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Author Topic: Sorting -- which way to go?  (Read 3282 times)

Seviien

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Sorting -- which way to go?
« on: April 21, 2003, 02:29:36 pm »

For the sake of organization, I divide my music albums into two sections: multi artist albums and single artist albums.  When the display is set to "Thumbnails (album group if logical)" the view scheme for single artist albums sorts without a problem.  It always seems to sort by Artist -> Album.

The multi artist album view scheme, however does not work as well.  It always seems to sort the grouped albums randomly, even when i desginate a specific view order in the text box atop the view.  When I view the details, or ungrouped thumbs, the view scheme sorts correctly.

I guess what i'm getting at is: can we control the display ordering when the view is set to "Thumbnails (album group if logical)"  Cause if we can, either there's a bug or I cant figure out how to do it.
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loraan

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2003, 09:25:41 pm »

I'm using MC 9.0.154. When in "Thumbnail (album group if logical)" mode, it seems to sort by Artist, but the sort might appear to be out of order, because you're seeing the album names underneath the thumbnail.
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farmore

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2003, 11:42:57 pm »

The sort is by artist of the first track instead of album name. I reported it a couple of weeks ago. It is very annoying.
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Seviien

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2003, 03:04:28 pm »

is this going to be addressed?
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jimpmc

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2003, 07:28:06 am »

I posted a similar issue a while back in http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1050032945

I have searched, but have yet to see any reply regarding this behavior.  I hope that it can be addressed at some point.

-J
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Seviien

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2003, 12:14:10 pm »

anbody?
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jimpmc

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2003, 06:08:40 pm »

This still seems to be an issue in build 162.  The thumbnails appear to sort by artist-album instead of just album.  And if you have a mix album (with multiple artists), it appears to use the best artist in alphabetical order as part of determining how it shows the thumbnail for that album relative to other albums.

If you hover over the thumbnail, it shows the artist - album hyphenated, so one can see how it chooses to use the best alphabetical artist from a mix album.

See the picture below for more details:



You'll notice that the Album "Celtic Spirit" is shown as the first thumbnail (regardless of whether you manually add another sort order of album).  It's listed as Aine Minogue - Celtic Spirt () in the hover box, but Aine Minogue is the Artist for track #3.  It seems to be using that Artist name as the sort criteria, regardless of what you apply to the rules.  The album thumbnails should really be shown in the same order as they are shown in the tree on the left.

In my opinion, this is not intended behavior, unless I'm really not understanding how the view and sorting work.

Thanks,
-J
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Matt

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2003, 05:35:50 am »

In the next build:

Changed: Album grouped thumbnails now sort by album then artist. (instead of artist then album)
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

NoCodeUK

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2003, 03:28:45 pm »

Matt,

I posted this in the bug thread but didn't know if here might be mroe appropriate.  I really don't like the way Album thumbnails are now being sorted by Album before Artist.  It means that in a multiple artist view albums by the same artist are split all over the shop.  It seems to me the initial query related to Multiple artist albums being sorted by the first artist alpahbetically.  Couldn't this maybe be remedied by sorting multiple artist albums by the albumartist tag rather than the artist tag?  As it is it seems that to cure one small problem the solution has been too wide ranging.  Seems a bit like the old using a sledgehammer to crack a nut scenario.  All my viewschemes that used Album group thumbnails are now pretty useless.  I had a catalogue of Album thumbnails that are now not sorted by artist, a decade view which just shows a random set of albums (okay they are sorted alphabetically but they no longer bare any link to the artist and therfore it might as well be random).

I am sorry to appear moaning and to make such a long post.  I love your guys work and MC is my favourite program of all time but I just feel that indoing this to cure the problem mentioned you have actually destroyed what was the best features of the group logically by thumbnail feature,  I know it is impossible to get one default way that would please everybody and unless we could actually deicde the sort view ourselves then not everybody ever be happy, but I just personally think the old way was a lot more logical.  I sort my collection by artist as did the original poster.  I would never sort alphabetically by album same as I would never sort books aplphabetically by title.

Okay rant over ;D

But please could this be fixed or could we at least have the option to do it either way.

Cheers

Adam
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FunkyVoodoo

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2003, 04:31:44 pm »

Long time user and lurker, first time poster.  MC9 is a great product - I'm wishing you guys a lot of luck with it, it's been great for me and my iPod.

