Kuba's dashboard

OK. I think I solved that Issue.
You have to be very careful and start Your songbird experience WITH SOME INSTRUCTIONS!!
Or a wizard or sth :-)
I'm not a noob.
But I found that if You want Songbird to be sucessful manager You have to let it do things it's own way.
The solution was:
1. Create Library folder.
2. Create Watch folder.
3. For God Sake Library Folder and Watch Folder MUST be different. If set te same folder for both You will end up in mess eventually.
4. Import your files in small packages (eg Artist by Artist) and check out whether Songbird did everything correctly. If not Remove from library, delete files from folder, reimport and pray, for some unknown reason praying works :-P
5. Use Your Watch folder cause it is cool. Drop Your files and delete them after Songbird sucessfully added them to library and copied to library folder.

In the end. TO DEVELOPERS:
Your product seems to work fine. But user needs to know that it performs well ONLY when You follow certain rules.
Let people know the rules from the very beginning to avoid lot's of users get frustrated. Keep in mind that only few of those who are experiencing problems with software bother to post on forums.

Cheers

Thanks Erik for Your reply.
I haven't turned "Managed Mode" on, so Songbird didn't move or copy my files. They are in folder structure I've created before installing Songbird.

Should I turn it on and let Songbird manage/move/copy my files?
It wouldn't be much trustworthy if folder structure was crucial for keeping your collection clean.

I am already using Exorcist (it rocks btw). But does not solve the problem. There are no duplicate or ghost songs according to The Exorcist.
I suppose there is something wrong with Filter Pane.
Filter Pane Errors:
1. Not filtered library does NOT show all the songs.
2. Artist filter shows duplicate Artists (two or more with the same name and songs)
3. Artist filter does NOT show all the songs by artist.
4. Filtering by gerne shows all the songs (and that's probably only filtering that works so far. The rest has errors)

So what's more worrying, it's not a problem of duplicates but the problem of basic filtering functionality.
Of course I can delete everything and reimport it but my tags will be lost (and all the work with organizing is wasted). Can't afford to make it over and over again.
What is most appealing for me in Songbird is future managing big collection of music because I can't say it does the job at the moment.

I have the same. Duplicate songs, duplicate artist names. When I wanted to fix it and retype "artist" in metadata it duplicated artist name on the list.



What's even more frustrating is that there are 4 times "John 5" each containing exactly the same song (only one). The gerne of the song is "Instrumental Rock".
Soo i filtered by gerne and got one "John 5" artist and the rest of the songs (!) that were invisible when filter was set on "all gernes".

It's wierd and messy. I am affraid to start organizing my collection with Songbird because I'm affraid it will mess it up. Probably I have to wait for further Songbird upgrades.

Ok sorry for so many images but wanted to be specific. In Lightroom You are able to tag images in several ways:
1. by clicking those recent tags buttons in keywording pane
2. typing
3. dragging and dropping images to keyword list position
4. dragging keyword from list and droping it on image
That's pretty all about managing / adding tags.

The other part is using it.
There are two ways to complement that system nicely.
1. Filtering/selecting tags adding + or - sign to add or substract from selection (+ or - in place where You see thick mark left of keyword list position)
2. Tag cloud also with add and substract.
I suppose the first one is best cause it's cleaner and leave You more space for actually see your music collection what it is all about in the first place :-)

Cheers