Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[richard-ec2]

For rock and pop music, when I look at a performer’s albums, I want them displayed in order of release (in other words, date order). MC21 does that fine – no problem at all.

But for classical music, I want a composer’s albums displayed by the title of the work (in other words, by album name). MC21 doesn’t seem to want to do this – all the main options are date only.

I’ll show you what I mean. Sorry if the picture comes out very large.



In this picture, I’m in the classical music collection that I’m just starting. I’ve clicked on Beethoven, and all his albums that I’ve so far added now appear in the top pane.

That top pane is fine. As you can see, the albums are listed by name so you get all the piano concertos in the right order, then all the symphonies in the right order, then the violin concerto - everything makes sense and is just as I want it.

But look at the bottom pane.  (The “Group by” option for this pane is set at the default, which is “Album”.)  MC21 has changed the order of the albums and is no longer displaying them by album name, as they are in the top pane. Instead, it’s decided to list them by the date they happened to be recorded so now, everything is muddled up - the symphonies are no longer grouped together, the piano concertos are in the wrong order - it's an incoherent mess.

This doesn’t make sense to me. If I tell MC21 by group by album, I assume it would group by album name, or failing that, simply follow the pattern already determined in the top pane. Besides, there are two other “Group by” options for grouping by date – “Album (by date) and “Year”. So why do we need a third?

I realise there is a workaround for this. If I go to the “Group by” menu, I can choose “More (sort groups a-z)” and then select “Album”. Bizarrely, if I select “Album” in this sub-menu, it does indeed sort by album name, even though selecting “Album” in the main menu sorts by date! But there’s a big drawback to this workaround: you lose all the artist information in the title bar – everything from the word “by” onwards is deleted. I really want that information clearly visible so I know which performance I’m looking at.

Is there any other way around this? If not, can I suggest the “Group by” option entitled “Album” should sort by album name and not by album date, which appears to me to be a glitch?

[MikeO]

Hi

Its dead simple , instead of using libary tags as is use expressions to customise the look and then use display rules to filter what's shown.

I have exactly that set up I have a Folder <Music Library> and 2 sub folders <Albums> & ,<Classical> along with a few others.

For Rock Albums

Open the "Artists" view on the tree view (left), select Customize View
I have Artist, Date, Album so it will sort by Date
If you Select Album , Edit , then instead of the radio button "Library field", select "Expression" and in the box "Expression to group By" type ... [Date] - [Album]
finally in the Settings box , select ...Set Rule for file display and set Filename (path) does not contains Classical
Save and overwrite the existing view (or safer save as a new view)

When you select a Artist the albums will be in date released order with the album showing as 1972 - XYZZZ

You just have to maintain the Date tag for it to work well

For Classical do much the same except using the Library Field Album as is and leave out the Date in the Show Categories in this order list
Set The rule as Filename (path) contains Classical
Save as Albums Classical and you're done

I have a view for Composer ,  which is Simply Composer and Album

You just play around with these views to get the look you want its extremely powerful

Add to that you can configure the same views in the DLNA server so you can get the same across the network

Hope this is clear enough to help 

Mike

[richard-ec2]

Many thanks indeed, Mike, I really appreciate it.

I understand what you're saying and I can see that it ought to work but I just can't get it to work for me.

I tried experimenting with Expressions  - which I've never done before - but as far as I can see, it only affects what shows in the top pane (the display pane) and has no affect at all on what appears in the lower pane (the content pane.) As I said in the OP, the top pane is fine for me and is doing exactly what I want it to do. It's the lower pane that's the problem - I don't understand why MC21 insists on re-sorting all my classical albums by date instead of by album name.

Just for info, if I go to my Classical music folder, open "Customise view" and look under "Show categories in this order," it shows "Album artist (auto) and then "Album". There's no mention of "date" anywhere in that list so again, I don't understand why MC21 is sorting by date in the lower pane (the content pane). Replacing those categories with expressions changes what happens in the upper pane but makes no difference to what happens in the lower pane.

