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[Sgucci99]

Good Morning

When the library imported in MC become huge, it is difficult to quickly select the Artist name (composer in my case) with the first letter only.

i.e if I want to find Bruch, by clicking on the "B", I need to go through the whole Bach family, Balakirev,, Bartok, Beethoven, Berlioz, Berg..... and so on, by scrolling several pages.

It would be nice to improve the selection by using a second and a third letter, in order to narrow the search.

[MrHaugen]

You're taking about theater view, and the keyboard letter or "0-9,*,#" quick search/jump function, yes? If so, this have been mentioned before. I don't see any real reasons why we should not be able to write complete artist names or sentences if needed.  Just let small small pauses enable you to hit the same key multiple times, and a long pause to reset the search? On screen display to let you see what you write would also be sweet, and more or less required. Perhaps in a fixed location.

[JimH]

Good Morning

When the library imported in MC become huge, it is difficult to quickly select the Artist name (composer in my case) with the first letter only.

i.e if I want to find Bruch, by clicking on the "B", I need to go through the whole Bach family, Balakirev,, Bartok, Beethoven, Berlioz, Berg..... and so on, by scrolling several pages.

It would be nice to improve the selection by using a second and a third letter, in order to narrow the search.

Page Up and Page Down will work.  On a remote, Channel Up and Channel Down do the same.

Search lets you spell out exactly what you want.

[Skogkatt]

I guess the O.P. wishes to have the possibility to customize the "alphabet" function that, when enabled in "customize view", allows to jump quickly to an album name starting with a given alphabet letter.

The alphabet is particularly convenient as it doesn't require a keyboard to type letters to either make the selection via search or scrolling through hundreds/thousands of titles. The drawback of alphabet with very large libraries is the congestion of some alphabet letters (i.e. B) which may identify hundreds of albums: Bach J.S. and relatives, Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, Boccherini, Bruckner, not to mention authors of different musical genres that may fall in between. Clearly this is true if you import, like I do, the album name preceded by the composer/artist name: i.e. Bach J.S. - The Art of Fugue or Pink Floyd - The Wall.

Scolling and search are definitely two viable options unless the user is given the possibility to customize alphabet by creating his/her custom abbreviation like: Bac, Bee, Ber, Biz, Boc, Bru, etc.

Also, if you take remote control of the server with a laptop/Ipad, scrolling among hundred of titles in album view might become a frustrating exercise due to the slow cover art image refresh time.

[rick.ca]

I guess the O.P. wishes to have the possibility to customize the "alphabet" function that, when enabled in "customize view", allows to jump quickly to an album name starting with a given alphabet letter.

Probably, and that's only available in a Categories View. For a Panes View, what is sought can be done with an expression pane...

Code: [Select]

If(IsEqual(Left([Artist], 4), The ), Mid([Artist], 4, 1), If(IsEqual(ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, Left([Artist], 1), 8 ), Left([Artist], 1), 0-9 etc.))\
If(IsEqual(Left([Artist], 4), The ), Mid([Artist], 4, 2), If(IsEqual(ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, Left([Artist], 1), 8 ), Left([Artist], 2), 0-9 etc.))\
If(IsEqual(Left([Artist], 4), The ), Mid([Artist], 4, 3), If(IsEqual(ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, Left([Artist], 1), 8 ), Left([Artist], 3), 0-9 etc.))
&datatype=[list]
The same expression can be used as a Category in a Theatre View view.

[MrC]

Alternatively (and faster):

listbuild(1, \,
   If(Regex([Artist], /#^(?:The )?([A-Za-z])#/),    [R1], 0-9 etc.),
   If(Regex([Artist], /#^(?:The )?(.[A-Za-z])#/),   [R1], 0-9 etc.),
   If(Regex([Artist], /#^(?:The )?(..[A-Za-z])#/),  [R1], 0-9 etc.))&datatype=[list]

[rick.ca]

Alternatively (and faster):

Of course. I've let my "let's convert everything to regex" project slide.

This is producing slightly different results. It has to do with the handling of "The " and [0-9], but I can't quite figure it out. The B-52's appear under B\Th\The.

Also, I think I'd rather see K.D. Lang under K\K.\K.D rather than K\0-9 etc.\K.D... Not that it matters—it just looks funny, but I suppose it wouldn't if there were many names beginning with initials. And I'd rather a space be ignored than appear under 0-9 etc. BTW, I didn't bother with handling for names beginning with "A " because I don't have any. Others may want that.

[Sgucci99]

The attached picture better clarify what I meant.

Let assume that I want to decide what to play and to do so I want to scroll the list from Beethoven ahead.
If I start by clicking the "B" letter in the alphabeth,  usinge the page down option, I have to scroll about 17 different pages, going through the several pages of the Bach family ...(I have a huge collection), Balakirev, bartok etc...
It is not impossible, but boring.
If viceversa I put the "Beethoven" into the search field, I only see Beethoven, while I wanted to investigate the database FROM Beethoven ahead.
Having the possibility to click two letters instead of one I could have selected BE, going quickly to the wanted pages.   

