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Author Topic: Is there really no way to display seperate discs of an album separately?  (Read 2742 times)

wellivea1

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I know you can sort by disc, but that doesn't really help much as I end up looking at the full filename to figure it out, which is cumbersome.

This is the only thing that Itunes does better, it separates them with a bar that says "Disc __", which really helps you navigate multi-disc albums, especially when they have duplicate names.

The only current way to solve this is to incorrectly tag them by changing the album name to "____ (Disc __)" which is really too bad for a player that is, in my opinion, otherwise perfect.
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marko

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You can get the grouping you desire by creating a custom, expression based library field using something along the lines of:

[album]if(isempty([disc #]),,/ -/ [disc #])

and then, in the list, set the grouping to group on this new field.

I don't have time to properly write it up right now, maybe someone else will in the meantime if required, and, also, the expression provided assumes that if a disc is not a part of a multi-disc album, that the [disc #] tag is empty.

-marko

RoderickGI

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Just adding the [Disc #] field as a column in the view, and using the default sort, will make it pretty obvious which tracks are on which Disc. See image.

Of course you could also group by [Disc #] as Marko suggests, which more closely duplicates what iTunes does.

There is certainly no need to add the Disc number to the Album name. That is very old school, and breaks lots of other functionality.
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What specific version of MC you are running:MC27.0.27 @ Oct 27, 2020 and updating regularly Jim!                        MC Release Notes: https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Release_Notes
What OS(s) and Version you are running:     Windows 10 Pro 64bit Version 2004 (OS Build 19041.572).
The JRMark score of the PC with an issue:    JRMark (version 26.0.52 64 bit): 3419
Important relevant info about your environment:     
  Using the HTPC as a MC Server & a Workstation as a MC Client plus some DLNA clients.
  Running JRiver for Android, JRemote2, Gizmo, & MO 4Media on a Sony Xperia XZ Premium Android 9.
  Playing video out to a Sony 65" TV connected via HDMI, playing digital audio out via motherboard sound card, PCIe TV tuner

221bBS

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My setup is a bit complicated but it can be simplified. Think all you need is [Disc #], [Total Disc], and maybe [DiscSubTitle]. I use Musicbrainz/Picard to tag my muisc, and these are default tags they use.

Look at the pic below and if you're interested, I'll try and write a simple script.

The pic shows two albums, One has 1 disc, the other 2. The multi-disc album has a subtitle to the 2nd disc.
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RoderickGI

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Or you could use this modified version of Marko's expression to retain much of the original information displayed in the view.

[album] by [Album Artist]if(isempty([disc #]),,/ -/ Disc [disc #])

See first image. Unfortunately the display for each disc now says "(Multiple Artists)" in stead of "Various Artists" as it did originally. That is because the built in MC functionality to display "Various Artists" is being bypassed. I don't know how to fix that with a more elaborate expression, but it shouldn't be a big issue. See first image. Note in the tag Window the [Artist] and [Album Artist] tags.

For an Album with just a single Artist, see the second image.

I have call the new library field [AlbumDisc]. See the third image for the Library Field definition.

Finally, all you need to do to implement this change is to set the "Group By" in the details (lower) pane of an Album view to the new field. See the fourth image.

Easy. MC will always be better than iTunes, in every way!  ;D

BTW, using the above expression, if the [Album Artist] field is empty, the [Artist] field isn't included in the heading by default, as it would be if you weren't using this Grouping Expression. Fixing that would require another IF() function. I'll leave it to you to figure that modification out.

See;
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Conditional_Functions#If
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Expression_Language

EDIT: 221bBS, that looks good. It looks like you have another Library field in your view for [Disc #]-[Track #] when a [Disc #] exists, plus a lot more in your "Group By" expression. Nice.
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What specific version of MC you are running:MC27.0.27 @ Oct 27, 2020 and updating regularly Jim!                        MC Release Notes: https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Release_Notes
What OS(s) and Version you are running:     Windows 10 Pro 64bit Version 2004 (OS Build 19041.572).
The JRMark score of the PC with an issue:    JRMark (version 26.0.52 64 bit): 3419
Important relevant info about your environment:     
  Using the HTPC as a MC Server & a Workstation as a MC Client plus some DLNA clients.
  Running JRiver for Android, JRemote2, Gizmo, & MO 4Media on a Sony Xperia XZ Premium Android 9.
  Playing video out to a Sony 65" TV connected via HDMI, playing digital audio out via motherboard sound card, PCIe TV tuner

221bBS

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EDIT: 221bBS, that looks good. It looks like you have another Library field in your view for [Disc #]-[Track #] when a [Disc #] exists, plus a lot more in your "Group By" expression. Nice.

Thanks, I redid my library last year, I think. I'm not a coder so it took a few weeks of work.

The Group by has the following info:
Orignal Release Year
Album Title
Release Country
Release Year (if different from original year)
Cat#
Disc #
Disc title
Album Artist

What I really like about my setup is how the songs are listed:
Color depends on what type of recording it is (studio, live, demo, DJ-mixed, etc)
Artist is only displayed if it's different from the album artist, also if the artist begins with the album artist, it is stripped. (pic added)
Also some symbols are added when conditions are met.
Also only the Artist and song title is colored, (feat., duet with, with, etc) remain default color.
Underlined if it's in playing now, and bold if it's playing
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wellivea1

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Okay, will try to do all of that soon. I haven't messed around with the custom library fields before, so I hope it goes well.  :P
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