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[Goatshade]

Why, when I am viewing a specific artist via a tree, I cannot use panes?

Refer to the attachment. As you can see, the "Customize view" field is greyed. I would like to add panes to the right so I can easily browse the files in each individual album, which works when I am viewing the Artists view as a whole, but not when I click on a specific artist.

Also, regarding the "Group by" options...is there a way to customise these? Grouping by album sorts the albums by date. I would like to be able to group by album and sort by a custom library field. For example, there are albums that are re-released, and I use the ordinary date field to input these re-release dates, and then I use the FormatDate expression in organising these when using the "Rename, Move, & Copy files..." dialogue--"[Album Artist (auto)]\FormatDate(([Year]-MM-[Day])) [Album]". I have defined a custom field, "Original Date," however, that I would like to use to sort albums within the player via the "Group by... Albums" function. How is this done?

[MrC]

Once you select an item in the tree, you're presented with a files list.  That's just the way it is.  Use panes for navigation instead.

Create a new custom field which has your expression.  Then, you can select this field in the Group By pull down.

[Goatshade]

Er... Where? How? Are you talking about a library field?

[MrC]

Yup, a new user-defined library field, data type Calculated data > Expression..

[Goatshade]

Okay, what, exactly, would I have to do do to make it a selectable item in "Group by..."

Rather, what would I have to do to make it like the unique presets? Simply selecting "Original Date" under "More" sorts them correctly, but does not provide album names or the year at the far right. Refer to the attachments...

[MrC]

Sorry for being obtuse.

Create a new user field, with data type set to Calculated data > Expression.

Enter the expression that creates the output you want to use for Group By.  If you want to sort by Album and then by Date, name the field "Album - Date" and enter the expression:

  [Album] - [Date]

Once that is ready, you can use the Group By menu item in the tab's pull-down.

[MrC]

I've re-read the post a couple of times now.  There are two things you're apparently trying to do:

1) Create custom Group By headers.  That's what I've been addressing.

2) Customize the Sort within a grouping.

But you're also presenting both a Categories view and a Panes view, so I'm uncertain as to which one you're wanting customized (the categories?, the file lists' Group By?)

Sorting the file list is controlled by the selection of a defined field from the ascending or descending lists: More (sort groups a-z), ...

Sorting within the file list when grouped is controlled by Sort Inside Groups By in a panes view, or in the file's list header in the file list when a categories view is used.  These groupings can be created using the pull-down and selecting the desired sort fields and adding a Preset (under Custom, inside Sort Inside Groups By).

[Goatshade]

Actually, I'm trying to do either or. I would prefer to use a Details-style list where the files are grouped by Album, but instead of the default Date field, they display a year based on my custom Original Year field.

Except, I don't know how the Album Group By option is formatted. If I knew that, I could simply replicate it. However, there's another problem: putting "FormatDate(Year)" into an expression field simply takes the year from the default Date field, which is not what I'm looking for. How od I fix that?

I only mentioned Artist-specific panes because I noticed that I couldn't make it happen, and figured I'd present the idea to you. Sorry for not being clear.

[MrC]

I have an additional suggestion.  Use Date to be the album's original release date, and use your own field such as Date Issued to be the date the CD was actually released (original, remastered, etc.).  This way, the program works correctly by default, with the provided groups and sorting, and you can override in your Renaming schemes.

[Goatshade]

...Not sure why I didn't think of that. It would certainly be simpler than trying to define custom expressions.

Still, if there's a way, I would know of it, if only for future reference and my own edification on defining expressions.

[MrC]

Here's an example of how to define / select the header (see attached).

The header is just a string of characters, so sorting is ASCII-betically sorted ascending or descending.  What you place there controls the sort.  So if you want sorted by Date Original Release, place the date first in the expression used to define the field.

[Goatshade]

Okay. Thanks for your help, but one last thing:

As stated before, when moving files via "Rename, Move, & Copy Files..." I enter a base path of "C:\Users\(My Username)\Music\" and then "[Album Artist (auto)]\FormatDate(([Year]-MM-[Day])) [Album]" for the rule.