BTW in the picture shown above, I now realise I made it too big so you may have to use the horizontal scrolling bar to see that MC21 is grouping by date instead of name in the lower pane. The date is at the right-hand edge.

Any ideas? I just don't understand what's going on.

[thecrow]

Sorry if I am missing something, but don't you just need to click on the "All Files" drop down at the top of your details pane and select "Group By" then "Album" rather than Album (by date)

Sorry ignore me.
Just tried it and your right it is still listing by date order

[blgentry]

The sorting behavior you're seeing is one of those built in things that JRiver does without really advertising it.  There are a number of these default behaviors that you'll find as you explore.  Like the way that [Name] is view dependent when used in Thumbnail text.

But on to your problem.  What you need to do, is select some other Group By field in the lower window.  You know this.  Let me suggest one that might be close to what you want:  [Artist - Album (Year)] .  That's an included field that groups and displays close to how you want.

If you wanted to make a new field that displays similarly, but with your own ordering or text, you can make a new field like this one, but modify it to look the way you want it.  If you're anything like me, you're probably thinking that custom fields seem like a big deal and why should I need to use them, and aren't they non-standard, and what am I going to break and ....

I'm here to tell you that custom fields are no big deal, don't break anything, and tend to be necessary for very specific sorting needs.  Especially when your idea of sorting is different than the included options!  I've never used the Album view the way you do with many albums at the top and many at the bottom.  I normally use many at the top and *one* at the bottom, just to see it's details.  Not that you're wrong.  Just that it's something I never thought to do and maybe it's not a very common way of viewing.

In any case, try the field I suggested and maybe make your own.  If you can't get it working, post back here with details (like your calculated field definition) and we'll try to help you get it working.

Good luck!

Brian.

[richard-ec2]

Many thanks indeed, Brian - I appreciate your help.

Just to pick up on your last point, I hope you don't think there's anything unorthodox about my view scheme because it is in fact nothing more than the default! At least, it is when displaying albums listed by artist, as in "Artists (small, with files)". Trust me, I'm not clever enough to have come up with my own!

Getting back to the problem, I tried the field you kindly suggested  - Artist-Album (year)  - but to be honest it's the opposite of what I want - again, it just lists the albums by date but what I'm trying to do is to STOP it listing by date and make it list by name instead, while retaining the artist information in the title bar.

You say I can create my own field and that sounds very interesting. I'm certainly not afraid to try it but how do I do it? What I want to end up with is exactly what you see in the picture above BUT with the albums in the lower pane listed in name order (as in the upper pane), not in date order. I don't want to lose the information in the title bar, either.

Do you think this is possible?

[blgentry]

Sounds like cake to me. 

Create a new field:  Tools> Options > Library & Folders > Manage Library Fields > Add new field.

I'd call it something useful like:  Album by Artist .  String type is the default, which is what you want.  Then, make it use calculated data.  I used this as my calculated data, guessing at how you want it to look:

Code: [Select]

[Album] by [Artist]
Click OK to save everything.  Then go to your lower pane and group by your new field.  Should work as you expect it to.

Let us know how this works out for you.

Brian.

[richard-ec2]

I've changed my mind - I am afraid to try it after all!

Just kidding, but that's one part of MC that's always mystified me and I've always kept well away from it. That's about to change, it seems.

I'll have a play around with it and let you know what happens.

[richard-ec2]

Well, Brian, I reckon you're the world's greatest living genius because that's fixed it! It produces exactly the result I was looking for. And a bonus is, I've  learned a little about how to use "Manage library fields"  which for me had always been shrouded in mystery.

If I had to find a drawback with this method, it's just that if you have an album of music by, say, Beethoven, but the works on the album are performed by more than one artist, the album appears as multiple albums, one for each artist. That doesn't happen if you use the default grouping (which sorts by date). But it won't trouble me because I usually split up albums like that anyway.

