# The Custom Field Editor

Custom fields may be accessed in actions the same as any built in field. Custom Fields can be displayed on Custom Edit Panels. Yate allows for the definition of 100 custom fields.

Custom fields may be mapped to almost any audio container extensible item.

The table at the left displays the names of all currently defined custom fields. Custom field names are case insensitive. To view the values associated with a custom field, select the field that you wish to view in the table at the left.

To modify a custom field, select the field and select the ✎ control. Alternately you can double click on an item in the table at the left. To save the changes you have made select the Commit Changes button. To cancel changes and revert to the previous values, select the Cancel Edit button.

To create a new custom field select the + button. To save the changes you have made select the Commit Changes button. To cancel the creation of a new custom field, select the Cancel Add button.

In ID3 based files Yate supports the mapping of a custom field to a COMM frame (a comment), a TXXX frame (a UDTI) or a WXXX frame (a UDURL). According to the strict ID3 specification, COMM frames can contain newline characters while TXXX and WXXX frames typically should not. These frame types are supported so that you can map to any extensible frame used by other applications. The low level mapping name is the description field associated with the frame. Note: The mapping of a MusicBrainz Recording Id is handled as a special case. While stored in the audio file as a Unique File Identifier it is mapped in Yate as TXXX/MusicBrainz Recording Id.

In MPEG-4 files Yate supports the mapping of a custom field to a ---- atom with a mean value of com.apple.iTunes. The name you supply is the name value associated with the atom.

In FLAC/OGG mappings, the following special semantics apply:

- If an empty name is supplied for a mapping, all FLAC/OGG mappings assigned to the associated custom field will be removed.
- If the specified name is already mapped to the associated custom field all other FLAC/OGG mappings assigned to the same custom Field are removed.

In APE mappings, used by Monkey's Audio (ape) and WavPack (wv) files, the following special semantics apply:

- If an empty name is supplied for a mapping, all APE mappings assigned to the associated custom field will be removed.
- If the specified name is already mapped to the associated custom field all other APE mappings assigned to the same custom Field are removed.

If you want a custom field to be treated as a credit by the Combined Credits Editor, set the Custom field is a credit option.

All custom fields are available as main window columns. You can choose to have the column content displayed as a Yes/No value (as is Skip When Shuffling and Part of a Compilation, etc.) by setting the Custom field is a Yes/No value. This setting also forces the display of the field as a checkbox when rendered on a custom edit panel.

All custom fields except those defined to be Yes/No values can be associated with a list in Preferences-Lists. When associated with a list, the custom field will be displayed on a custom panel the same as the built in Artist, Album Artist, Composer, etc. fields. Note that while custom fields can be expanded past one row in the Custom Panel Editor, a custom field associated with a list will never render on more than one row.

To close the panel, retaining all changes, you may have made use the Save button. To close the panel, discarding all changes, use the Cancel button.

When editing or creating a custom field, various commonly used mappings may be set via the disclosure button.

You can delete custom fields by selecting one or more fields in the table at the left and then selecting the - button. When a custom field is deleted, references to the deleted field via escape sequences in actions will be replaced with a name of Custom #. These are placeholders as the removal of a sequence might result in something invalid. They will not insert anything. Similar placeholders will be kept in Rename and File to Tag templates. While references remain in Tag Sets and lists in action statements they will have no effect and in fact they will not be displayed when editing an action. In some cases if you edit an action which contains undefined custom field references, you might get validation errors as the fields which no longer available. A column in an Export Set which becomes undefined is changed to an Out of Bounds column.

Custom fields can be exported. When the exported file is later imported, conflict resolution, if any, will occur. This is the preferred means of exporting custom fields. To export one or more custom fields, select them in the table at the left and select the ⇒ button.

## Special Consideration:

When loading and saving files Custom Field Mappings are always processed before any normalization occurs of names being saved across multiple audio file types. For that reason you should only map to the names of the low-level file components and not the normalized names which might be used for some user defined items.

The default low level mappings for all Yate supported field types can be found in the Tag Mapping Table.