag to selected files Ctrl+N

The Files Table

Files Table

The Folders Tree

Folders Tree

The Tags Table

Tags Table

The Status Bar

Status Bar

The Status Bar shows:

Working with the Files Table

Files adding

Files are always appended to the end of the current tab.

If the number of added files is less than 100, they will be automatically selected.

Splitting an image file

If you have a disc image (ape or flac or wav) and a cue file with it, Qoobar can split it to separate tracks, just click Split button.
If you don't have shntool, flac and mac programs, install them.

Files removing

Files removing clears the undo stack.

Files saving

Files saving clears the undo stack.

Other operations

Tags editing

First select one or several files in the Files table.

To set one tag for all selected files - click on this tag (f.e. on the "Artist" tag) and type a text.

To edit one tag file by file - double-click the tag.

To number tracks from 1 to N (N is the number of selected files) - click on the "Track number" tag, type 1 and press Enter.

To remove some tags select these tags in the Tags Table and press Delete.

Copying and pasting tags

Operations with tags

There is a number of operations that you can use to edit tags. You can find them in the context menu:

Using tags autocompletion

Qoobar can autocomplete any tag while you are typing some text. This feature is turned on by default only for composers, genres, and moods. If you want to turn on autocompletion for other tags, do it in the Settings dialog. You can also edit autocompletion lists in the Settings dialog.

There are two modes for adding completion variants: automatic and manual (the default one). To manually "remember" tag select it and use "collect for future use" action or shortcut Ctrl+H.

Tags are added automatically only when you are pressing Enter in the Tags Table or OK in the Edit Dialog.

Autocompletion

Adding your own tag

You can add your own tag to the selected files. Click or press Ctrl+N. A dialog appears:

New field

Type a tag name with latin characters and underscores. Then click OK. The newly added tag will be appended to the Tags Table.

If you don't add something in the newly added tag, it will be lost.

Using placeholders

If you want to join different tags together or add some text to a tag just in one operation, you can make use of placeholders. A placeholder is a variable that contains a tag or other info of one file. Placeholders begin with '%', followed by one latin letter, for example %t for title, %a for album, %n for track number, and so on. The full list of available placeholders can be found in Appendix 3.

Examples

Scheme
Source
Result
%n. %t
track numbers:
1
2
3
track titles:
title
another title
the third title
track titles:
1. title
2. another title
3. the third title
%N. %t
track numbers:
1
2
3
track titles:
title
another title
the third title
track titles:
01. title
02. another title
03. the third title
[%n. ]%t
track numbers:
1
2
 
track titles:
title
another title
the third title
track titles:
1. title
2. another title
the third title
appended text - %ttrack titles:
title
another title
the third title
track titles:
appended text - title
appended text - another title
appended text - the third title

Using autonumbering function

In rare cases there may be a necessity to add some highly structured text to a tag. For example, when you are editing some opera and want to add text like "Act 1. Scene 1." etc. It can be quite tedious to type all these acts and scenes manually. Instead use the autonumbering function:

{startNumber-endNumber, someNumber:repeatNTimes, someOtherNumber:repeatMTimes; otherStartNumber, m1:k1, m2:k2}

Let's see an example. Suppose we have 'raw' track titles of Debussy's opera "Pelleas and Melisande". We want to structure them by giving each track title a description: "Act 1. Scene 2. Title" and so on. So we have:

