[Cerio]

I'll try to explain with an example, let's say i have 3 songs:

Song 1, key of G
Song 2, key of C
Song 3, key of A

And I want to add all the songs, a new value in the key field: "Original key"

If I select all the songs, edit them and add "Original key" in the key field, I'll have this: 

Song 1, 2 and 3: key of G, C, A, Original key

However, what I want to get is this: 
Song 1, key of G, Original key
Song 2, key of C, Original key
Song 3, key of A, Original key

I frequently have to add (or delete) a single value in many songs without affecting the previous data. Is that possible without having to individually edit every song?

[Zubersoft]

At the moment, no. I would need to add a toggle that would only append data without modifying any existing values.

Mike

[itsme]

You could manipulate the database with Sciurius' MSPro-Tools https://github.com/sciurius/MSPro-Tools.
Export the database content as a .JSON file with get_meta.pl, manipulate database entries as desired, e.g. by applying search&replace actions in a text editor, then re-import the .JSON file with upd_meta.pl.
Handle with care and make sure you have a current backup

[BRX]

At the moment, no. I would need to add a toggle that would only append data without modifying any existing values.

Yes, please. +1 ! I've missed that often.

[Cerio]

At the moment, no. I would need to add a toggle that would only append data without modifying any existing values.

Mike

That (not only being able to add, but also to remove data) would be a very useful feature for a lot of users, I guess. Well, at least for me

You could manipulate the database with Sciurius' MSPro-Tools https://github.com/sciurius/MSPro-Tools.

Thanks very much for the suggestion. Yes, I know that the database can be manipulated externally, I've done that previously, with irregular results, maybe I should invest more time experimenting. However, I think being able to do that within MS would be much better.

[Zubersoft]

I may need to consider a completely different approach to how I handle the batch editing then. I instead may need to add a specific way of toggling that a user wants all values for all of the songs to be set to the same thing, but otherwise only the modifications would be applied. That means that removing a value would remove it from any songs currently using it, and adding a value would add just that value without affecting any of the existing values. So users that want to sync up all the songs to have the same values would have to explicitly trigger that with a checkbox or something along those lines.

Mike

[Cerio]

In the meantime, a workaround that (in some cases) might work faster than individually editing all songs could be to edit the tabs (in my example, the value "Original key" on the Key tab) to add / delete songs from that list without affecting previous data. Using custom filters / fileds to mark the songs to be edited can be helpful here.