In fact, that little drawback relates to another glitch in MC that's been mentioned in the past. The information in the title bar should by default be the album title followed by album artist (auto). But it's not - instead of inserting album artist (auto) in the title bar, MC inserts the track artist. You can see this is the picture above where in every case the album artist (auto) is actually Beethoven but instead MC has inserted the track artist, as shown in the details for the individual files. Whenever the track artists vary from track to track, MC puts "by various artists" in the title bar, even when the album artist (auto) field says Beethoven or whoever.

I think this new method you've taught me could be an answer to both these problems but I'll have to think about how I'm going to use it to best advantage. In any event, it's definitely the solution I was looking for, it solves my problem completely and I'm really delighted with it, so thanks very much indeed for coming up with it!

[blgentry]

I'm glad to have helped you come to a solution.

You seem to be saying two things that you might like to change:

1.  The current solution breaks out the album with the track artist and makes multiple albums:  You can fix this by changing the definition of your calculated field.  Just use [Album Artist (auto)] in place of [Artist].  Try it and see if it works correctly.  If not, change it back. 

2.  The play information about the currently playing song uses track artist instead of album artist.  The fix is similar:  Right click in the display area where it shows what's playing.  Select Customize Display.  This let's you completely control what's displayed.  Change [Artist] to [Album Artist (auto)] and see if that gets you what you want.  Note that the display has two modes:  Regular and "alternate".  These are like presets, so you can have two different preset displays.  I only use one, but you might like to have two that are slightly different.

Congrats on making your first new field.  It only gets better from here. 

Brian.

[RoderickGI]

I had a look at this when you first posted Richard and thought, "That should be easy."

Then realised that it isn't when you want to retain the heading information for each Album in the lower pane.

Well done Brian for the neat solution.

[MikeO]

Another little mc secret ...

If you have an album Beethoven by more than one artist, set Artist as the actual artist BUT Album Artist to Various Artists for the whole album

That will force the whole album to display as one

It's another of those hidden rules. various works too.

Now you are a grand master of custom fields, consider one called BoxSet and a second Disc Name, that way you can bulk your multi disc sets, if you need help send me a pm, it may be easier than the forum

I found this a great way of classifying classical stuff.
Mike

[richard-ec2]

RoderickGI, you're right - I certainly made life harder for myself by wanting to retain all the artist information in the title bar. It would have been much easier without that. But, referring back to the picture at the top of this thread, you can probably see why I like it - it's so immediate and clear and looks really good - and best of all, it's not truncated, as it almost always is in the "Artist" column of the individual files, because of space contraints.

Bigentry and MikeO - I'm going to have to play around with this to see what works but quite honestly I'm delighted with what I have now and I think it may work best for me. It's very flexible once you get to know it's little ways!

MikO, I'll probably PM you later on Box Sets etc. Many thanks indeed for the offer of private tuition!

[glynor]

Another little mc secret ...

If you have an album Beethoven by more than one artist, set Artist as the actual artist BUT Album Artist to Various Artists for the whole album

That will force the whole album to display as one

It's another of those hidden rules. various works too.

It isn't really hidden. That's just how [Album Artist (Auto)] works. You don't have to use that field in your Views (I don't, for example). But it is described in detail:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Album_Artist_and_Album_Artist_%28Auto%29

[glynor]

Grouping drives me a little crazy because of how it impacts sorting:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84869.0

MrC has explained a number of tricks in the past around the grouping functionality:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88410.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=85110.msg581535#msg581535

[blgentry]

^ My head hurts after reading that.  I'm glad I don't really use grouping much.  I'm mainly a categories view guy.

Brian.

[RoderickGI]

RoderickGI, you're right - I certainly made life harder for myself by wanting to retain all the artist information in the title bar. It would have been much easier without that. But, referring back to the picture at the top of this thread, you can probably see why I like it - it's so immediate and clear and looks really good

I certainly understood why you wanted to retain that display. No criticism of that desire from me, and sometimes the things that make life harder also make them more worth while!