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[hifrad]

MrC, you pointed me to a set of instructions but I still can't figure out how to do this:

I have spent a year cataloging my library (12,000 CDs)

I have created custom fields such as Band (where I list the band members and the instruments each one plays)

I now realize that I cannot use this field because I like each instrumentalist to be separated on their own line instead of with semicolons.  So now for each BAND field, I must go in to each album and retitle the tag field as "MUSICIANS" or something like that.  Is this correct?

But more importantly, it is very important to me that I am able to have my theater view organized in such a way that I am able to use it based on how I tagged my music.

For instance.  I have 3 different editions of Miles Davis' "Kind Of Blue"
I want to be able to have each one of these editions simply titled "Kind Of Blue."  I tagged them this way.
After selecting one of these editions at random, I want to be able for the MASTER field which I have created to be the next line in the chain of events.  So after selecting Kind Of Blue, I want to be led to a screen for which I have tagged the Master Fields

Choice A would be "1987 Edition", Choice B would be "1997" Edition" and Choice C would be "2009 Edition".

If I select Choice C (which is a 2 Disc set) I want to be able to be led to a screen that says

Choice A (Disc 1)
Choice B (Disc 2)

then going from there I want to be able to select the disc of preference.

Now, I have tagged my whole library in order to work this way.  But I cannot seem to get it to work.  What am I doing wrong?

I have set up all the fields in the manage library section, but I cannot seem to get the Theater View to do this.  Does it further complicate things if I have an album for which I have not put anything in the MASTER field or the DISC field?  

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I've been fiddling for hours and have had no success.

[MrC]

Let's start with the Band issue...

 - Can you post a couple of your Band tags here for a couple of albums or tracks?
 - What view type do you want for the bands "to be separated on their own line instead of with semicolons"?

[hifrad]

An example of my band tag would be
Miles Davis [trumpet]; John Coltrane [tenor saxophone]; Bill Evans [piano] etc.
Yes, I'd want each person on their own line. If I have to rename the field and fix each album, I can

What do you think

[MrC]

Place this as an expression column in a panes view:

   [Band]&datatype=[list]

[hifrad]

I don't know what panes view is. 

[hifrad]

I guess I just don't understand as much I thought.  I'm not looking for the BAND field to be its own section. I just want it available to me when I click info on a track

essentially this is all i want:

ARTIST (sorted by album artist last name but reads in first name / last name)

leads to

ALBUM (sorted by SORT ALBUM)

leads to

MASTER (if applicable)

leads to

DISC (if applicable)

leads to

TRACK NAMES with short description

then I click on the song I want and I can read the:

TRACK NAME
ARTIST NAME
ALBUM NAME
YEAR RECORDED (which I have created a field known as RECORDED)
YEAR RELEASED ON CD (which I Have created a field known as CD)
Composer of specific track (using the COMPOSER FIELD)
BAND MEMBERS (who plays what instrument...I used the field BAND)
TRACK LENGTH

that's all im looking for.  I wouldn't need the band to be its own field.

Is there a complete and very intensive instruction manual, so that I don't have to keep bothering you?  I'm sure, without reading, I may have up to 20 questions over the next few days.

If you have very intensive literature available for a beginning (without IT training) I'll read the whole thing and work with it.  If I can't get it at that point, I'll probably not use the program:( Though it is very very good, I can tell.

[MrC]

Are you using Standard View or Theater View?

If Standard View, which of the attached images does your view look like?  One is a Panes view, the other is a Categories view.

[hifrad]

OK I will check this out tonight when i get home!

What about the other issue. I'm MUCH more concerned about the other issue?  Is there a way to do this?

[JimH]

The wiki and the forum are the equivalent of a manual.  You could begin at the "Getting Started" topic in our wiki.

Don't try to do everything at once.  Enjoy the music.

[MrC]

Here's a Theater View screenshot at the track info level.  I think this is what you're after - look at the Band formatting.

[hifrad]

yes that is precisely what im looking for regarding BAND!

[MrC]

Ok, great, we now know where to customize.

Go to and select:

  Tools > Options > Theater View > Appearance > Customize file info panel...

and click Add.  Select Add Custom... and set the following:

   Type: Expression
   Name: Band
   Value: [Band]&datatype=[list]
   Style: Standard
   Show: Always show

and use the Move Up/Move Down buttons to place it where you want.  OK your way out, and you're done.

[hifrad]

OK, that worked!  Thanks so much.

When you have time, please if you don't mind explain to me how to organize my albums so that when click on on an album it will lead to MASTER / DISC field if applicable.

