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[6233638]

I was wondering if there was any way to specify a sort order for groups?

If I use the regular group by album, it displays: [Album] by [Album Artist (auto)] [Year] in the header, with [Year] being right-aligned, and used for sorting.
If I create a custom field such as [Album] ([Description]), then items in my library are grouped the way I want, but are sorted alphabetically.

Is there any way to create a "special" group like the standard [Album] one?

This is problematic for me, because as I'm getting through ripping my CD library, I'm running into more examples where I have two (or more!) versions of the same album. In some cases, I have the original CD release from the 80s, a remastered album, and then another disc from a collection that uses the new master, but has some bonus tracks, or the SACD of an album as well as the CD etc. To distinguish these different versions I use the [Description] tag.

[Matt]

Is there any way to create a "special" group like the standard [Album] one?

Sorry, but not currently.

[MrC]

I was just thinking about this.  Could the expression language support outputting invisible/non-printing characters.  If it could, this would allow a way to prepend certain textual strings, which would render invisibly and take no space, but would allow the default sorting to work.  Eg:

    <invisible>[format] [date (year)]</invisible>[Album] by [Artist] [Date]

this would cause the string to be sorted by format and year, but only show [Album] by [Artist] [Date].

[6233638]

An interesting quirk caused by the way the current Album grouping works:

Here is the original 2002 release of an album, grouped together with a 2012 re-release:


This gets sorted as a 2007 album (the average of the two) and positioned further down the list than it should be. Had it been grouped with "Album (description)" the 2012 re-release should have been at the end of the list.
I normally tag all albums by their original release date, and then put information about which version it is in a separate field, but saw this before I got around to changing it.

[MusicBringer]

I normally tag all albums by their original release date, and then put information about which version it is in a separate field

So do I.

I have always used the comments field but display is short and I hear using Description or Notes would display more clearly.

As a quick and dirty workaround I often add a suffix to the Album Title.
For example: S. F. Sorrow [Sundazed Reissue], or Axis: Bold As Love [Safety Mix], or Frampton Comes Alive [MFSL 2-262]

I am confused about which is the most suitable "separate field" to use.

[chrisjj]

As a quick and dirty workaround I often add a suffix to the Album Title.

I've done this on thousands of albums and despite being consistent, I expect to regret it. I too would like to know which separate field works best for an album version ID.

[6233638]

I have had similar troubles. kstuart has some thoughts, and there is some discussion about it in this topic: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=78390

I have been using the [Description] tag to specify which version of an album it is - though if it's the original CD release, I have been leaving that field blank.
I now tag all my CDs with the Catalog number, and I have a custom search in the Links Bar that goes to Discogs and usually takes you to the right page for that version of an album.

Code: [Select]

http:////www.discogs.com//search?if(!isempty([Catalog #]),&catno=Hexify([Catalog #])&artist=Hexify([Album Artist (auto)]),if(isequal([Genre],soundtrack,8),q=Hexify([Album] Soundtrack),if(isequal([Album Artist (auto)],Artists,7),,&artist=Hexify([Album Artist (auto)]))&title=Hexify(removecharacters([Album],/)/(“”‘’‒ʼ!,0))))I find that this can be useful when I am trying to figure out what tags I want to apply, and to know when that version was released. It still needs a bit of work though, as it doesn't handle albums with multiple catalog numbers.

At this point, I'm tempted to add a custom tag to Media Center for [Release Date], leaving [Date] for the album's original release. I'm not sure.


I am running into the problem now where I have been seeking out better quality versions of some of my favorite albums since using Media Center, so sometimes I have two or even three copies of an album now. (CD, Re-issue/Re-master, Vinyl, or SACD) It's a bad path to end up on since physical media can be so cheap second-hand these days.

Or when ripping a SACD that contains both stereo and multichannel tracks. It's simple when it's a single album as you can just tag them as disc 1 and disc 2, but I just picked up a SACD boxset the other day where some of the discs are multichannel and some are only stereo, and I don't know what to do about that.

I think if you could use more advanced expressions for grouping, it could be sorted out by including the number of channels. The problem is that I want to group and sort by a number of things, but don't necessarily want to display all that information. (similar to how the [Album] group works)