Pull tracklist from MusicBrainz API

[tuberbacon]

MediaDB does not fetch tracklist data from MusicBrainz API.

Ideally I'd like to add the tracklist for every album and generate a list or table via templater, including the length of each track.

By roughly reading the MusicBrainz documentation it should be capable of doing it, is it possible to pull this data?

[ltctceplrm]

The beta version of the plugin does pull the tracklist, it just isn't in the main release yet. See #202

You should be able to just download the 0.8.0-canary.20250831T095023 version and have tracklist data be available

[tuberbacon]

I just tried the version you suggested with the BRAT plugin and yes it does pull tracks now. However, either I didn't understand how the templater integration works or the feature doesn't work properly.

Everytime I try to add a property value, for example the title, in the content of the note it returns "undefined" everytime. It works properly when templater is run manually after MediaDB has finished writing the file, but the integration within the plugin not so much.

[ltctceplrm]

I use a mix of templater and the default obsidian templates to achieve the notes I want, example:

---
created: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD[T]HH:mm:ssZ") %>
tags: 
  - music_notes
  - mediaDB/music
status: ""
personalRating: ""
comments: ""
---
# {{title}}
`="![[" + meta(this.image).path + "|350]]"`

# Notes:

But I've never actually needed to turn on the templater integration in mediadb settings...

Besides the title what else are you trying to add?

[tuberbacon]

I'm trying to do mainly 2 things.

1. create a tracklist table with track names and length. I've already created a template that generates a table but I can only run it after adding an album, making it an extra step. The templater code is the following:

| ***#*** | ***Title*** | ***Duration*** |
| ------- | ------------ | ------------ |
<%*
const tracks = tp.frontmatter.tracks;

if (!tracks) {
  tR += "No tracks found.";
} else {
  tracks.forEach(t => {
    tR += `| ${t.number} | ${t.title} | ${t.duration} |\n`;
  });
}
-%>

2. add custom properties such as Listened, Suggested By, Review, ecc., which I still haven't been able to do with templater even after the note creation (I'm not a templates/templater expert)

As a bonus though, I managed to find out you're supposed to use the double brackets syntax {{ property }} in the note and fields get filled properly.

[ltctceplrm]

This template works for me:

---
created: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD[T]HH:mm:ssZ") %>
tags: 
  - music_notes
  - mediaDB/music
status: ""
personalRating: ""
listened:
suggestedBy:
review:
---
# {{title}}
`="![[" + meta(this.image).path + "|350]]"`

| ***#*** | ***Title*** | ***Duration*** |
| ------- | ------------ | ------------ |
<%*
const tracks = tp.frontmatter.tracks;
if (tracks) {
  tracks.forEach(t => {
    tR += `| ${t.number} | ${t.title} | ${t.duration} |\n`;
  });
}
%>

# Notes:

And this is the result when the note is created:

[tuberbacon]

I tried your template and it mostly works. The custom properties are added and templater fills the date command, however the table is still not being created properly and this is the output:

| ***#*** | ***Title*** | ***Duration*** |
| ------- | ------------ | ------------ |

Could it be a timing issue? where templater tries to read the tracks before they are written.

Also the tags in the template get overwritten.

[ltctceplrm]

For the tags I should have mentioned that I disabled the tags property inside of the mediaDB plugin that way it doesn't get overwritten, see Property Mappings -> MusicRelease -> Tags -> Remove

As for the table that's very weird, could you try to disable templater integration in the mediaDB settings and try again?

[tuberbacon]

After disabling the templater integration all the templater code present in the template gets copied as-is in the note as plaintext. The custom properties get added to the default properties though, that works.

[ltctceplrm]

Is this turned on in templater settings?

Combined with this off in mediaDB it really should work, otherwise I'll need to try with a fresh vault maybe to help troubleshoot

[tuberbacon]

It works now!!! The tracklist and everything else in the template is executed correctly.

It begs the question though, what does the templater integration do then? and why does it all work or break with the trigger on new file creation?
These may be easy questions but I would've never guessed this combination of settings to fix it and have no idea how I could've known (again, not a templater expert).

[ltctceplrm]

It begs the question though, what does the templater integration do then? and why does it all work or break with the trigger on new file creation?

To be honest I have no idea why, I've been using templater with MediaDB since way before the templater integration got added and therefore never needed to turn it on or find out how it worked. If it ain't broken,...

I'm glad the template finally works though