[MrC]

It seems like you want the Theater View drill down to be:

ARTIST (sorted by album artist last name but reads in first name / last name)
   ALBUM (sorted by SORT ALBUM)
      MASTER (if applicable)
         DISC (if applicable)
            TRACK NAMES with short description

Let's start with the basics.  Go to Tools > Options > Theater View > Items To Show, select Audio, and click Add > Library Item.  Give it a name under Details, and then click the Add button under Details, and select the field Album Artist (auto) and click OK.  Click Add again, this time selecting Album.  Do it again for Master, and Disc #.

You've now created the category tree.  Give this a try and see if we're on the right track.

[hifrad]

OK, I did this, but when I view it in theater, it shows the albums as UNASSIGNED. 

[MrC]

Unassigned means the value for that field is empty.

Are all the albums unassigned, or just a couple?

[hifrad]

Hmm, it looks like they all are

[MrC]

If your files are either named consistently and contain the Album name, or your files are organized in folders such as Artist\Album, then you can use MC to pull this information and populate the Album field.  Are either of these the case, and if so, if you show a couple examples, we'll go from there.

[hifrad]

here is an example of how i tagged my music.

As far as I know, I set up these fields properly in MC

[MrC]

Go to Standard View, and go to the Audio > Files view.  Show a screenshot of that view which includes the Album and Filename columns.  You can drag the columns around if you want.

[hifrad]

The MASTER field seems to be showing but the DISC field shows no content. It looks like i set it up right tho.

[MrC]

Media Center uses "Disc #" as the disc field - dbPowerAmp is showing "Disc".  I don't know if MC will map that field to its own (your statement seems to indicate it did not).  But you can import it by creating a Disc field in MC and re-reading the tags into the library.  Then you can copy the data from Disc to Disc #.

[hifrad]

So the fact that I created my own Disc field and then mapped it Manage Library Fields won't fix it?

I'm not sure I understand how to go about copying the DISC field to DISC # field.  Is it just a matter of rereading the DISC fields?

[MrC]

I don't know what you've previously done, or how your MC is configured.  That's why I'm asking for the data as MC sees it (my request for the Files view screenshot).  We seemed to have sidestepped the unassigned Album issue, and have moved onto another problem.  I see a pattern.

I think we'll make more progress if we attack one problem at a time, and not advance until the solution is found, rather then skipping to the next step.

If you want to use your own Disc field, then change the Theater View configuration we setup earlier.  But beware, MC uses Disc # in several other views, and uses it for sorting via its built-in default rules.  So if you want to use your own fields, that's fine, but you'll have to manually configure other areas of MC.

You can use the Library Tools > Move / Copy Fields tool to copy from one field to another.  Your screenshot shows brackets around the value in Disc, as "[Disc 1]".  MC's Disc # is strictly a numeric value; you'll want to just grab the numeric portion.  I can show you how to do that with an expression easily enough.

[hifrad]

is this the screen shot you are looking for?


I would still want the disc #s to be read as "[Disc 3]"

I'll create a new field if this is the only way.

[MrC]

That's great.

We can now see that Album has values, and that Disc is empty.  And probably Disc # is empty as well.  You can verify this by adding the Disc # column.  Right click on your current Disc column, and scroll to select Disc #.  Verify the values are empty.

While Disc # must be an integer, you can format it how you want in views.

First we need to get Disc read from the tags... I'm testing now to see whey you're values aren't read.  Back on this shortly.

For the assignment part...

To set Disc # for all your files, in the Files view shown, select all the files by clicking any cell in the Disc # column, and typing Ctrl-A.  Now press F2 to edit and enter (copy/paste) the following exactly:

=ifelse(regex([Disc], /#(\d+)#/),[R1])

This should set all your Disc # fields for the tracks by grabbing only the numeric portion.

I'll show you how to format it elsewhere when you're ready.

[MrC]

Ok, I see the problem.

MC already maps dbPowerAmp's Disc field.  Actually, dbPowerAmp renames this field to DISCNUMBER when it stores the tag.  And this is what MC already reads and converts to Disc #.  That's why your Disc fields are empty.  And the Disc # fields are empty because MC can't assign the non-numeric stuff, so it ignores the assignment.

Here's your fix.  Create a new field called DISCNUMBER using the default values.  Then have MC re-read the tags from the files: Update Library (from tags).  Now that DISCNUMBER is filled, you can use the expression above, replacing [Disc] with [Discnumber]:

=ifelse(regex([Discnumber], /#(\d+)#/),[R1])

@Matt - it might be good to simply read the integer portion of DISCNUMBER and ignore the other text rather than ignoring the value altogether. when reading tags from files.  In this case, the OP has values like: [Disc 1].

