Are There Any Commas Out There?

With version 5.0 of the Pedias several more fields have been turned into multi value fields. These are values displayed by a surrounding blue bubble. It makes it clear what is a distinct value and allows the program to leverage this information, an example is providing a better statistics count.

The character that creates a separation between items is the comma. In most cases the comma fits naturally, such as when it separates names (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen) or small word groups as in genres and subjects (Drama, Thriller). The artist field in CDpedia is one of the few fields that has a few edge cases where a comma should be part of the group. Such as the band name “Crosby‚ Stills & Nash”. The easiest solution is to leave out the comma when entering the band name. But for those looking for accuracy there is an alternative to the comma, called the single low quotation mark – ‚ – that is identical to a comma and will not trigger a separation.

Sadly, there is no special shortcut on the Mac that will enter the single low quotation mark. You must open the character palette and double click the character to insert it. The character palette can be found in the main edit menu, under “Special Characters…”.

In the search field of the character palette type “Single Low” to reveal the character that can stand in for the comma. Double click the character displayed in the middle panel to have it inserted into your currently edited artist field.

Should you have this page open you can’t copy and paste the character as there is, what we consider to be, a bug in the token field editor (the name Apple gives the blue bubbles) where all paste commands form a new distinct bubble, regardless if a user is currently editing a bubble and has an insertion point visible.

After adding an artist with a comma the autofill will avoid the need to visit the special character palette when entering the same band name. If submitting entries to Doghouse please use the single low quotation for the few times that a comma is really needed and not to replace a common use of comma such as “Rolling Stones, The”, as this is not the format that the artist is meant to be when contributing to Doghouse. Should you come across any cut up artist in Doghouse, let us know or become a moderator and give them the single low quotation treatment.