THE NEW GUIDE (USING OFFICIAL PLAYBACK STATISTICS COMPONENT)
0. Install the latest playback statistics component (get it from the foobar2000 website).
The component stores the statistics in a database (without touching your precious tags). If you want to have it write to tags, change the behavior from Preferences -> Advanced -> Tools -> Playback Statistics -> Automatically synchronize...
YOU DO NOT NEED ANY OTHER COMPONENT (LIKE QUICKTAGGER)
1. To rate a song: Right Click -> Playback Statistics -> Rating, choose the appropriate rating. It's much faster to bind these to a keyboard shortcut (Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts). I use Ctrl + 1 for rating 1, Ctrl + 2 for 2 stars etc.
(NOTE: You can only rate songs that are in your media library).
Displaying a rating Column
Preferences -> Display -> Default User Interface -> Playlist View -> "Add new Column"
Use the same code as in the first post:
$pad($repeat(★,%rating%), 5,✩)
If you're using CUI, you can use $rgb to get colors:
$rgb(233,155,12,233,155,12)$repeat(★,%rating%)$rgb()$repeat(✩,$sub(5,%rating%))
How to import existing statistics to the database:
Right Click -> Playback Statistics -> Import Statistics from file tags.
The stats are now stored in the playcount db, and can be deleted from the tags.
How to write stats to tags from the db:
Right Click -> Playback Statistics -> Write Statistics to File Tags