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Spotlight Bummers and the CC Metadata Importer

I was just snooping through the installer package for Nathan Yergler's CC Metadata Importer looking for some clues toward resolving my gripes noted in Blosxom, Tiger, and Spotlight. In doing so, I just realized that the guts of this importer are written in Python. That's really pretty nifty and I need to look into this some more.

However, more toward the gripes from that previous post, I'm assuming that this CC Metadata Importer will kick out any other importer dealing with MP3 files once it's installed. Let's see what happens... (runs off to install the importer)

In fact, after I installed the importer, I noticed metadata missing from my MP3s that had been there pre-install, such as:

• kMDItemMediaTypes = (Sound)
• kMDItemMusicalGenre = "Rock"
• kMDItemTitle = "Sunday"
• kMDItemTotalBitRate = 256
• kMDItemAudioBitRate = 256
• kMDItemAudioChannelCount = 2
• kMDItemAudioSampleRate = 44100
• kMDItemAuthors = ("David Bowie")

I looked into Audio.mdimporter under /System/Library/Spotlight and this is what I found in Contents/Info.plist:

</p> <pre><code><key>CFBundleDocumentTypes</key> <array> <dict> <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key> <string>MDImporter</string> <key>LSItemContentTypes</key> <array> <string>public.mp3</string> <string>public.aifc-audio</string> <string>public.aiff-audio</string> <string>com.digidesign.sd2-audio</string> <string>com.microsoft.waveform-audio</string> <string>public.ulaw-audio</string> <string>com.apple.coreaudio-format</string> </array> </dict> </array> </code></pre> <p>

And, what do you know? This is what I found in Contents/Info.plist for Creative Commons Metadata Importer.mdimporter:

</p> <pre><code><key>CFBundleDocumentTypes</key> <array> <dict> <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key> <string>MDImporter</string> <key>LSItemContentTypes</key> <array> <string>public.mp3</string> </array> </dict> </array> </code></pre> <p>

This new importer wants to handle public.mp3, just like Apple's Audio.mdimporter. So, from my understanding, the CC importer will replace Apple's--rather than cooperating with it, as I'd like to see. (I wonder if there's any way to hack chaining into these things?)

When I run mdls on an MP3 I have lying around, this is what I get before installing the importer:

01 Sunday.mp3 ------------- kMDItemAlbum = "Heathen" kMDItemAttributeChangeDate = 2005-05-03 20:41:01 -0400 kMDItemAudioBitRate = 256 kMDItemAudioChannelCount = 2 kMDItemAudioSampleRate = 44100 kMDItemAuthors = ("David Bowie") kMDItemContentCreationDate = 2003-01-22 12:43:35 -0500 kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2005-05-03 20:41:00 -0400 kMDItemContentType = "public.mp3" kMDItemContentTypeTree = (</p> <pre><code>"public.mp3", "public.audio", "public.audiovisual-content", "public.data", "public.item", "public.content" </code></pre> <p>) kMDItemDisplayName = "01 Sunday.mp3" kMDItemDurationSeconds = 856 kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2005-05-03 20:41:00 -0400 kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2003-01-22 12:43:35 -0500 kMDItemFSCreatorCode = 0 kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 0 kMDItemFSInvisible = 0 kMDItemFSLabel = 0 kMDItemFSName = "01 Sunday.mp3" kMDItemFSNodeCount = 0 kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 501 kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 501 kMDItemFSSize = 9138342 kMDItemFSTypeCode = 0 kMDItemID = 820671 kMDItemKind = "MP3 Audio File" kMDItemLastUsedDate = 2003-01-22 12:43:35 -0500 kMDItemMediaTypes = (Sound) kMDItemMusicalGenre = "Rock" kMDItemTitle = "Sunday" kMDItemTotalBitRate = 256 kMDItemUsedDates = (2003-01-22 12:43:35 -0500)

So, I installed the CC importer, let it re-index things, and this is what mdls gives me now:

01 Sunday.mp3 ------------- kMDItemAttributeChangeDate = 2005-06-15 12:27:57 -0400 kMDItemContentCreationDate = 2003-01-22 12:43:35 -0500 kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2005-05-03 20:41:00 -0400 kMDItemContentType = "public.mp3" kMDItemContentTypeTree = (</p> <pre><code>"public.mp3", "public.audio", "public.audiovisual-content", "public.data", "public.item", "public.content" </code></pre> <p>) kMDItemDisplayName = "01 Sunday.mp3" kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2005-05-03 20:41:00 -0400 kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2003-01-22 12:43:35 -0500 kMDItemFSCreatorCode = 0 kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 0 kMDItemFSInvisible = 0 kMDItemFSLabel = 0 kMDItemFSName = "01 Sunday.mp3" kMDItemFSNodeCount = 0 kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 501 kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 501 kMDItemFSSize = 9138342 kMDItemFSTypeCode = 0 kMDItemID = 820671 kMDItemKind = "MP3 Audio File" kMDItemLastUsedDate = 2003-01-22 12:43:35 -0500 kMDItemUsedDates = (2003-01-22 12:43:35 -0500)

In case those two floods of metadata set your head spinning, the post-install metadata is lacking items from the pre-install metadata. I need to uninstall this importer and get my other metadata back. And, this isn't a slight against the importer--it looks like really cool work. No, this is a bummer of Spotlight.

Almost there...