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Author Topic: How to sort albums by year...  (Read 2355 times)

4BYE

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How to sort albums by year...
« on: December 23, 2007, 02:05:48 am »

I'm not getting my Artist/Album list to sort by Artist (auto) then by year, starting with the oldest album.
I used [Media Type]=[Audio] ~sort=[Album Artist (auto)],[Year] but that doesn't work. Any idea what to use so it will show what I want?

Thanks,

Merry Christmas + Happy New Year to you all!

Theo
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llafriel

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2007, 04:47:01 am »

Try this one [Media Type]=[Audio] ~sort=[Artist],[Date (year)]. If group by albums is chosen it will sort by albums instead, so you need to set this to "none."
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4BYE

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2007, 04:54:27 am »

Thanks, you helped me on the way:

[Media Type]=[Audio] ~sort=[Album Artist (auto)],[Date (year)] is what I was looking for.

Regards,

Theo
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eba

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2007, 06:22:07 am »

I also sort albums by year, however also like having the option to set individual song years on compilation albums, which of course messes up the sorting.  Is there a way I can have an Album Year field set to the average of the years for all of the songs on the album?
At the moment I have a manually entered Album Year field and then an Album Year (Auto) field to get either the Year or the Album Year if it's not empty.  It works but is a bit more work than I'd like it to be...

mesue

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2008, 11:32:19 pm »

I also sort albums by year, however also like having the option to set individual song years on compilation albums, which of course messes up the sorting.  Is there a way I can have an Album Year field set to the average of the years for all of the songs on the album?
At the moment I have a manually entered Album Year field and then an Album Year (Auto) field to get either the Year or the Album Year if it's not empty.  It works but is a bit more work than I'd like it to be...

I have the same issue. Did you ever find a solution?
How do you get your 'Album Year (Auto)' field?
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Sue

4BYE

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2008, 02:05:42 am »

Hi,

I don't see a point in an average year... If I have albums (and I do) with single songs in it, they can vary from say 1960's tot 2000's. What's the point of having an avarage year. I mean if I put a lot of classic sixties songs in a folder I get probably 1965, where if I mixed them all I would get 1980 or so... It doesn't say anything about your actual years.
If you want it by year, make folders and name them for each year (1960, 1961, 1962 etc) and put your singles there.

I have compilations like "The Best Love Songs" that have songs that vary 30 years in time. I stick to the year of issue of that CD. I would go crazy if I would have to look for each single song to get the year of issue.

Best regards,

Theo
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eba

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2008, 07:24:37 am »

I have the same issue. Did you ever find a solution?
How do you get your 'Album Year (Auto)' field?
I don't believe there's a way to set the average year for the album as expressions can't do any maths.
My Album Year (Auto) field is simply: if(IsEmpty([Album Year]),[Date (Year)],[Album Year])

I have compilations like "The Best Love Songs" that have songs that vary 30 years in time. I stick to the year of issue of that CD.
That's what I use the Album Year for.  Occasionally (particularly for single artist best of albums) it's nice to be able to see individual song years (there's a lot of difference between, say, Dylan's 60s stuff and his 00s stuff), so I may if I'm particularly bored type them all in.  In those cases I don't usually particularly care what year the album was released in, so it would be good if the album year could just be set to something the same for all songs, without me having to type it in.

i.e., what I want to be able to do is set my Auto field to: if(IsEmpty([Album Year]),AlbumAverage([Date (Year)]),[Album Year]).
It's not a big thing, it would just allow me to be that little bit lazier.

On another note, I really don't care about what year multi-artist compilation albums were released in, preferring them to be sorted alphabetically, so I have a field [Custom Sort]: if(IsEqual([Album Artist (Auto)],/(Multiple Artists/)),[Album],[Album Year (Auto)])

mesue

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2008, 11:41:53 am »

Thank you for the expression for Album Year (Auto). IMO, even better than an average of the years would be if you could set it to the highest single year, since that is the earliest date the compilation could have been released.

I'm also wondering if it would be better to use a custom field for song date rather than album year, because the way I am doing it it now with a custom album year and putting song years in the date, it makes it so you can't use "Album (Year)" in your view schemes effectively.
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Sue

eba

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #8 on: March 28, 2008, 12:47:18 pm »

IMO, even better than an average of the years would be if you could set it to the highest single year
Agreed, I actually thought that after posting but couldn't be bothered to change it...

I'm also wondering if it would be better to use a custom field for song date rather than album year, because the way I am doing it it now with a custom album year and putting song years in the date, it makes it so you can't use "Album (Year)" in your view schemes effectively.
Not sure what you mean here.  The song year is the one I always want to be able to see and change.  The album year I don't want to see, I just want to use it for sorting rules and view schemes etc, so have the Auto one for this.  You could have the album year in the standard field, and have a Song Year field which you could just fill in yourself, but then you wouldn't be able to see this without either having two year columns visible, or using an automatic field which would be visible instead, but that would make it awkward if you want to change the year.

Ah actually after writing that I see you mean I think, referring to the standard 'Artist - Album (Year)' field which refers to the Year field.  I actually use my own custom field instead of that one too, because I wanted panes to be sorted nicely.  So, instead of using the Album field in Panes, I use my own 'Albums' field:
if(IsEqual([Album Artist (Auto)],/(Multiple Artists/)),[Album Artist (Auto)] - [Album],[Album Artist (auto)]if(IsEmpty([Album Year (Auto)]),,/ - [Album Year (Auto)])if(IsEqual([Artist],[Album]),,/ - [Album]))

So I get:
(Multiple Artists) - Pure Moods
Alanis Morissette - 1995 - Jagged Little Pill
Bob Dylan - 2007 - Dylan
Dire Straits - 1978

i.e.
Multiple Artist albums do not show a year: [Album Artist (Auto)] - [Album]
Standard albums show everything: [Album Artist (Auto)] - [Album Year (Auto)] - [Album]
Best of Albums (Dylan) show the album year: [Album Artist (Auto)] - [Album Year (Auto)] - [Album]
Self titled albums (Dire Straits) do not show the artist/album name twice: [Album Artist (Auto)] - [Album Year (Auto)]

mesue

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Re: How to sort albums by year...
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2008, 12:55:05 pm »

Mostly I like to use the song year for creating mixes, so that is why I was thinking making a custom field for song year might be better for me. But you have given me a lot to ponder and study! The "if" stuff in your expressions is difficult for me to grasp so having examples to study is so helpful.
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Sue
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