Original titlesWhat we want to get
Je ne pourrai plus sortir de cette forêt
Qu'est-ce qui brille ainsi, au fond de l'eau?
Interlude (Orchestre)
Voici ce qu'il écrit à son frère Pelléas: ''Un soir, je l'ai trouvée''
Je n'en dis rien
Grand-père, j'ai reçu en même temps que la lettre de mon frère
Interlude (Orchestre)
Il fait sombre dans les jardins
Hoé! Hisse hoé! Hoé! Hoé!
Vous ne savez pas où je vous ai menée?
C'est au bord d'une fontaine aussi qu'il vous a trouvée?
Interlude (Orchestre)
Ah! Ah! Tout va bien, cela ne sera rien
Je suis... je suis malade ici
Il est vrai que ce château est très vieux et très sombre
Act 1. Scene 1. Je ne pourrai plus sortir de cette forêt
Act 1. Scene 1. Qu'est-ce qui brille ainsi, au fond de l'eau?
Act 1. Scene 1. Interlude (Orchestre)
Act 1. Scene 2. Voici ce qu'il écrit à son frère Pelléas: ''Un soir, je l'ai trouvée''
Act 1. Scene 2. Je n'en dis rien
Act 1. Scene 2. Grand-père, j'ai reçu en même temps que la lettre de mon frère
Act 1. Scene 2. Interlude (Orchestre)
Act 1. Scene 3. Il fait sombre dans les jardins
Act 1. Scene 3. Hoé! Hisse hoé! Hoé! Hoé!
Act 2. Scene 1. Vous ne savez pas où je vous ai menée?
Act 2. Scene 1. C'est au bord d'une fontaine aussi qu'il vous a trouvée?
Act 2. Scene 1. Interlude (Orchestre)
Act 2. Ah! Ah! Tout va bien, cela ne sera rien
Act 2. Je suis... je suis malade ici
Act 2. Il est vrai que ce château est très vieux et très sombre

Let's compose our functions according to what we want to achieve:

For acts: {1, 1:9, 2:6}
For scenes: {1-3, 1:3, 2:4, 3:2; 1-1, 1:3}

We do not need Scene 2 in Act 2, so we should use square brackets:

Act {1, 1:9, 2:6}. [Scene {1-3, 1:3, 2:4, 3:2; 1-1, 1:3}. ]%t

Type this text into the title tag to achieve our goal!

Tip: You can omit commas: {1-3 1:3 2:4 3:2; 1-1 1:3}.

More examples: we have selected 7 files

FunctionWhat we get file by file
{}1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
{1}1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
{2}2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
{1-5}1, 2, 3, 4, 5, _, _
{2-5}2, 3, 4, 5, _, _, _
{1, 1:2}1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
{1, 1:2, 2:3}1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4
{1-3, 1:2, 2:3; 1, 1:2}1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1

Here _ means "nothing" and not underscore.

The Edit Dialog

When you double-click any tag in the Tags Table, the edit dialog appears:
Edit dialog

The toolbar contains buttons for quick access to tags editing operations described earlier. The button "Collect for future use" helps adding tag values to autocomplete lists.

The first line: this line contains the text that will be written into all selected files. On the image above all titles are different, so the first line is empty. If you type some text here, it will overwrite the values below.

Multiple values: different text for different files. If you change any line here, the first line will be cleared.

The left-most panel contains various characters with diacritics. It can be hidden if necessary. Also a list of characters can be edited in the Qoobar settings.
To insert some character place the cursor where needed and left-click the character. To insert its upper case variant click the character while holding down the Shift key.

The Legend button gives you access to placeholders which can be used just like here.

Autofilling track numbers. If you are editing track numbers you can autonumber them by typing 1 in the first line. If you are editing other tags please use the autonumbering function.

Using tags autocompletion: The autocompletion is available here as well.

Autocompletion

Filling in tags: To quickly "parse" parts of a tag into other tags use the context menu:

Quick parsing

 

Find & Replace: Press Ctrl+F to show the find & replace panel.

Find panel

You can navigate through the table by clicking buttons or using shortcuts: F3 (Ctrl+G in Linux) - find next, Shift+F3 (Shift+Ctrl+G in Linux) - find previous.

The Options button allows you to specify some search options:

Working with cover art pictures

Qoobar supports reading and writing of embedded pictures for all file types. You can also cut/copy picture from one group of selected files and paste it to other files. Tags importing from Discogs and Musicbrainz also imports cover art picture, if there is such. You can edit cover art type and description in the panel shown below:

Cover art

and also undo / redo any changes in the picture info.

