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[Shelly]

11.1.74 (12/7/05)

6. Changed: "Album Artist" and "Album Artist (auto)" show as simply "Artist" in view scheme displays.

The changes seem mostly positive, except for #6 of build 11.1.74.  I find this to be extremely confusing, as so many of my custom views include both Album Artist (non-auto) and Artist.  This is particulary an issue when building or editing a view scheme and you can't diffentiate between the two fields.  If this change was made because of the length of the label "Album Artist" I'd much prefer to see it abbreviated as "AA" than leave it as Artist.  

[JimH]

We've struggled with this, too.  It's confusing to have two artist fields.

What about this?

The old "Album Artist" could become "Artist".

The old "Artist" could become "Track Artist".

[jgreen]

Greetings JimH!  Lots of wild stuff going on in dev these days, congrats!

Re/ album-track-artist-etc, howabout:

Artist(Album)
Artist(Track)

That way the two fields are sitting next to each other in the drop-down lists for adding fields.

[KingSparta]

We've struggled with this, too.  It's confusing to have two artist fields.

What about this?

The old "Album Artist" could become "Artist".

The old "Artist" could become "Track Artist".

How About

Artist
User Editable Field Name = "Track Artist"
J River Fixed And SDK Field name = "Artist"

Album Artist
User Editable Field Name = "Artist"
J River Fixed And SDK Field name = "Album Artist"

So If Someone Wants To Rename the Fields They Can Rename It to What Ever They Want Without Efecting The Program And Plug-ins and how they work.

The User Could Search On Eather Field, Fixed And Edited.

[Alex B]

11.1.74 (12/7/05)

6. Changed: "Album Artist" and "Album Artist (auto)" show as simply "Artist" in view scheme displays.

I thought this was a bug and was about to report it. I fail to see what was the problem. Did someone ask for a change?


I use the fields like this:

Artist - as the track artist is

Album Artist - I use this for overriding all "multiple artists" albums. "multiple artists" is not meaningful information for me. I already know that because the album has multiple artists. Instead I write something meaningful in the Album Artist field.

Album Artist (Auto) - MC fills this with the Artist field (single artist albums) or with anything I have written in the Album Artist field.

In searches and view schemes I use "Album Artist (Auto)" if I want the results to be sorted by albums. Sometimes I use "Artist" instead if the track artist is the priority. Sometimes I use both.


So what was the problem? Too long field name? As King said the displayed field names are editable (have always been).

[MusicHawk]

I also find it confusing to have two fields with the same name.

It appears that Album Artist (and the related "auto" field) have several uses depending on what a user is trying to accomplish. For instance, I'm trying to catalog a huge library of all kinds of music and recordings, including lots of non-album tracks.

To do this I long ago adopted the suggestion in this forum to use Album Artist for the last, first name to get proper sorting, and also to clean up the multiple artists problem. So, for any recording where the artist is one or more people (not a group/band), my Album Artist field is like this: "Lennon, John", while the Artist field is "John Lennon". Then I sort/group by Album Artist (auto).

Perhaps the most versatile solution would be to retain the old field names, for consistency and clarity, but allow editing of the displayed field/column/tag name.

[GHammer]

I use something else to tag because I follow the betas and don't want to lose tagging info unexpectedly.

I don't see this field in any part of "File Info".


Yet I do in a diferent app.

[Matt]

"Album Artist (auto)" makes a good default for view schemes, but it looks like a train wreck.  This is why we made the change.

Maybe there's a better solution, but it can't include advanced customization that most users wouldn't find.

[JimH]

I use something else to tag because I follow the betas and don't want to lose tagging info unexpectedly.

I don't see this field in any part of "File Info".

Maybe the other program automatically fills it if it's blank.

[bopz]

"Album Artist (auto)" makes a good default for view schemes, but it looks like a train wreck.  This is why we made the change.

Maybe there's a better solution, but it can't include advanced customization that most users wouldn't find.

Italicize Album Artist for display when it's actually [Album Artist (auto)]
Make a rule that all dynamically-updated fields are italicized for display, so
the names can be re-used.

[Rob L]

what do you mean by "looks like a train wreck"? I still can't see what's wrong with it... do you mean the name just looks crap?

[hit_ny]

Many artists have appeared in a number of bands over their career, since in most cases like this I track the Artist and not the individual bands and thus like to have a method of keeping ALL that artist's work easily assembled in view schemes.
For example, Jerry Garcia had a number fo side projects such as: Garcia & Saunders, Jerry Garcia and David Grissman, The Jerry Garcia Band.
In my mind Jerry Garcia is the name I wish to file these under, yet I wish at times to differentiate between the various incarnations. To accomplish this I use 'Jerry Garcia' as the ARTIST, but use Garcia & Saunders, Jerry Garcia and David Grissman or The Jerry Garcia Band as the ALBUM ARTIST (since that is the name on the album).

I do not wish to give up either of these tag fields.

Me neither, i have many dj compils, that either have the DJ as album artist or VA. If its a single artist compil Album Artist (auto) takes care of it.

I don't get this train wreck part with them.

Can someone explain how to transpose the old system with the new (yet to be implemented) version ?

[Alex B]

AFAIK, the internal system has not changed. This is all about how the field names are displayed in the browser buttons. However, having two artist buttons side by side is confusing and in my opinion the Album Artist is not the Artist.

Here is an real-life example how I use the Album Artist field.

I just bought this record: "Louis Armstrong & Friends - What A Wonderful Christmas." I filed it like this:



I wanted this album to show up besides the other Louis Armstrong albums instead of "multiple artists" or "Louis Armstrong & Friends". Also, I saved the disk files in the "Louis Armstrong\What A Wonderful Christmas" path, not in the "Louis Armstrong & Friends\...". With this filing system I can search for track artists as well. For example, I can use the separate Artist button for finding all Eartha Kitt tracks even she is not an Album Artist in my library.

[Matt]

Maybe it would work to only use "Artist" if there aren't other artist-type fields in the same view.

[bopz]

Maybe it would work to only use "Artist" if there aren't other artist-type fields in the same view.

Even if you do this, it would still really help if you graphically enhance
the text display, for example:

Artist            Artist
Artist °         Album Artist
Artist *          Album Artist (auto)

[SuperRabbit0]

Though I shudder at the thought of reorganizing my library, I actually prefer your new artist and track artist approach for a couple of reasons.

1)  I make very similiar use of the artist / album artist tags as many others in this thread.  However, almost all of my view schemes are dependent on Album Artist, not Artist.  And I would guess for over 90% of my library the two fields are the same (or album artist is blank).  Thus, the new scheme would better and more logically address teh bulk of my library.  It would also be much easier for beginners to use who only use (and are used to) a single artist field.

2) (And this is a huge one for me)  This is consistent with how Windows MCE handles artist tags.  While I recognize you are running a competitive product to WMP, this would allow me to manage my library in J Rivers (as I wont use any other tool) and have it display properly in MCE without any additional work on my part.  I think as household media players and products and continue to develop, it is important to comply with the standard conventions of those products (even if they may be less functional for power users) in order to allow people to utilitize J RIvers as part of an overall media solution for their home.

In the end, I think the difference is minor.  Everything people are doing in this thread with Artist and Album Artist could be achieved just as effectively with Artist and Track Artist.  But reorganizing libraries would be a nightmare...