How do I get the FormatDate parameters to reference the information in my custom "Re-Issue Date" field instead of the information in the default "Date" field? I know that I could simply input "[Album Artist (auto)]\([Re-Issue Date]) [Album]" but I want the format to be YYYY-MM-DD, if possible (or, as it has been, [Year]-MM-[Day]).

[221bBS]

FormatDate([Re-Issue Date],%Y-%m-%d,)

[MrC]

You're using FormatDate() in a way that is probably confusing you, as to the syntax.  The syntax looks like:

   FormatDate(<date field here>, <template>, <string when date value is empty>)

So, you'd use, for example:

   FormatDate([Re-Issue Date], yyyy-MM-dd)

See the FormatDate() section of the wiki for all the variations of the template parameters.

[Goatshade]

For whatever reason, all of those options are giving me really weird years. Instead of the actual years, it's giving me crazy stuff like 1900 or 1905. This, of course, is not correct. MM is only giving me 01 for the month across every album.

FormatDate([Re-Issue Date], yyyy-MM-dd), right?

[MrC]

Is [Re-Issue Date] an actual field of Data type: Date, or is it just a String?  Check your definition...

A Data type of Date is a floating point value, encoded to be Days.Fraction of a day.  There's also a little magic inside of MC for other reasons that aren't relevant here.  FormatDate expects, and operates on Date type fields.

If your [Re-Issue Date] is a string, and you want to use it as a date type, you're going to need to create a new temporary field, assign it with the current values in [Re-Issue Date], and then use ConvertDate() to convert the temporary field into the new [Re-Issue Date] date field with Data type: Date.

More help if this doesn't make sense, or you're not sure how to do this.

[Goatshade]

Strangely enough, I did have it set to data type Date, but then, I changed it to String, and now it's working correctly. o.o

[Goatshade]

Okay, this is weird. It only works correctly using the following process:

1. Set [Re-Issue Date] to data type "Date." Copy/paste date information for a given album from the internet into the field. It will convert the information into the format, yy-MMM-dd as usual.

2. Set [Re-Issue Date] to data type "String." The information previously entered into the field will be converted into a five-digit value (for example, "09-Aug-19" becomes "40044").

3. Open "Rename, Move, & Copy Files..." dialogue. In "Rule" set FormatDate expression to "(FormatDate([Re-Issue Date], yyyy-MM-dd))."

Attempting to do the third step while [Re-Issue Date]'s data type is "Date" will result in inaccurate years and months.

What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: Similarly, attempting use the "Rename, Move, & Copy Files..." dialogue while [Re-Issue Date]'s data type is "String" will result in a null value.

[221bBS]

Okay, this is weird. It only works correctly using the following process:

1. Set [Re-Issue Date] to data type "Date." Copy/paste date information for a given album from the internet into the field. It will convert the information into the format, yy-MMM-dd as usual.

2. Set [Re-Issue Date] to data type "String." The information previously entered into the field will be converted into a five-digit value (for example, "09-Aug-19" becomes "40044").

3. Open "Rename, Move, & Copy Files..." dialogue. In "Rule" set FormatDate expression to "(FormatDate([Re-Issue Date], yyyy-MM-dd))."

Attempting to do the third step while [Re-Issue Date]'s data type is "Date" will result in inaccurate years and months.

What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: Similarly, attempting use the "Rename, Move, & Copy Files..." dialogue while [Re-Issue Date]'s data type is "String" will result in a null value.

Date field will always display the date in the following format, M/d/yyyyy. You can enter the date any way you want but it will always show it in M/d/yyyy format.

In order to get it to display it another way, you need to create a new calculated field and use FormatDate([Re-Issue Date], yyyy-MM-dd) or FormatDate([Re-Issue Date],%Y-%m-%d). Maybe name the new field it Re-Issue Date (Display).