[hifrad]

I did this and it seemed to look like it was doing somehting, but I don't see anything in the Disc # field.   I wasn't able to highlight just the Disc# field by clicking Ctrl A.  But I dumped the paste element into just the Disc# field.

[MrC]

Do you now see values in your Discnumber column or field?

[hifrad]

No, in doing the original procedure, it seems to have deleted all my DISC tags when I view the ID3 tags in windows, it's not longer there.  But it wasn't replaced with anything.  That's ok, I did the procedure only to a few of the albums.

I can retag them.  I am happy to just create a new custom field that will function as the DISC field. And I will know how to manipulate it.  It will take a day to do it to all the files, but I really don't mind.

The main thing I want to make sure can be done in Theater View (and this is truly the heart of my interest).  I want to make sure that if for instance one album has a MASTER field filled, and another one doesn't that I can skip over this step for the one that doesn't and not end up at a screen that says "Unassigned".

If this can't be done, I will have re-arrange how I intended my server to work.

So again, is there a solution so that if I have theater view set up to
go
Field A> Field B> Field C > Field D
but there's an album lacking Field B and C
that it will not be
Field A > Unassigned > Unassigned > Field D
can I make it go
Field A> Field D

If I can know the secret to doing this (if there is one) I will know how to retag everything so that the server will work for me.

[MrC]

No, in doing the original procedure, it seems to have deleted all my DISC tags when I view the ID3 tags in windows, it's not longer there.  But it wasn't replaced with anything.  That's ok, I did the procedure only to a few of the albums.

Undo would revert.

[hifrad]

It didn't but that's ok!:)

I really think I know enough at this point to fix the majority of what I need to.  Except for the fact that i dont know how to do this:

The main thing I want to make sure can be done in Theater View (and this is truly the heart of my interest).  I want to make sure that if for instance one album has a MASTER field filled, and another one doesn't that I can skip over this step for the one that doesn't and not end up at a screen that says "Unassigned".

If this can't be done, I will have re-arrange how I intended my server to work.

So again, is there a solution so that if I have theater view set up to
go
Field A> Field B> Field C > Field D
but there's an album lacking Field B and C
that it will not be
Field A > Unassigned > Unassigned > Field D
can I make it go
Field A> Field D

above is the key to what i would like to understand.  Everything else I can figure out even if I need to retag unnecessarily.

[MrC]

MC will skip over empty categories.  But as soon as even one item in a category has a value, that category is shown, and all Unassigned items appear as well.  It wouldn't make sense to collapse lower level items (such as Disc #) and shown them in a category with a heading of Master.  That would make the categories meaningless.

[MrC]

The way to flatten out the category tree would be to use an expression to combine values, such as:

   [Album] [Master] [Disc #]

so that empty items don't affect the drill down (in fact, this type of scheme removes extra layers).

[hifrad]

The way to flatten out the category tree would be to use an expression to combine values, such as:

   [Album] [Master] [Disc #]

so that empty items don't affect the drill down (in fact, this type of scheme removes extra layers).

wouldn't doing this create a situation where the album title would read

KIND OF BLUE [2009 MASTER] [DISC 1]

It wouldn't create a situation where it would organize as

KIND OF BLUE > [2009 MASTER] > [DISC 1]

would it?

[MrC]

Your levels would look like:

   [Artist]
      [Album] [Master] [Disc #]       (where empty fields are omitted)
         Tracks...

[hifrad]

OK I will try this.  How do I start the category tree?

[hifrad]

I believe I've created precise what you are speaking of.

But if I've done it correctly, this is not what I am looking for.  So that I may be understood, let me just rephrase what I am looking for.

I am looking to create a way that I may browse my albums by the basic name (without Discs attached)

So for instance, the Beatles White Album is on 2 CDs, whereas Abbey Road is a single Disc. 

When browsing The Beatles albums, I want to only see one Abbey Road and one White Album.  I don't want to see:

one Abbey Road and White Album [Disc 1] and White Album [Disc 2]

When I click on Abbey Road, I'd want to be brought immediately to the track listing, but when I click on White Album I'd want to be brought to a screen that says [Disc 1] and [Disc 2]

Then I'd click on whichever Disc, and then see the tracks on that specific disc.

For multi Disc sets, I plan to tag them with an extra field entitled DISC or NUMBER or whatever (i'll make this part work), but I want to be able have multidisc sets go from an album name that all the discs in the set share and then brought to a separate screen that has the individual discs as a new screen.  Meanwhile, for single disc sets, I don't want to have to deal with this step.  There will be no disc tag. 

