Here a couple of things to try to get comfortable with using views and tags.
You can create a custom tag with the information you need. I have one called Media Sub Type Audio, with the allowed values of CD;HiRez;Vinyl;DVD-A;MP3;Internet Radio;Tidal. You could do something similar including Bandcamp. The name is purely arbitrary. You can call it whatever you want. To create such a tag, Tools - Options - Library and Folders - Manage Library Fields and Add New Field. Make it a String. You also want to check the Save in File Tags option. To use this custom tag, you will need to populate the new tag, but there are tools to help you do that. Alternatively, you could just use one of the standard tags that you do not use, like Custom but that does not let you limit the values to specific values.
Smartlists are a good way to select a set of albums for tagging. It is also a good way to get use to what you will need to create custom Views. Select Playlists and then Smartlists. Right click on Smartlists and Add Smartlist. A box will come up which lets you Name your new Smartlist and lets you set the options to use. You can you Media is Audio (the standard one) then add a new one like Filepath Contains Bandcamp. That will create a list of all the files in the Bandcamp folder. You can then select all those albums/tracks and add Bandcamp to the custom tag you created. You could also create a Smartlist for HiRez by using Sample Rate is greater than 44,100 or one for mp3 by using Filetype is mp3. With that approach you can probably tag everything pretty quickly. You can also create a smartlist to list all tracks for which your custom tag is empty. You will need to fill out the tag when you import new tracks, so it is good to have a check in case you forget.
Now for Views. You can create new views using the custom tag. Alternatively, you can just use the type of selection just discussed directly in Views, without the custom tag. That is, you can create a View with Filepath contains, Bandcamp, one with Filetpe is mp3, one for Sample Rate is greater than 44,100, etc.
To create a View, right click on Audio in the left hand tree and select Add Library View. Select Album for the list, for example, as your starting point. A box will show and you can select Set Rules for Display. A box similar to the Smartlist one will appear and you can put in the appropriate selection criteria. You will now have a custom view with just the albums/tracks you selected. You can select based on the custom tag or you can use the various options (filetype, filepath, sample rate, etc.) directly.
Assuming you are using Category Display and album cover, once you have a custom view, look at the top of the album display and you will see a pulldown with the view name. In that you can select Sort By and then Custom to sort the albums by various tags in order. You can also select Thumbnail Text to set the lines that appear under the album cover.You could set on separate lines, for example, [Genre]
then [Artist] then [Album] then Bandcamp. If you are using the custom tag approach you can use [Your Custom Tag] instead of the literal Bandcamp.
The advantage of using a custom tag is you do not have to rely on the folder structure to make selections. The disadvantage is you have to keep it up to date. WIth the custom tag you can also have a view of everything, with the specific attributes listed in the thumbnail text just by putting in the tag.
Spike's YouTube video of creating Views is helpful. It uses Panes instead of Category Views, but the idea is the same. It lets you see the process before trying it.
Take it slow and try one thing at a time. Once you start to use the various options, it should be relatively easy to create the views you need.
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Topic: Columns and ordering of files in library window (Read 2329 times)