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[AndrewFG]

MC has an option to exclude definite article prefixes ("the", "a") from the sort order on various lists -- but it applies to only English definite articles -- which is not very friendly for MC's many international users!!

I think the article list must include Der, Die, Das, Ein, Eine, Le, La, Les, Un, Une, El, Los, Las, Il (to cite just a few languages), plus also prefixes that aren't strictly definite articles like Sir ("Sir Colin Davis")

So I request that the Options setting should be extended to let the user edit their own list of definite articles to exclude from sorts; the easiest way would be to enter a (comma) separated list.

[adamt]

I agree, this would be a helpful addition considering the many languages MC supports. 

[InflatableMouse]

De, Het, Een .. to add some dutch articles .

[Claude Lapalme]

+1

[fitbrit]

My list: French, Spanish and German at least, please.

[Matt]

I'm not a fan of ignoring articles because there are too many corner cases, exceptions, etc.  My brain doesn't have the horsepower for all those rules.

But for the people that can handle it, I empathize with the request to internationalize the system.

That still leaves a big question: when you run MC in English, is 'Das Auto' under A or D?  In other words, are internationalized articles tied to the current language or is there a master list of all articles and users are expected to know that der, die, das, el, etc. are articles even if they're running in English?

[mwillems]

I'm not a fan of ignoring articles because there are too many corner cases, exceptions, etc.  My brain doesn't have the horsepower for all those rules.

But for the people that can handle it, I empathize with the request to internationalize the system.

That still leaves a big question: when you run MC in English, is 'Das Auto' under A or D?  In other words, are internationalized articles tied to the current language or is there a master list of all articles and users are expected to know that der, die, das, el, etc. are articles even if they're running in English?

I was wondering that myself; many English-speaking musicians use an article from another language and it just becomes a part of their band name (Les Savy Fav is always shelved in "L" at the record store).  That said, it would drive me nuts if I couldn't ignore English articles (like in the windows file system).  

Maybe the easiest solution is to allow the user to specify the articles he or she would like ignored (as OP suggested), with the default setting being the current arrangement?  Then all languages are (theoretically) supported and folks can choose the articles most relevant to them (I personally wouldn't want to exclude honorifics like "Sir" as OP suggested, but with this system you could if you wanted).

[gappie]

I'm not a fan of ignoring articles because there are too many corner cases, exceptions, etc.  My brain doesn't have the horsepower for all those rules.

But for the people that can handle it, I empathize with the request to internationalize the system.

That still leaves a big question: when you run MC in English, is 'Das Auto' under A or D?  In other words, are internationalized articles tied to the current language or is there a master list of all articles and users are expected to know that der, die, das, el, etc. are articles even if they're running in English?

I think it would not make sense to couple it to the language settings in mc. my mc is in English (I think computers talk English), but besides having a bunch of English movies I have a lot of dutch, german and spanisch movies. I would love to ignore all the articles in those languages, not just because it looks better, it makes scrolling through the library easier.. now the letters d (die der dem das de ) and l (la le les), and others, are overcrowded.

but then again, all the articles of all languages.. not sure what will happen than.

but something in the options where you can add your own articles.

 
gab

[AndrewFG]

That still leaves a big question: when you run MC in English, is 'Das Auto' under A or D?  In other words, are internationalized articles tied to the current language or is there a master list of all articles and users are expected to know that der, die, das, el, etc. are articles even if they're running in English?

You just proved my point! This is exactly the reason why the setting must be freely user customizable...

For me, (I have some knowledge of languages), I want to see

• Die Fledermaus under "F"
• La Traviata under "T"
• Sir Paul McCartney under "P"
• Les Pecheurs de Perle under "P"
• And... admittedly... Les Paul under "L"

...but other people might see this differently...

Therefore I ask that Options shall give the user a text edit field where they can personally enter a space (or comma) delimited list of all definite articles that they personally wish to exclude.

[Matt]

• Les Pecheurs de Perle under "P"
• And... admittedly... Les Paul under "L"

My brain just melted

I can't imagine how you'd do that without cratering performance.  String compares for sorting is incredibly mission critical for performance, so we have to be careful.

[JimH]

My brain just melted

Matt's brain:

[mojave]

Is this Matt? 

[fitbrit]

I see Matt's point. What if an article in one language is a regular word in another?
"Die Another Day"

[AndrewFG]

My brain just melted

I can't imagine how you'd do that without cratering performance.  String compares for sorting is incredibly mission critical for performance, so we have to be careful.

Hmmm. (I know what you mean. But nevertheless you have to admit that it is a verging on wimpy answer. Real coders don't ...)

Your (ex) competition did it fine (see image attached). And their application is written in Perl (albeit admittedly compiled rather than interpreted)...

PS I don't know how the innards of MC works, but do you really search and index your lists in real time on demand? Or do you prepare in advance a lookup / index / hash, which obviously would be much faster...