What's driven me to finally post is the new artist/album issue.  I loathe the new sort by album title view - I liked them to be arranged by clumping albums by the same artist together.  The difference of opinion may be if you have a lot of "compilation" albums (like many of the posters in this thread), or if you have mostly albums done by single artists.

Do what you like based on feedback from the compilation cohort.  Just give me the old option back!
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NoCodeUK

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Re: Problem: Sorting Ablum Grouped Thumbnails
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2003, 12:01:49 am »

Bump!

I have bumped this so that people can discuss their sorting problems here and not in the bug thread...

I one of the mods could change the title so that it is more obvious what the thread is referring to...!?!?!?

Cheers

Adam

P.S.  My vote is for sort by Album Artist...
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Matt

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Re: Sorting -- which way to go?
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2003, 05:07:25 am »

OK, we'll change it back next build.

We can make more options in a future version.  For now, it's not possible to sort by calculated fields like "auto album artist", and it's too large a change to make for 9.0.

Thanks.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

jimpmc

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Re: Sorting -- which way to go?
« Reply #12 on: April 30, 2003, 05:38:10 am »

I'm glad this is getting discussed!

Might a useful compromise be to sort on the [Album Artist] tag (the actual tag, not the autoartistalbum one), then [Album]?  It may require a little more maintenance to make sure the Album Artist tag is actually filled in (if desired), but it might allow everyone to use it as they prefer:

- If you fill in [Album Artist] with the same info as [Artist], then it will sort as it did in previous builds.

- For mix albums, you could fill in [Album Artist] with Various Artists, Mix, etc. to group mix albums together instead of it using whichever Artist from the various tracks happens to be first alphabetically.

- If you want the thumbnails to just display by Album, then you can blank out the [Album Artist] tag so that it just sorts on the Album name.

Thoughts?

-J
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NoCodeUK

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Re: Sorting -- which way to go?
« Reply #13 on: April 30, 2003, 06:10:29 am »

Exactly what I was meaning.  Sorry for the confusion Matt I did not mean to sort on the calculated field but on the actuall Album Artist field.  That way various artist albums that have Various Artists in the Album Artist field will all appear together.

Adam
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Tangoman

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Re: Sorting -- which way to go?
« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2003, 07:24:11 am »

Hi MJ.
Great programme so far. I am afraid for me thought I prefer the sorting that was in MJ8 I set my default and then adjusted as needed. At the moment I cannot get the sorting to stick. My preference is Track no. Album. as the basic setup. MC is always going back to Artist as the first sort extremely annoying as I have to got to Playing now to re order nearly every time I send a CD to there. I have a huge number of Compilations not Home made either and I find this a real bug bear..
Hope you can help
Gerry
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Matt

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Re: Sorting -- which way to go?
« Reply #15 on: April 30, 2003, 08:35:50 am »

Quote
Hi MJ.
Great programme so far. I am afraid for me thought I prefer the sorting that was in MJ8 I set my default and then adjusted as needed. At the moment I cannot get the sorting to stick. My preference is Track no. Album. as the basic setup. MC is always going back to Artist as the first sort extremely annoying as I have to got to Playing now to re order nearly every time I send a CD to there. I have a huge number of Compilations not Home made either and I find this a real bug bear..
Hope you can help
Gerry


Turn on Options -> Tree & View -> Auto save sort changes

OR

Get sorting how you like it and right-click the column header and pick "Save Current View" or "Make All Views Like Current"
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

Yangus

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Re: Sorting -- which way to go?
« Reply #16 on: April 30, 2003, 11:24:41 am »

There has been a lot of discussion on which way to sort, which way to view etc but you'll never please everyone. We all have our own way of doing things.

What I think would be great (and I know it's too late for this release) is to put in more stuff definable by the user. Instead of deciding whether to sort albums by artist or album, let the user decide.
What I'd like to see is maybe another tab in Options called, say Preferences, in which the user can decide:

* whether they to start with All Files/Audio/Images
* how their albums are tiltled
* choice of default view under album node
* choice of default view under track node
* anything else?

I know I've been on about this for a bit but I still haven't been told a) its not possible b) its going to happen but not right now c) it'll be in the next build  ::)

Letting the user configure his MC to the max is obviously a lot of work for you guys, that's why I don't expect it straight away but in the long run, you'll be able to spend more time on the big issues rather than what view is in vogue right now.

Thanks for listening.
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