Metadata edits and blocking

Rules change the metadata sent to Last.fm without modifying files in the phone's music library.

Supported fields

A rule's field must be one of:

• title
• artist
• album
• all

Matching is a case-sensitive string comparison in code. Use lower-case field names exactly as shown. An unknown or differently-cased field is saved but never applied.

Literal edits

Enter one rule per line in Metadata Edits:

field:pattern:replacement

Examples:

title: (Explicit):
artist:The Beatles:Beatles
all:  : 

The parser splits each line at most twice, so the replacement may contain colons. The pattern cannot contain a colon without becoming part of the replacement. Whitespace around each parsed component is trimmed.

Literal edits use string.Replace, so they are:

• case-sensitive;
• global within the string; and
• applied in displayed/saved order.

Rules with an empty pattern are discarded when Save is tapped.

Regular-expression rules

Enter regex rules with the same three-part format:

field:pattern:replacement

Examples:

title:\s*\(feat\.[^)]+\):
title:^\d+\s*-\s*:
artist:\s+&\s+:
all:\s{2,}: 

The implementation uses .NET Regex.Replace. Capture groups can be referenced in replacements:

title:^(.*) \[Live\]$:$1

Colon delimiter

The settings parser always uses : as its delimiter. Regex constructs or replacements containing colons cannot be represented reliably with this input format because the line is split into only field, pattern, and the remaining replacement.

Invalid regular expressions are silently skipped at application time. They remain saved, and the settings screen does not display a validation error.

Order of operations

For each field, SettingsManager.ApplyEdits(text, field) does:

Rules apply to the output of preceding rules. Reordering entries can change the result.

The Enabled property on MetadataEditRule is currently not consulted by ApplyEdits; every saved rule is executed if its field matches.

Blocked metadata

Enter one artist/title fragment per line in Blocked Metadata, for example:

podcast
white noise
artist name - demo

After edits, the app lowercases both the combined artist - title string and each blocked line. If any line is a substring, the scrobble is blocked.

Consequences:

• matching is case-insensitive;
• regular expressions are not supported in the block list;
• album text is not considered;
• broad entries can block more tracks than intended; and
• blocking affects scrobbles, not local playback or Now Playing submission.

Suggested workflow

1. Add one rule at a time.
2. Tap the relevant save button; leaving the page alone does not parse text-box edits.
3. Select a different track to trigger transformed Now Playing text.
4. Confirm the title/artist/album displayed in the player.
5. Review Last.fm after the scrobble threshold.
6. Keep patterns narrow and preserve a copy before experimenting with complex regex.

Storage format

The app saves List<MetadataEditRule> and List<string> directly in IsolatedStorageSettings. There is no import/export UI. Uninstalling the app removes these rules.