If you click on the picture, a dialog with full-size picture appears. To close it click on the picture again.

Exporting pictures to a hard drive is also supported. You can choose between JPG and PNG file formats.

Automatical filling in the tags

You can fill in the tags of selected files from their names or other tags. Select one or more files and click the button or press Ctrl+F. A dialog will appear:

Filling

1. Choose a source - file names, clipboard or one of tags.

2. Set a filename pattern (use / and \ to set folders). You can use all the non-read-only placeholders listed in Appendix 3. They can also be found under the "Legend" button.

All other characters will be treated as delimiters. And don't use patterns with no delimiter between two placeholders.

Use the %% combination if you want to skip some part of a file name. For example, if you have, say, 50 files "Unknown Artist - 1 - some_meaningful_title_1", "Unknown Artist - 2 - some_meaningful_title_2" etc. and you only want to extract Titles, use this pattern: "%% - %% - %t".

Importing tags from the Internet

You can import tags of an album from the Internet. Qoobar can search tags in freedb, Discogs or Musicbrainz databases. Click the button and a dialog will appear:

Importing from network

1. Choose the server - Discogs, freedb or Musicbrainz.

2. Choose the search mode - by the lengths of selected files, by CD in CD-ROM, or manually - by artist name and album title.

3. Click "Start" and wait a little. The list of found albums will appear in the left panel.

4. Choose an album (just click on it) and wait while its details are being downloaded. Be patient here: if you are searching in Discogs and Musicbrainz, cover art pictures can require some time to be downloaded.

5. Uncheck tags which you do not want to have and click OK.

Renaming files

To open the Renaming files dialog click the button or press Ctrl+R.

Renaming

  1. Choose between file moving/renaming and copying.
  2. Choose the output folder. If you don't select one, files will be written in their original locations.
  3. Adjust the additional processing of file names. The special Windows symbols in tags will be treated as follows:
    • Question ? will be removed
    • Double quotes " will be replaced with two single ones ''
    • Greater/lesser characters < > will be replaced with parentheses ( )
    • Slash / and backslash \ are used to create subfolders, but in tags they will be replaced with the special character (underscore _ by default)
    • Characters | : * will be replaced by underscore
  4. Set a file renaming pattern (use slash / or backslash \ to create subfolders): You can use all the placeholders listed in Appendix 3. They can also be found under the "Legend" button.
    There are three predefined patterns. You can edit these patterns in the Settings dialog.
    If some tag is empty, the special character will be inserted instead. But you can enclose empty tags in brackets [], and this section will be removed from the pattern.

Example:

%c (1905-1975)/%a/[%N. ]%t

for ogg file containing tags

the new file name will be

"Bela Bartok (1905-1975)/Microcosmos/02. Ostinato.ogg" 

If you remove the track number, the new file name will be

"Bela Bartok (1905-1975)/Microcosmos/Ostinato.ogg" 

Adding ReplayGain info to files

Qoobar can help you replaygain your musical files. This feature is not yet completely implemented, so only the following file type are supported: mp3, mp4/m4a, musepack, flac, ogg, wavpack.

Qoobar so far uses external utilities to do ReplayGain scanning, so if you are using one of Unixes, you need to install these utilities from your repository: mp3gain for mp3 files, aacgain for mp4/m4a files, vorbisgain for ogg files, metaflac for flac files, mpcgain and replaygain for mpc files, and wvgain for wavpack files. You can check whether all utilities can be found by Qoobar in the Utilities page of the Settings dialog. The Windows installation of Qoobar already has all necessary utilities.

Qoobar so far cannot replaygain the following file types: ape, wma, wav, speex, tta, oga, aiff.

