PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here A Method To Customize The Style Picker Categories And Styles List To Your Preferences

This was posted in the BIAB for Win section, but I'll post it here for those who might be interested:

There are many styles that I know I'll never use and I wanted to get them and the categories and genres out of my style picker list so that it would be easier to select the styles that I want without having to make my way around the multitude of ones I'd never use.

After trying several methods, some of which are very time consuming, I came up with this easy to do work-around solution which gives me exactly the results I wanted. It results in showing just the main and sub-categories that you want at the top, and then you can have all other categories that you want to keep listed moved to the bottom, and you can totally remove the ones you absolutely don't want. Just this one modification affects the StylePicker in both BIAB and RealBand.

1. Close BIAB (and RealBand)
2. Go to your BB folder (C:\BB or wherever your BB folder is located).
3. Go to and open your \BB\Data folder
4. Find the file named stylz_kategories_MENU.txt
5. MAKE A COPY OF THE stylz_kategories_MENU.txt FILE and copy that copy to a safe place in case something goes wrong so you can revert to the original painlessly.
7. In NOTEPAD or your text editor of choice, open the stylz_kategories_MENU.txt file
8. Remove (delete) the categories and names that you want to exclude in the Style Picker All Categories list. The CATEGORY NAMES (GENRES) are ALL CAPS in the dashed lines and the categories are listed underneath with the $ separators, like the example that is shown here and further down in this post (the actual style files and names will be listed in the Style Picker in BIAB under the categories listed here. They are not shown in the stylz_kategories_MENU.txt file)
EXAMPLE:
------------------------------ COUNTRY STYLES ------------------------------
EVERYTHING COUNTRY$Country
Country Ballad$Country Ballad
Country Classic$Country Classic
Country Contemporary$Country Contemporary
$$ More...
------------------------------ MORE COUNTRY STYLES ------------------------------
Boom Chick$Boom Chick
Rockabilly$Rockabilly
Spaghetti Western$Spaghetti Western
Country Swing$Country Swing
Country Waltz$Country Waltz
$$end
------------------------------ TRADITIONAL/WORLD STYLES ------------------------------
Bluegrass$Bluegrass
Celtic$Celtic
Folk$Folk
World$World
$$ More...
------------------------------ BLUEGRASS ------------------------------
Bluegrass Waltz$Bluegrass Waltz

You can copy and paste to move or arrange the styles categories and category names to suit your genre preferences. You can move the categories to different CATEGORY NAMES if you prefer.

9. When done editing, save the new, edited file with the exact same file name stylz_kategories_MENU.txt
10. Restart BIAB.
11. In the StylePicker under Options > Set StylePicker Options, uncheck the box on the setting of "Default display should include all styles (available and N/A not available)", if that's your preference.
12. Open your styles list and see how it looks! After a few tries you'll be able to get it just how you want it.

You can repeat the process as often as you want to experiment until you get it the way you want. IF YOU MAKE CHANGES OR UPDATES TO THE stylz_kategories_MENU.txt FILE, do it with BIAB CLOSED and restart BIAB after you've saved the stylz_kategories_MENU.txt file.

In my experimentation I found that it seems that $$More forces a subwindow and $$end ends the list in the subwindow. When those tags are moved and / or deleted with some experimentation I found that I had a full screen with three columns listing all of my styles that are only in the categories that I wanted. But then I found that with my 3 columns of styles listed on the screen, when I moved the mouse over to the 3rd column the columns on the left disappeared so I couldn't make a selection back over in the 2nd column.

The solution that worked for me is I put the $$ More... statement after my first list of preferred styles that filled up my first column. That forced all of the other styles that I rarely use or use much less in a new column, and that new column had arrows at the top and bottom that allows the list in that column to scroll up and down through all the remaining categories and styles lists. Works for me. Some of you might have far more styles than I do so you might have to get creative with the $$ More... and $$end... statements to manipulate the lists, windows and columns. I just experimented to find what worked and didn't.

If anything looks wrong after experimentation, you can always revert back to the original if you copy your unchanged, original saved stylz_kategories_MENU.txt file back to your \BB\Data folder.

I found that doing a REBUILD had no effect on my new, updated categories or styles list. I didn't get any new styles so I can't comment on what would happen if I had a new disk full of new styles.... Worst case scenario I could probably reset the stylz_kategories_MENU.txt file back to before my changes and then install the new files.

If anyone has more info or ideas on an easier way, better way or suggestions, please post them, and if you have questions, let me know. I'm not a pro at this or the detailed workings of BIAB like some of the folks here - I just got curious to see if it could be done and one thing led to another, and here we are.

