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[ferrarabrainpan]

I've forgotten how to create a duplicate of an existing library view, so that's my first question. Like, I want to create a new view that is the same as my Artists view (which actually displays Album Artists, not Artists, in alphabetical order A-Z based on custom tags for every album which are Album Artist Sort, so that the Album Artists are shown in the proper order (sorted by last name, omitting 'The' etc), using the sort feature of the library view to sort by Album Artist Sort.

So how do I create a new duplicate library view of an existing view and then rename it and customize view with rules, etc?

Now comes the tricky part. I want a new library view for Composers, sorted by composer's last name. This way the same album would be shown in the Artists library view, sorted by Album Artist Sort, and then I would create a new keyword "Composer" to tag all the albums in my classical library that I want to be displayed in the new Composers library view (so that only the classical albums by composer would be shown, not every rock, pop, jazz, folk release by composer). So I create the new keyword and tag all my classical albums in the tag editor in the lower left window with the 'Composer' keyword. But then in order to display them properly, in the library view sort options I cannot sort by composer or it will display them alphabetically by first name. I need a Composer Sort tag and I don't see one when I scroll thru the list of existing tags in the tag editor. Do I have to create a new tag for Composer Sort? Can I do that? How?

As it stands, I am displaying composers in the Artists library view by tagging each classical album with the composer's name in the Album Artist field, and then filling out the Album Artist Sort field with last name first. But I would like to use Album Artist to refer to the performing artist and not the composer.

Is it clear what I'm trying to do? Can you help me? I need to create a duplicate library view of my Artists view, then rename it and revise the rules for display. And is there a way to add or locate a Composer Sort tag within JRiver?

[HPBEME]

You can save existing views using the view menu, and selecting the load/save menu option (choose the save option and give it whatever name you wish).

But the easiest way to copy an existing view is to click and hold on the view you want to copy, drag it a short distance (while still holding down the LMB), and a menu will pop up to either copy that view, or move it to another location.

Regarding composers and how to deal with sorting for classical music, I have nothing to offer - I do not listen to classical music at all. However, I have definitely seen several very detailed threads specifically about the best way to tag classical music and composers.  If you are persistent in your forum searching, I imagine you will eventually find them.

[dtc]

This is pretty straightforward although it takes several steps.

There is already a field called Composer. You just need to fill that in.

Then you need a new field called Composer Sort which starts with the last name or just contains the last name.  You can just fill in Composer Sort manually for every album. Alternatively, you can use the swap function to fill that with the last name first with  Unfortunately, there are names that do not swap well and you will have to fill them in by hand.

To create a Composer Sort field go the Tools - Options - Libraries and Folders - Manage Library and there you can create a new field of type string if you want to put it in manually or Calculated if you want to use the swap function.

I would suggest starting by adding sort last names to Composer Sort manually and get things working. Then you can try using the swap function to automate the process, realizing that it takes a little more work to handle the names that do not swap well.

To see the results, just create a new View and use Sort By to sort by Composer Sort. Then in Thumbnail Text set it to display Composer plus the other fields you want to display. Sort By and Thumbnail are options under the name of the view at the top of the view.

When you create the View use Included Files - Set Rules for File Display to select just Classical for the Genre.

One step at a time. Ask questions as needed.

[ferrarabrainpan]

Thank you very much, both of you!  I got it sorted (sort of).

Will take a while to implement it all with filling out the tag fields and adding keywords. It was a little tricky because I only want those albums displayed where all the tracks on the album are by a given composer. Except there are a couple albums which are predominantly the works of one composer but with a couple tracks composed by someone else. So in order to not display those albums broken up into separate thumbnails for the other composers, I had to tag the album using the Author tag with the primary composer, then create Author Sort tag, then add keyword "Composer" to the albums I want included in the library view to exclude all albums without that keyword.

This will end up giving me the view I want. Thanks again.

[dtc]

Awesome. I actually have Views for multiple classical categories, like opera, medieval, guitar etc. and for lots of non-classical genres. Once you get started, Views are very useful to customize as much as you want.

[ferrarabrainpan]

Now I have run into a problem. If using Author tag then apparently I am limited to 12 different tags, unlike with composer tags which are unlimited. So if I am going to display Composer names then it will give me separate thumbnails for each different composer on the same album, which is not what I want. I don't want albums broken up that way. As for those classical albums that are comprised of works by many different composers, I file those under the performer's name and do not necessarily want to view them in the Composers library view. So now I must rethink this...

Perhaps I can use some other empty tag instead of Author, a field that allows unlimited different choices, like Artist or Album Artist or Composer. But I don't want to use composer tag for reason mentioned above.

[ferrarabrainpan]

Okay I created a new tag for Arranger and another new tag for Arranger Sort. Now I can put unlimited number of names in either field and use those for library display and sort. I think this will work!

[dtc]

You have opened up some of the versatility of MC. It takes a bit but once you understand these features it really is customizable like no other player.

Enjoy!

[HPBEME]

ferrarabrainpan, when I posted this above:

I do not listen to classical music at all. However, I have definitely seen several very detailed threads specifically about the best way to tag classical music and composers.  If you are persistent in your forum searching, I imagine you will eventually find them.

You may want to take a look at this recent post by English Tiger (who is extremely knowledgeable of MC and classical music):
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,136585.0.html

In addition to his detailed post above, he also references another thread, which is the exact thread I was thinking of when I mentioned "detailed threads" related to classical.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,128860.msg894607.html#msg894607

It is a long thread, but well worth the read.  As mentioned previously, I personally don't listen to classical music, but was very impressed by several MC users thorough explanation of the tagging issues how they can be resolved - highly recommended.

Perhaps you've already seen both of these, but wanted to make sure in the event you hadn't.

[ferrarabrainpan]

I made a lot of compromises when tagging my classical music files with dBpoweramp at the time I ripped them from disc or purchased them as downloads. It seemed acceptable to shoehorn the metadata into the more limiting data fields used for popular or non-classical albums and tracks, since classical is still a relatively small percentage of my music library, so I've been willing to live with these limitations. If I had multiple different recordings of a given composition by different performers, I can see wanting to take the time to enhance the metadata and implement better display and library searchability within MC. A big issue is the large number of variant spellings of composer names, which I've tried to address by choosing a single spelling of the composer's name across all files of my library. It's hard with Early Music composers, especially.

I have achieved my present objective of creating a library view scheme to show albums by composers for the albums I want to see and search. Thanks for the links to those two threads, I've bookmarked both of them for future reference.