So Abbey Road leads directly to the tracks
White Album leads directly to Discs and Discs leads directly to tracks

Does this make sense?  I believe the expression I was making with your direction was creating one category with the entire header as WHITE ALBUM (DISC 1).  I didn't want it like this.  Is there a way to do it the way I am looking to?

[MrC]

Replace the [Master] and [Disc #] fields we setup in Theater View with a new field of type Expression, name it to your liking, and enter the expression:

  listbuild(1, / , [Album], [Master], [Disc #])

This will join the fields, separated by space, omitting any empty values.

Once you get your Disc # tags set (which will be integer-only), you can replace the above expression with formatted values like you wanted:

  listbuild(1, / , [Album], [Master], Delimit([Disc #], /], /[Disc/ ))

[MrC]

I understand what you're after.  But what you're asking for creates a problem I'm not sure you're seeing.  Look at the example screenshot I've attached, particularly the My Expression column, showing some made-up data that should illustrate the issue (using the first setup I posed).

At the Artist level, you're going to have:

   The Beatles

and drilling down, you'll then have:

   Abbey Road       White Album

When you drill down into Abbey Road, no problem - MC takes you directly to the file list and you see your tracks (because there are no tracks now with any [Master] values, likewise [Disc #]).

But, when you drill into the White Album (going to the [Master] category), here you're presented with a problem.  MC shows:

   Remastered    Unassigned

You're asking for this:

   1    2   Remastered

which doesn't make sense as at this [Master] category level, 1 and 2 are not [Master] values, they're [Disc #] values.

Once MC has any value for a category, it can't collapse that category and must assign all unassigned values into the generic Unassigned category.

If you want to force the issue, setup the following under Details in your Theater View configuration:

   Album Artist (auto)
   Album expression

and set Album expression to be an expression category with the following:

   ListBuild(1, \, [Album], [Master], [Disc #])&datatype=[list]

This will give you exactly what you're asking for.

[hifrad]

This DID IT!!

Thank you.

OK, now a few final questions.

1) let's just say i named the expression EXPRESSION.  Is there a way I can avoid seeing the "All Expression (2)" category and just be led to a [DISC 1] [DISC 2] page.  If not, can I name the expression after the album in question so that no matter which album im looking at with multiple discs it will say something like "See all WHITE ALBUM (2)"

2) If you can just remind me how to make so that my Disc # field will read [Disc 1] / [Disc 2] etc, instead of "1" "2".

3) I notice that when this software retags my music it puts all the fields it retags in caps so "Album Artist" becomes "ALBUM ARTIST"  Then theres also a TOOL NAME and TOOL VERSION field at the bottom.  Is there any way to avoid this?

[MrC]

Great!

1. Deselect the Show 'All' as a choice under the Options section, at the bottom of Details for the view you created.

2. An expression (it is in the post above too):
  
   Delimit([Disc #], /], /[Disc/ )

3. The standard for VORBIS comments is all caps.  MC always writes the TOOL * tags.  Just ignore them.

[hifrad]

Thanks!

So you're saying that for Question 3, its unavoidable 3, is this correct?

[MrC]

Unavoidably correct.

[hifrad]

Ok Thanks

Now, if i have a compilation album, dbpoweramp tags the compilation field with a "1"

Will this be understood by MC?

I would like to create a layout so that in theater view when i click on an album artist, it will lead to the list you created but also have a separate category for compilations.

So for instance, in the case of the Beatles

It would start with 2 categories

ALBUMS or COMPILATIONS

If I click on ALBUMS I am led to:

Abbey Road, Beatles For Sale, A Hard Day's Night, Help!, etc

If I click on COMPILATIONS I am led to:

Anthology 1, Anthology 2, Anthology 3, Beatles 1

etc

Can I do this by using that list idea?

[MrC]

Create your own Compilation field and then MC will import this tag.  I have one - it is of Data Type: Integer with Acceptable Values of 0;1.

Again, MC will (generally) import a tag if there is already a field in the database with the same name.

You can add a layer in your view to switch on Albums or Compilations.  Add a new category of type Expression at  the appropriate spot, and use the expression:

   if(isequal([Compilation], 1),Compilations, Albums)

[hifrad]

So if I create a compilation field

named COMPILATION

I would need to tag every album with this field and specify 0 for Not a compilation and 1 for compilation?

Even albums that are not compilation, I would need to tag with the COMPILATION field.  Is this correct?

[MrC]

No, MC will treat an empty value as a 0.  You only need to set a 1 where appropriate.

[rjm]

Man, that's what I call customer support. You are amazing MrC.

[MrC]

Man, that's what I call customer support. You are amazing MrC.

I'm still waiting on the support check.  JimH said it was in the mail...