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Author Topic: When can we expect to see half star ratings?  (Read 5808 times)

MrHaugen

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When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« on: October 05, 2008, 07:23:10 am »

I've ben asking for this for years it seems. I have to use 3 costum fields with numbers today, and it takes a lot of time to set and to change the ratings compared to just moving the stars in the standard rating field.
iTunes have been using half star ratings for a long time now, and I'm sure others have as well. I would think that a change of major version would be a great time to implement something like this. Espesially when version 13 to 12 librarys are not compatibe any more.

Another idea that have been mentioned have been the ability to add costum art to the graphics on the ratings, and to use this system on costum fields as well.

Any plans for this at all?
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tcman41

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #1 on: October 05, 2008, 07:33:20 am »

Yup, 1/2 star ratings would be really nice, always wondered when it would appear.

TC  :)
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MrHaugen

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2008, 04:04:46 am »

Have you thought more about the subject? Is there any hopes to see this in MC13, or do we have to wait several years for version 14?

Most media players have the ability to use half star rating, and I think it's pretty weak that MC13 can't do this.
MC13 is miles ahead in almost every function, but lacks half star rating and a better looking Theater View imo. It's a shame.

I hope you can give it some more consideration.
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steveklein

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2008, 02:08:33 pm »

i don't see a problem with adding half star ratings, though I don't really need them. 90% of my library is unrated (not listened to significantly; songs off of full albums which don't get much play). the 10% that i do rate are all either 3, 4, or 5... and i have a current favorite playlist that is what i have rated at 5 stars at any given time. works real nicely when i take my iPod and just want to shuffle the 200 or so songs that are really floating my boat at any given point in time.
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MrHaugen

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2008, 03:16:36 pm »

Rating tracks allows me to skip fast through a track and to hear if I recall it and like it, or to descide whether I like the new rhythms and vocals.
I've found alot of good music, wich I never would have listened to without this method. I would not have it any other way.

With 3 custom rating fields, the job of rating tracks is single-handedly the most time consuming thing I do with MC!
I'm sure there are a lot of people using rating. Besides me, I even believe that there are those who use more than the standard rating fields.
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gappie

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2008, 03:39:09 pm »

i do not rate my music, but i use the rating system. files that have some wrong info in the tags get a 5. files that mis info get a 4. files that need to be reorganized get a 3. it is so easy to 'rate' that i misuse it for this. works great.

does not add something for the half star system..  :)
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steveklein

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #6 on: October 13, 2008, 04:23:42 pm »

i do not rate my music, but i use the rating system. files that have some wrong info in the tags get a 5. files that mis info get a 4. files that need to be reorganized get a 3. it is so easy to 'rate' that i misuse it for this. works great.

does not add something for the half star system..  :)

could you not create smartlists for this and leave the ratings to their intended purposes? just curious...

for instance, i've got smart lists for albums with empty fields for cover art and year.
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tcman41

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2008, 04:44:34 pm »

My entire collection now at about 1,300 albums is album centric. I rate my albums anywhere from 1 to 5 stars. It just helps me to keep track of what I think is great and what is not, 1/2 stars would certainly help. In the past i just used another tag field and gave every album an rating in that field but it would just be easier and look nicer if 1/2 stars were available just like full stars.

TC
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gappie

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2008, 05:19:28 pm »

could you not create smartlists for this and leave the ratings to their intended purposes? just curious...

for instance, i've got smart lists for albums with empty fields for cover art and year.
yes for something like that. sure. but sometimes i only know a few people that are playing on a disk, or i notice that i hear a sax but it is not listed with the musicians, or there are three people on a picture and i forgot the name of one. sometimes i see that there is a mistake in the file info or crappy coverart etc. for those things i can not think of a smartlist. i can mark that with just one click using the ratings.
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JimH

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2008, 05:44:43 pm »

I vacuumed some of the lint out of this thread.  It was causing some skin rashes.
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jgreen

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #10 on: October 13, 2008, 06:20:28 pm »

I rate that idea half a hummingbird.
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JimH

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #11 on: October 13, 2008, 06:36:01 pm »

That would be two legs short of a half baked lion.
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MusicHawk

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #12 on: October 16, 2008, 11:13:26 am »

One way to do half-star (half-colored star) ratings:

Allow the Rating field to be displayed/edited as a numeric value. Allow this value to either:

... be the current 1-5 but accept decimals, then optionally be displayed as 5 stars including half-stars. Round the values to determine the stars.

OR

... be expanded to 1-10 values, to avoid decimals in the field, then optionally display these values as 5 stars/half-stars by internally dividing by 2.

Either/both these options could be provided via user configuration of the Rating field.

Also, the Rating field should use 0 as a consistent "no rating" explicit value to smooth out how it works in expressions.