Scanning for ReplayGain info:

  1. Select files, as many as you want. Qoobar will sort these files according to their type, so you cannot scan a folder that contains both mp3 and flac files as a single album.
  2. In the context menu or the "Tools" menu click "ReplayGain info...". If some files you have selected have not saved changes, a dialog will appear with the suggestion to save them. Please save these files if you want to proceed. Then a dialog appears:

    Replaygain dialog

  3. Now you can use one of the buttons to start scanning:
    • Scan per file track gain - All files you have selected will be scanned independently.
    • Scan as a single album - All files you have selected will be scanned as one album regardless of their position or the "Album" tag.
    • Scan as albums (by tags) - All files you have selected will be sorted according to their "Album" tag and scanned by groups.
    • Scan as albums (by folders) - All files you have selected will be sorted according to their position and scanned by groups.
    • Remove replaygain tags from files - The replaygain info will be removed from files.

Note 1: Qoobar can skip already scanned files. Just click on the "Skip already scanned files" checkbox.

Note 2: If you are encountering messages like "Couldn't find file" or "The FLAC file could not be opened", open the Qoobar settings dialog and on the Utilities page set the "Copy files into temp folder before replaygaining them" option.

Note 3: Using of external utilities is not a good way to do scanning. Maybe in some distant releases I will implement a unified algorithm just like one Foobar uses.

Qoobar Settings

You can reset all settings to their defaults by clicking the "Reset Settings" button in the bottom left corner.

Interface.

Interface settings

Autocompletion.

Autocompletion settings

Tags Writing

Tags writing settings

Patterns

Patterns settings

Utilities

Utilities settings

Network

Network settings

Here you can set proxy parameters if you use a proxy server.

Appendix 1. The default tagging scheme supported by Qoobar

The table contains all fields that Qoobar read and write in 5 different tag types: ID3v2.4, APE, Xiph, Asf, MP4.

Internal means that this field is stored in the file without any field key.


ID3v2.4 fields Vorbis comments APE fields Asf fields MP4 fields
Composer TCOM COMPOSER COMPOSER WM/Composer ©wrt
Album TALB ALBUM ALBUM WM/AlbumTitle ©alb
Original Album TOAL ORIGINALALBUM ORIGINALALBUM WM/OriginalAlbumTitle ----:com.apple.iTunes:ORIGINALALBUM
Title TIT2 TITLE TITLE Internal ©nam
Subtitle 1 TIT3 SUBTITLE SUBTITLE WM/SubTitle subt
Music Category 2 TIT1 GROUPING GROUPING WM/ContentGroupDescription ©grp
Artist TPE1 ARTIST ARTIST Internal ©ART
Original Artist TOPE ORIGINALARTIST ORIGINALARTIST WM/OriginalArtist ©ope
Performer TXXX:PERFORMER PERFORMER PERFORMER foobar2000/PERFORMER ----:com.apple.iTunes:PERFORMER
Comment COMM: DESCRIPTION;
COMMENT
COMMENT Internal ©cmt
Genre TCON GENRE GENRE WM/Genre ©gen
Year TDRC DATE DATE WM/Year ©day
Track Number TRCK TRACK;
TRACKNUMBER;
TRACKNUM
TRACKNUMBER WM/TrackNumber trkn
Total Tracks TRCK TOTALTRACKS;
TRACKNUMBER;
TRACKTOTAL
TOTALTRACKS;
TRACKNUMBER
WM/TrackNumber;
TotalTracks
trkn
Conductor TPE3 CONDUCTOR CONDUCTOR WM/Conductor cond
Orchestra TXXX:ORCHESTRA3 ORCHESTRA ORCHESTRA Orchestra3 ----:com.apple.iTunes:ORCHESTRA
Publisher TPUB LABEL LABEL WM/Publisher labl
Copyright TCOP COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT Internal ©cpy;cprt
Mood COMM:MusicMatch_Mood;
PRIV:WM/Mood
MOOD MOOD WM/Mood mood
Beats Per Minute TBPM BPM BPM WM/BeatsPerMinute tmpo
Lyricist 4 TEXT LYRICIST LYRICIST WM/Writer lyrt
Original Lyricist TOLY ORIGINALLYRICIST ORIGINALLYRICIST WM/OriginalLyricist olyr
Lyrics USLT LYRICS LYRICS WM/Lyrics ©lyr
Key 5 TKEY KEY KEY WM/InitialKey ----:com.apple.iTunes:KEY
Cover art APIC COVERART /
METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE6
Cover Art (front) WM/Picture covr
Disc number TPOS DISCNUMBER DISCNUMBER WM/PartOfSet disk
Total discs TXXX:TOTALDISCS;
TPOS
TOTALDISCS;
DISCNUMBER
TOTALDISCS;
DISCNUMBER
foobar2000/TOTALDISCS;
WM/PartOfSet
disk
Encoded by TENC ENCODEDBY ENCODEDBY WM/EncodedBy;
WM/CodedBy
©enc
Remixed by TPE4 VERSION VERSION WM/ModifiedBy rmix
Rating 7 POPM;
COMM:MusicMatch_Preference
RATING RATING WM/SharedUserRating --
ISRC TSRC ISRC ISRC WM/ISRC ISRC
URL WXXX: URL URL WM/URL ©url
Album artist TXXX:ALBUMARTIST;
TPE23
ALBUM ARTIST ALBUM ARTIST WM/AlbumArtist;
AlbumArtist3
aART