Hope this helps someone.
BluegrassPicker

BTW, a truncated version (for brevity here) of my stylz_kategories_MENU.txt file is listed below and a screen shot of my styles list is included in this post so you can see how the $$More and $$end statements affected my list.
===========================================================
------------------------------ BLUEGRASS ------------------------------
Bluegrass$Bluegrass
BLUEGRASS$Band - Bluegrass
Bluegrass Waltz$Bluegrass Waltz
------------------------------ COUNTRY STYLES ------------------------------
EVERYTHING COUNTRY$Country
Country Ballad$Country Ballad
Country Classic$Country Classic
Country Contemporary$Country Contemporary
COUNTRY BALLADS$Band - Country Ballads
COUNTRY SWING$Band - Country Swing
COUNTRY EVEN$Band - Country Even
COUNTRY POP 16THS$Band - Country Pop 16ths
PRAISE AND WORSHIP$Band - Praise and Worship
COUNTRY WALTZ$Band - Country Waltz
CAMPFIRE$Band - Campfire
Boom Chick$Boom Chick
Rockabilly$Rockabilly
Spaghetti Western$Spaghetti Western
Country Swing$Country Swing
Country Waltz$Country Waltz
------------------------------ FOLK ------------------------------
Acoustic Guitar Ballad$Acoustic Guitar Ballad
Campfire$Campfire
Folk Rock$Folk Rock
------------------------------ POP BALLADS ------------------------------
Acoustic Guitar Ballad$Acoustic Guitar Ballad
Piano Ballad$Piano Ballad
Power Ballad$Power Ballad
Synth Pop Ballad$Synth Pop Ballad
$$ More...
------------------------------ TRADITIONAL/WORLD STYLES ------------------------------
Celtic$Celtic
Folk$Folk
World$World
------------------------------ CELTIC ------------------------------
Air$Air
Hornpipe$Hornpipe
Jig$Jig
Reel$Reel
Slip Jig$Slip Jig
------------------------------ POP/ROCK/BLUES STYLES ------------------------------
EVERYTHING POP$Pop
Ballad$Ballad
Blues$Blues
Funk$Funk
Lite Pop$Lite Pop
Medium Rock$Medium Rock
------------------------------ MODERN POP ------------------------------
Modern Pop$Modern Pop
------------------------------ BLUES ------------------------------
Acoustic Blues$Acoustic Blues
New Orleans$New Orleans
Texas Blues$Texas Blues
------------------------------ LITE POP ------------------------------
Doo Wop$Doo Wop
New Age$New Age
New Wave$New Wave
Tropical$Tropical
------------------------------ SOUL/R&&B/FUNK ------------------------------
Gospel$Gospel
Modern R&&B$Modern R&B
Praise Break$Praise Break
------------------------------ DANCE/HIP HOP GENRES ------------------------------
Hip Hop$Hip Hop
------------------------------ ROCK ------------------------------
Power Ballad$Power Ballad
Prog Rock$Prog Rock
------------------------------ OTHER ------------------------------
Classical$Classical
NEW in 2026$Twentytwentysix
------------------------------ JAZZ STYLES ------------------------------
JAZZ SWING$Band - Jazz Swing
BOSSA/LATIN$Band - Bossa/Latin
------------------------------ POP/ROCK STYLES ------------------------------
TOP 40$Band - Top 40
ROCK$Band - Rock
POP$Band - Pop
------------------------------ OTHER ------------------------------
CLASSICAL$Band - Classical
UTILITY$Band - Utility
------------------------------ MORE ------------------------------
Soundtrack Styles$Soundtrack
MultiStyles (Styles With More Than 2 Substyles)$MultiStyle
------------------------------ GENRES ------------------------------
Ballad$Ballad
Bluegrass$Bluegrass
Blues$Blues
------------------------------MORE GENRES----------------------------
Jazz$Jazz
Latin$Latin
Lite Pop$Lite Pop
------------------------------ SUBGENRES ------------------------------
Acoustic Blues$Acoustic Blues
Acoustic Guitar Ballad$Acoustic Guitar Ballad
Air$Air
Bebop$Bebop
Big Band$Big Band
EDM$EDM
Folk Rock$Folk Rock
Gospel$Gospel
Jungle$Jungle
Trap$Trap
Tropical$Tropical
Worship$Worship
$$end

Once again, MAKE A COPY OF THE stylz_kategories_MENU.txt FILE and copy that copy to a safe place in case something goes wrong so you can revert to the original painlessly. It works for me and several other users here on the PG Music forum, but it is not officially endorsed by anyone.

THE FINE PRINT: YMMV, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK, AND MAKE A COPY OF THE stylz_kategories_MENU.txt FILE and copy that copy to a safe place in case something goes wrong so you can revert to the original painlessly. I have no affiliation with PG Music and this modification has not been endorsed or examined by them, so they are innocent.