Topic: Script to reference "original value" of variables

Is there a scripting syntax to tell picard to recognize a variable's original value for further use in the script?  As an example of where I need this, the lastfm plugin pulls in new tags for the "genre" variable, many of which I would like to use.  However, my existing genre variable may have tags that I have assigned myself and don't want to lose (for instance, I use "Horns" as part of the genre for songs where I really like the horn sections). 

Right now, it seems that I must either construct the new genre value using solely the information from the lastfm plugin's suggestion rather than being able to append or otherwise incorporate lastfm's suggestions into my existing genre value.  Would appreciate any and all advice on how to make this happen - thanks.

Re: Script to reference "original value" of variables

There's no way to do this in scripting, no. The "existing" metadata is (by design) unavailable to the scripting.

You can manually edit the results in the metadata pane at the bottom before saving, but obviously this would be on an adhoc album-by-album basis.

It's possible to write a plugin that can get access to these; but most of the time it's pretty tough to get right and the plugin will likely break frequently as Picard is updated.

Re: Script to reference "original value" of variables

If you have files that support any tag (ogg, flac ...)yYou could also, like i did, edit the lastfm plugin and save the informations to some lastfmgenre (or whataver you want) tag. Then you can select the values you want, use both tags or merge them in another application (foobar2000 would work great for this if you are on Windows).

Would be nice to have an $append function that would add values to a tag rather than replace it.