I'm hoping for various Rating field options to let me avoid the too-easy-to-one-click-change problem of stars, especially the ability to do editing of Rating only as numeric values, and have the stars display be read-only.

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Quixote

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #13 on: October 24, 2008, 09:32:26 am »

I would also like to see more resolution in the rating system.  I was very ambitious at one point and created my own field for a 1-100 rating, but after rating 5000-ish songs I realized that a 10 scale system would be enough.

Thanks.
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jgreen

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #14 on: October 24, 2008, 10:38:15 am »

All hummingbirds aside, I believe there are only three ratings:  "I Like It", "I Don't Like It", and "I Can't Decide".  I think the reason otherwise rational people insist on a 10-scale or even 100-scale rating system is that they are rating different aspects of different songs using one single scale.  If I rate a song a "7", but I love the live version (10), although I hate the mix (3), what do I rate that version overall?

Wouldn't it be nice if MC allowed us to use multiple rating fields to reflect different aspects of a track?  In a case like that we'd only need 5 stars . . .
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Quixote

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #15 on: October 24, 2008, 11:01:45 am »

All hummingbirds aside, I believe there are only three ratings:  "I Like It", "I Don't Like It", and "I Can't Decide".  I think the reason otherwise rational people insist on a 10-scale or even 100-scale rating system is that they are rating different aspects of different songs using one single scale.  If I rate a song a "7", but I love the live version (10), although I hate the mix (3), what do I rate that version overall?

Wouldn't it be nice if MC allowed us to use multiple rating fields to reflect different aspects of a track?  In a case like that we'd only need 5 stars . . .

I would sort of compare it to Date for a song.  Right now you can put the actual year of the track, but what if you could only put the decade?  Maybe you are okay with only knowing what decade the song came from, but to me it would be kind of annoying.

I, personally, would like to see a 1/2 star rating system.  It would give me the resolution that I need & like.
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ProblemChild

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #16 on: October 24, 2008, 12:06:31 pm »

IMHO the resolution itself should be an option - if you only see three possible stars, great. Create a 3-star field. If, like me, you need more resolution on a single scale, great - create a 10-star field. Then make the icons themselves optionally customizable so those who want to see 1/2-star images can have them - ie 2 (optional) images. If none is supplied, MC uses the default image. If 1 is supplied, it uses that image. If a second is available, it uses 1 or the other depending on the value of (# mod 2), basically.
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craft

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #17 on: October 24, 2008, 06:02:42 pm »

null
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hit_ny

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #18 on: October 25, 2008, 08:08:13 am »

All hummingbirds aside, I believe there are only three ratings:  "I Like It", "I Don't Like It", and "I Can't Decide".

I've been playing this ratings game for 5+ yrs now, might take another 5 to evolve to your system :P

Leaning towards something similar for album ratings.

The hard part is when you have an album with more good tracks than others or vice versa, there are some I like and some, absolutely crazy about, happens mostly with new stuff, wears off, somewhat, after 10 listens in a row  ?


I think the reason otherwise rational people insist on a 10-scale or even 100-scale rating system is that they are rating different aspects of different songs using one single scale. 

Dunno bout others but putting it that way, sounds like a lot of work  :o

what if you see more levels as granularity, with a view to indicating just how good or not an album is.

Look at AMG, they use 5 stars, along with half stars, to describe an album.

If I rate a song a "7", but I love the live version (10), although I hate the mix (3), what do I rate that version overall?

Just as you said, 3 different tracks with corresponding ratings, there is no 'overall' version :)
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ProblemChild

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #19 on: October 25, 2008, 09:27:18 am »

Quote
If MC would have half star ratings, how would that interfere with the standardised 5-star rating used elsewhere, as in an iPod? Would 4½ rating be able to keep its rating, disappear or turn to a 5 or a 4 star? :-S

That's a good point, maybe the original ratings field should stay fixed as is to avoid rotten apple problems, but I see this as invaluable for other, user-designed fields.
As an optional/configurable setting you could choose to setup a field (or several, as mentioned above) with or without 1/2 stars, using say, one field for rating the songs (using
the original ratings field), and another for rating the albums as a whole.
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MrHaugen

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Re: When can we expect to see half star ratings?
« Reply #20 on: October 25, 2008, 04:30:01 pm »

I don't understand the big problem with half star ratings. iTunes have used it for a long time, and if my memory serves me correct, the ratings are still kept as five star ratings on different iPods.
One issue would be to consider the users with ratings used today. But a converter would be possible, or even a manual converting of the ratings would be a small job I think.

If it is a poblem though, a way to set a custom field with as many stars as possible, and half stars as well (to save horisontal space), would do well too. Only porblem with this way would be to keep the costum ratings in sync with the original 5 star rating used for portable players...

If something IS done with the rating I would also like you to consider adding the actual stars to the Theater View. It look bad, and it's hard to spot the right ratings with numbers only.
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