1 The opus number of the composition (Beethoven's 8th Symphony has opus number 93) or years of writing or something else.

2 The music form of your music, for example for the Mozart's opera "Die Zauberflote" Music category will be "Opera", for Rachmaninov's 2nd concerto the music form is "Piano Concerto" or "Concerto for piano and symphony orchestra" and so on.

3 These fields do not follow the id3v2 specification, which provides "TPE2" for orchestra/band/ensemble etc. But due to consistency with Tag&Rename the tag "Orchestra" is now written in TXXX:ORCHESTRA, and the tag "Album artist" goes to TPE2. Wma files have the same difficulty.

4 The author of opera libretto, of song words etc.

5 The tonality of a composition, for example Beethoven's Fifth Symphony has the key (tonality) C Minor (c-moll, ut mineur etc.).

6 It depends on the option you set in the Qoobar settings.

7 A number from 1 to 5.

Appendix 2. Qoobar Shortcuts

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+AIn the files table: Select all files
In the tags table: Select all tags
Ctrl+CCopy selected tags
Shift+Ctrl+CCopy selected tags into clipboard
Ctrl+DownMove selected files down
Ctrl+FIn the main window: Fill tags with the information from files names
In the tags editing dialog: Start search & replace
Ctrl+GIn the tags editing dialog: Find next (in Gnome and maybe KDE)
Shift+Ctrl+GIn the tags editing dialog: Find previous (in Gnome and maybe KDE)
Ctrl+HAdd selected tags to the autocompletion list
Ctrl+NAdd a new tag to the selected files
Ctrl+OAdd a folder with music files (with all subfolders)
Shift+Ctrl+OAdd a file / files
Ctrl+PPlay selected files in an external player
Ctrl+QExit from Qoobar
Ctrl+RRename selected files
Ctrl+SSave all files in the current tab
Ctrl+TNew tab
Ctrl+UpMove selected files up
Ctrl+VPaste copied tags
Shift+Ctrl+VPaste text from clipboard into a selected tag
Ctrl+WClose current tab (in Gnome and maybe in KDE)
Ctrl+XCut selected tags
Ctrl+YRedo the last change (in Windows)
Ctrl+ZUndo the last change
Shift+Ctrl+ZRedo the last change (in Gnome and maybe in KDE)
DelIn the files table: Remove selected files from the list
In the tags table: Delete selected tags
Ctrl+DelClear the files table of the current tab
F1Help on Qoobar
F3In the tags editing dialog: Find next (in Windows)
Shift+F3In the tags editing dialog: Find previous (in Windows)
Ctrl+F4Close current tab (in Windows)

Appendix 3. Placeholders

This table contains all placeholders that you can use when renaming files and filling or editing tags.

