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[MM_switcher]

Hi,

after searching and trying some expressions on my own I would need some help for my (probably easy to solve) problem:
in pane-view I see a list of artists with the respective albums and the year [year - album]. But in an album with N different years (best-of album), it would be better to have only ONE date (e.g. the oldest) rather than having N entries with one album and different years.

Any ideas how to achieve this?

[MrC]

What's your reason for using [Year - Album]? 

Some options, different ways to consider the problem.

If you want to see the Date the album was released, create a [Date Released] field and set/use that field instead.

If you want the latest date, create a [Date Oldest Track] field, and set/use that in views.

You could nest the dates, to show after expanding an Album, but that will list all track date possibilities.

You could calculate this using the new Save/Load gloabal variables, but it is really clumsy.

In a categories view a [Date] field in Thumbnail text for a category will become an average of the field for the items below.

[rick.ca]

In a Panes View, the default Album grouping keeps albums intact and uses the average date for displaying the year. Using a custom grouping, you would have to use one of the methods MrC mentions. I use my own [Released] date so, in effect, all albums are by release date.

[MM_switcher]

What's your reason for using [Year - Album]? 

I like to see the albums in the order they were released:

In a Panes View, the default Album grouping keeps albums intact and uses the average date for displaying the year.

Maybe I miss something, but I can't see that an average date is used; instead I get a year for every song.

I thought it would be possible to do something like Math(Max(Date.....
I don't care which date is selected/calculated, as long as it's done automatically. Any chance?

[rick.ca]

I like to see the albums in the order they were released:

[Year] is determined from [Date] which is normally the date the track was released. For a compilation album, the tracks may be originally tagged with the date the album was released. I don't think it's a good idea leaving them that way, as it results in [Year] being used inconsistently and tracks in both original and compilation albums being having different a [Year]. So I tag all tracks with both the [Year] originally released and the year the album they're in was [Released].

Maybe I miss something, but I can't see that an average date is used; instead I get a year for every song.

I thought you were referring to the Grouping used in the view. From your screenshots, it seems all you want is a pane that displays each artist's albums by year. That can be done with the expression [Artist]\[Released] [Album]&DataType=[List] (see screenshot).

I don't care which date is selected/calculated, as long as it's done automatically. Any chance?

As stated, it could be done using global variables, but that would be clumsy and probably cause an unacceptable slow down. I recommend you create an album-related [Released] field and use that. It should be easy to populate, as it will equal [Year] for all original albums. Being an album-related field, you can change [Released] for compilation albums just by changing any one track. It also ensures the value remains the same for all tracks.

[MM_switcher]

Thanks for the support, I (nearly) got it. But the field is by creating empty for all entries. I need to select all files of an album and tag them with the new/desired value.

[MM_switcher]

I've tried several things, but could not verify the statement
 

:
It should be easy to populate, as it will equal [Year] for all original albums. Being an album-related field, you can change [Released] for compilation albums just by changing any one track. It also ensures the value remains the same for all tracks.

Please advise what to do to achive this.

[MrC]

Assuming you've defined a Released field:

1) Open the Tag Action Window, and add Released to the display or show all fields (pull down, upper left of the T.A.W.)
2) Select the tracks for which you want to set Released
3) Click-to-edit the T.A.W. Released field and enter:

 =[Date (Year)]

and press Enter when done.

Alternatively, you can tag directly in a column in the files pane, or use Pane Tagging mode to tag in a pane.

[MM_switcher]

... and enter:

 =[Date (Year)]

and press Enter when done.

I always entered directly a year, which didn't work as expected. Your hint made my day (evening here in Switzerland)
Thanks a lot 

[MrC]

What Data Type did you use when you created your Released field?

[MM_switcher]

Date, as in the screenshot

[MrC]

You can enter a Year-only in a date field.  But keep in mind that MC will format dates for display.  Date fields are stored internally as a single floating point number, which MC converts for display.

If you want only the year portion of a date field, use FormatDate([Release], Year).

[MM_switcher]

will keep that in mind, in case of troubles.
Problem finally solved, thanks!