[MrC]

Let assume that I want to decide what to play and to do so I want to scroll the list from Beethoven ahead.
If I start by clicking the "B" letter in the alphabeth,  usinge the page down option, I have to scroll about 17 different pages, going through the several pages of the Bach family ...(I have a huge collection), Balakirev, bartok etc...
It is not impossible, but boring.
If viceversa I put the "Beethoven" into the search field, I only see Beethoven, while I wanted to investigate the database FROM Beethoven ahead.
Having the possibility to click two letters instead of one I could have selected BE, going quickly to the wanted pages.   

You can already do what you want by type-select.  Click on some track to focus the selection, and you should be able to quickly type "bee" to get to Beethoven's wondrous hits.  Type "bach" to get back to Bach's melodies.

[Sgucci99]

Sorry, I don't undertsnd what you mean.

I want to quickly jump to a page starting with "Beethoven"  and scrolling down to see all the "Beethoven" albums and also the following composers.

Where I should type "Bee" ?

if I do it on the search field, I see Beethoven albums only.

[MrC]

Click on one of the tracks you have listed, but click *in* the Artist column.  Then type away.

If you want to select by Conductor, click in that column and type.

[Sgucci99]

Ok, it works, but it is needed to type very quickly.
This is possible with the keyboard only.

I control the MC via Ipad, WiFi connected to the server, so I haven't the keyboard.

Anyway thanks for your patience.

[marko]

Rick's example, trimmed down to just the final three character bit, can be used as a category in a category view too, which is what Sgucci99 is using.

If he/she were to set that that up as the first category, they could then click through "Bee" to get at all the Beethoven goodness, "Bac" to get at all the Bach stuff, etc. etc.

It will add an extra level of browsing, but should still be a solution that works pretty well, don't you think?

Right click on the view in the tree, customise view, in the category section, click the 'add' button, select "Expression", give it a name, paste in the expression code, press OK, move it to the top of the categories list, press OK again, job done.

Expression Code: if(isequal(mid([artist],0,4),the/ ,1),mid([artist],4,3),if(isequal(Mid([artist],0,1),1,6),0 - 9,Mid([artist],0,3))

How does that work for you?

[Skogkatt]

Marko,

I tried your expression and it works very well for me just replacing "artist" with "composer" and adding "Support tree browsing".

Now I see all my album cover art displayed next to the selection tree (with all the bac bee, etc.).

I find now the same problem I have when selecting "Genres" on the left tree: the mouse over the album cover art shows only play and not file.
I haven't found a way to enable file view just for the selected album like I can do in "Albums" view. Not always I want to start listening from track #1

Many thanks.

[Sgucci99]

Marko,
I got results different from Skogkatt, perhaps because he is using a view with cover art instead of text.
Here what I see:



If I click on one of the row on the left, "ber" in the example, I see the following:



Which is not what I wanted.

For me, the best solution should be to click with the mouse on the alphabet on top of the screen, and allow the further selection of additional letters if clicked within one second from the first.
This is close to the MrC proposal, but with the mouse instead of the keyboard. 
   

[Sgucci99]

Again with enlarged pictures:



and



Sorry for the inconvenience

[rick.ca]

For me, the best solution should be to click with the mouse on the alphabet on top of the screen, and allow the further selection of additional letters if clicked within one second from the first.

Have you considered using a Panes View (and not using Tree navigation)? I think you would find it more appropriate for the kind of collection you have. You would be able to implement a nested alphabet in a pane (as I suggested above). In addition, you would be able to simultaneously filter records by whatever other criteria you wanted (orchestra, conductor, classification, etc.).

[marko]

Way too much confusion in this thread!!

Sgucci99, In your first examples, you were not using tree browsing!! The approach I was taking was that rather than use the tree, you use the category. So, on the first level, you would double click on "Ber" in the list and be taken to a list of all artists that begin that way.

Category views are by nature, extremely linear in the way that they work. Rick's advice to try a panes view instead is very sound indeed. I can't help feeling it will be like a breath of fresh air for you as you will experience a whole new level of browsing/filtering freedom.

-marko

[Sgucci99]

Guys,

I'm already using different views, including the panes one, accordingly with the kind of search or browsing I want to do.

On classic music there are a lot of information needed for each record, so I had to customize some of the views
accordingly with my wishes, and I have no problem to find the album/artist/composer....

The view first attached in this thread, is my preferred, because often I want to sequentially browse by composer, and my request was to have a little improvement on it with a further pre-selection on the alphabet, which I was thinking to be easy to implement and without negative impact.
Now, again, thanks for your patience in suggesting me other views, and searching methods....but I like that view.
My request was a "nice to have" only, but I understand that is impossible to satisfy everyone... so forget it.
 
 

[marko]

It's a fair comment, and it happens a lot here. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but it's always worth a punt

You make a request, then get deluged with work arounds instead. When it works, it's great because the requestee gets an immediate solution, plus it's available here for anyone looking for something similar.

When it doesn't work, the requestee can get quite frustrated. I wouldn't say "forget it", because you never know, your request may make it in some day, it just might take a while. The devs will have read your posts, that's one thing you can certainly be sure of. Don't let us put you off posting any other thoughts or questions, they are all welcome here.

Regards,
-marko