PlaceholderMeaningComments
%ccomposer 
%aalbum 
%ttitle 
%pperformer 
%Aartist 
%dconductor 
%oorchestra 
%ssubtitle 
%kkey 
%Ccomment 
%ggenre 
%yyear 
%ntrack numberFormat: 1, 2, 3, ...10, 11, 12 etc.
%Ntrack numberFormat: 01, 02, 03, ...10, 11, 12 etc.
%Ttotal tracks 
%ualbum artist 
%Gmusical category 
%Ppublisher 
%Xcopyright 
%mmood 
%Btempo 
%wlyricist 
%Wlyrics 
%Ddisc number 
%Stotal discs 
%eencoded by 
%xremixed by 
%Rrating 
%Ooriginal album 
%voriginal artist 
%ioriginal lyricist 
%UURL 
%IISRC 
%bbitrateread only
%llengthFor example: 14:53, read only
%Llength in secondsFor example: 431, read only
%ffilenameread only
%rsample rateread only
%hnumber of channelsread only
%%not necessary fieldIf you want to skip some text while parsing a file name

Appendix 4. Regular expressions

A regular expression is a pattern for matching substrings in a text. Qoobar supports regular expressions provided by the QRegExp class, which is modelled on Perl's regexp language. Here is only a brief description of expressions, quantifiers, and assertions that can be useful in your search.

Characters and Abbreviations for Sets of Characters

\amatches the ASCII bell (BEL, 0x07).
\fmatches the ASCII form feed (FF, 0x0C).
\nmatches the ASCII line feed (LF, 0x0A, Unix newline).
\rmatches the ASCII carriage return (CR, 0x0D).
\tmatches the ASCII horizontal tab (HT, 0x09).
\vmatches the ASCII vertical tab (VT, 0x0B).
\xhhhhmatches the Unicode character corresponding to the hexadecimal number hhhh (between 0x0000 and 0xFFFF).
\0ooo(i.e., \zero ooo) matches the ASCII/Latin1 character for the octal number ooo (between 0 and 0377).
.(dot) matches any character (including newline).
\dmatches a digit.
\Dmatches a non-digit.
\smatches a whitespace character.
\SMatches a non-whitespace character.
\wMatches a word character (letter, number, marks, or '_').
\WMatches a non-word character.
\nThe n-th backreference, e.g. \1, \2, etc.

Sets of Characters, grouping

[abc]matches 'a' or 'b' or 'c'.
[^abc]matches anything but 'a' or 'b' or 'c'.
[a-c]matches a range of characters from 'a' to 'c', that is equivalent to [abc].
(E|N)matches expression E or expression N, where E and N can be complex.

Quantifiers

E?matches zero or one occurrences of E.
E+matches one or more occurrences of E.
E*matches zero or more occurrences of E.
E{n}matches exactly n occurrences of E.
E{n,}matches at least n occurrences of E.
E{,m}matches at most m occurrences of E.
E{n,m}matches at least n and at most m occurrences of E.

To apply a quantifier to more than just the preceding character, use parentheses to group characters together in an expression. For example, tag+ matches a 't' followed by an 'a' followed by at least one 'g', whereas (tag)+ matches at least one occurrence of 'tag'

Assertions

^The caret signifies the beginning of the string. If you wish to match a literal ^ you must escape it by writing \\^.
$The dollar signifies the end of the string. If you wish to match a literal $ you must escape it by writing \$.
\bA word boundary.
\BA non-word boundary. This assertion is true wherever \b is false.
(?=E)Positive lookahead. This assertion is true if the expression matches at this point in the regexp. For example, const(?=\s+char) matches 'const' whenever it is followed by 'char', as in 'static const char *'. (Compare with const\s+char, which matches 'static const char *'.)
(?!E)Negative lookahead. This assertion is true if the expression does not match at this point in the regexp. For example, const(?!\s+char) matches 'const' except when it is followed by 'char'..