PPS and anyway you are already searching for a few prefix words (The, A, An) aren't you, so what's the big deal if you have to search for a few more?

PPPS (below the belt warning) why don't you ask Hendrik for his feedback on this

[AndrewFG]

I see Matt's point. What if an article in one language is a regular word in another?
"Die Another Day"

Indeed. That is why I say it must be a user configurable option !!

[Matt]

Your (ex) competition did it fine (see image attached). And their application is written in Perl (albeit admittedly compiled rather than interpreted)...

You said:
Les Pecheurs de Perle > P
Les Paul > L

How does your screenshot with a list of articles accomplish that?

[AndrewFG]

You said:
Les Pecheurs de Perle > P
Les Paul > L
How does your screenshot with a list of articles accomplish that?

It doesn't

That was my aside comment, just to prove that there are no hard answers...

I would like to have a choice, based on what I know is in my library, whether or not (for example) the word Les should be included or excluded from the sort order...

[Matt]

Next build:
NEW: The option to move articles, ignore articles, etc. uses a list that includes English, Spanish, German, and French articles.
NEW: Added the ability for 'Clean File Properties' to move articles back to the front of a value (i.e. change 'Beatles, The' to 'The Beatles').

Just doing this change was a fair bit of work, because some of the article functions were hand-tuned with regard to how they checked for articles.  They needed to be generalized without sacrificing (much) performance.

Someday later we'll talk about exceptions, allowing user customization, etc.

[fitbrit]

Next build:
NEW: The option to move articles, ignore articles, etc. uses a list that includes English, Spanish, German, and French articles.
NEW: Added the ability for 'Clean File Properties' to move articles back to the front of a value (i.e. change 'Beatles, The' to 'The Beatles').

Just doing this change was a fair bit of work, because some of the article functions were hand-tuned with regard to how they checked for articles.  They needed to be generalized without sacrificing (much) performance.

Someday later we'll talk about exceptions, allowing user customization, etc.

Thanks, Matt. About half a dozen of my files will be organised better than ever.

[AndrewFG]

Next build:
NEW: The option to move articles, ignore articles, etc. uses a list that includes English, Spanish, German, and French articles.
NEW: Added the ability for 'Clean File Properties' to move articles back to the front of a value (i.e. change 'Beatles, The' to 'The Beatles').

Just doing this change was a fair bit of work, because some of the article functions were hand-tuned with regard to how they checked for articles.  They needed to be generalized without sacrificing (much) performance.

Mega!  Many thanks for this.

Someday later we'll talk about exceptions, allowing user customization, etc.

One way to solve this is to use the non breaking space delimiter (Unicode 00A0) instead of the breaking space delimiter (Unicode 0020).

You could use 00A0 to separate the words in Die Hard, and 0020 to separate the words in Die Fledermaus...

[Arindelle]

euh my two cents for French if not too late ... Le, La, Les ok maybe, but not Un, Une -- there are two many exceptions as un or une means both the number 1 and the article a.   And then what about "L" -- seems pretty complicated to me

This has never been on my "want-to-change" list (like more mouse functions in theater view  ) because one usually associates articles with nouns eg. translate milk = le lait (ok lait (m.) in a dictionary but ....), assume this would be similar for all romance languages at least. Personally, I never would think of Boheme in a search - its LA Bohème.

Anyway thats just me after 25 years in country -  if at least there is an option to not use this or pick and choose ... why not.

Seems more for english speakers than for other language speakers IMHO. Que pensez-vous les franchouillards? 

[AndrewFG]

One way to solve this is to use the non breaking space delimiter (Unicode 00A0) instead of the breaking space delimiter (Unicode 0020).
You could use 00A0 to separate the words in Die Hard, and 0020 to separate the words in Die Fledermaus...

So if you create an OnKeyPress handler on all of MC's edit boxes for sortable tags, then in case of the <space> key being pressed, if (say) the <control> key also down, then the handler could substitute the non breaking space character (Unicode 00A0) in the text instead of the regular space character (Unicode 0020).

EDIT:  I subsequently discovered that in Windows you can type a non breaking space by holding down ALT and typing 0160 (the character code in decimal) on the numeric keypad.

[JimH]

Bump

[john greenwood]

MC has an option to exclude definite article prefixes ("the", "a") from the sort order on various lists -- but it applies to only English definite articles -- which is not very friendly for MC's many international users!!

I think the article list must include Der, Die, Das, Ein, Eine, Le, La, Les, Un, Une, El, Los, Las, Il (to cite just a few languages), plus also prefixes that aren't strictly definite articles like Sir ("Sir Colin Davis")

So I request that the Options setting should be extended to let the user edit their own list of definite articles to exclude from sorts; the easiest way would be to enter a (comma) separated list.

Could someone tell me where I can find this list and modify it?

[Arindelle]

Could someone tell me where I can find this list and modify it?

sure. Options=>Tree & View=> Sorting

[john greenwood]

Thanks