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[Chuckorama]

Hi,

I am trying to configure a very basic music library view.  Can some kind soul provide a user-friendly, step-by-step guide to set up a single thumbnail view of all my "albums" by Album Artist left to right (alphabetically) and Album Title?  Everything album should be visible within a single view with no stacks but the primary sorting is by Album Artist.  Specifically, I can't figure out how to get rid of the stacks, which seem to be be the default view.  For example , if my library has 5 albums, 3 by R.E.M and 2 by the Rolling Stones, I should see from L->R the 3 R.E.M. albums side by side (unstacked) in order by title followed by the two Rolling Stones albums (by Title). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[RoderickGI]

Ah, you had me confused there for a moment, as you used the term "stacks" which has specific meaning in MC.

I think what you mean is what is shown in this image with the red box. Although those stacks are shown in the Artists View, not the Album View.



Regardless, first, rather than using the [Album Artist] field for this, I would use the [Album Artist (auto)] field, so that if the [Album Artist] field is blank, MC will pick up the Artist to use from the [Artist] field. Search the Wiki for info on [Album Artist (auto)] to learn about that.



Your request is actually very easy. You just need to change the sorting on the "Album" View in MC. The image below shows what you need.

On a tab with the "Album" View active, hover your mouse over the "Disclosure Triangle" ( the downward pointing triangle) to the right of the word "Albums". A menu will drop down.
Point your mouse to the "Sorting" item, and then "Custom" item.
Click the "Add" button and highlight "A-Z", then click on "Album Artist (auto)" in the list that drops down.
Now drag the "Album Artist (auto) (a-z)" item up to be above the "Name (a-z)" item.
Now click the refresh icon to refresh the View, in case it hasn't. (Green arrow in the image below.)



You should now have an Album view sorted first by [Album Artist (auto)], and then by Album [Name]. You will note in the image above that the albums for 2Pac are shown together (in the red box) and sorted by the Album name.


Is this what you wanted?

[RoderickGI]

Okay, that did what you asked for, but leaves a little to be desired because now you can't see the Artist's name, just the Album names. Let's fix that.

First, use the drop-down menu from the same Disclosure Triangle and select "Thumbnails" and then "Thumbnail Text Lines...".
Enter the value "2" in that dialogue and click OK.
Now go back into the "Thumbnails" item and select "Thumbnail Text...".
Add the [Album Artist (auto)] as shown in the image, then click OK.

Now you will see the Artist's name on the first line, and the Album name on the second line, as shown for my 2Pac example in the green box. Better?