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[Denti]

I have six different views in JRemote (using the advanced Gizmo settings in MC) under Audio:

1) MAIN ARTISTS (A-Z)
2) Main Artists
3) All Artists
4) Albums by Year
5) Songs by Original Date
6) Recent Albums

(1) Shows all the artists (sorted by last name) for whom I have at least one full release. Because I display these artists with first name preceding last name (rendering the A-Z in J.Remote useless) I added an alphabet field for each, and this means that (1) first pulls up the 26 letters of the alphabet (+ # artists and various artist releases), in which I find the many artists for each letter. (2) is basically the same as (1) but without that alphabet.

(3) is my new attempt to create a view for EVERY artist, including those that only appear on compilation releases that in (1) and (2) appear only under "Various."

Each Artist view pulls up another layer in which I have releases sorted by "Release Type":

- Albums
- EPs
- Anthologies
- Singles
- Bootlegs

Thus, for example, you'd find the following under (1)

R
- Lou Reed
- - Albums
- - - Transformer
- - - Berlin
(etc.)

What I'm wondering is if I might be able to get the songs for such already-existing artists that also appear on compilation and are thus only visible under "Various" to *also* appear at this lower level in the Artist view. For example:

Various
- Soundtracks
- - Until the End of the World
- - - (which includes, among others, a track by Lou Reed)

R
- Lou Reed
- - Albums
- - - Transformer
- - - Berlin
(etc.)
- - Compilations
- - - Until the End of the World

Since this sorting would only be happening one level down from the Artist view it would only "pull" those artists for whom there already is an artist view (i.e. for whom there are already full releases). Would this be possible? Some kind of expression that tells MC to display "Multiple Artist" artists that match "Artist"s at that level?

[MrC]

You have to think of views not in terms of "pulling", but rather in terms of Filtering and Organizing.

The first stage, Filtering, selects which files will be shown in the view.  Either a file will be included or excluded.  There's no later "pulling" additional items based on some criteria (the sole exception is the ~a search query modifier).

The second stage, Organizing, simply uses the files that are in the view, and organizes them according to the rules you've created.  These rules may be based on file properties, or some other arbitrary set of values.

if you want compilation artists to appear in view (3), then Filtering must include such (e.g. not filter-out these items).  So the question required now, is it safe to assume your compilation albums use Artist for Lou Reed and Album Artist is empty or set to some single album artist value?

If so, then it should be the case that Artist is Lou Reed and Album Artist (auto) is not "(Multiple Artists)" for primary albums, and for compilation albums, Artist would be Lou Reed but Album Artist (auto) would not be Lou Reed.  This is a simple If() test.  And if your Organizing rule outputs Compilations\[Album] in this case, instead of Albums\[Album], you'll get the organization you want.  So your album level instead of being the simple Album field would instead be the (untested) expression:

   if(isequal([Artist], [Album Artist (auto)]), Albums\[Album], Compilations\[Album])&datatype=[list]

[Denti]

Thanks, MrC. Some clarification first. I have always used "Album Artist" for last name, first name versions of artists. This naturally remains blank for compilations. This also caused me trouble with (3), so I had to create a new field called All Artists (Last Name) into which I put last name first name versions of all artists, including those from compilations.

Compilation artists thus *do* successfully appear in (3). I was able to do this by using as the category (in Gizmo settings) the Expression to group by: [All Artists (Last Name)] and the expression to display: [Artist]. This works fine so long as I spell the artists identically (not so straightforward with obscure blues artists) and make sure the new All Artist (Last Name) field is properly filled in.

What I'd like is for the compilation artists to appear in (1) and (2), but only on the lower level where I have Albums, Singles, etc.

[MrC]

Again, so long as you can output a value that is distinct for each of the two groupings you want, the above expression is the idea.  You can output category levels in a tree by using \ as the separator and use datatype=[list] on the expression.  This dynamically builds the category tree so you don't have to hard code levels under Show Categories In This Order.

See also Lists and Trees.

[Denti]

It's not working, though surprisingly it's not messed up the way things are normally displayed. Note that my first view is the expression if(IsEqual([Album Artist (auto)], (Multiple Artists/)), /(Multiple Artists/), [Artist])

The second one is the expression you gave me above.

[MrC]

Don't forget to escape any parens, such as /( and /) that are not part of functions.

Test these expressions out in a Categories or Panes view - its easier there, and you don't have to keep restarting MC to get the new WebGizmo definitions to load.

[Denti]

I'll keep trying. Did I mention that I use the field Release Type for Albums, EPs, Singles, etc.  It is along with these that I want Compilations to appear. But I haven't marked any of the compilations in that field as Compilations yet. I guess I'll do that now.

[Denti]

Yeah, this isn't working. Let me provide you with more info so that you can help.

[MrC]

You may not have to tag the compilations as such, since they can programmatically be discovered, right?

If you can show me the relevant field names and their values for a few non-compilation and compilations tracks, I might be able to help a little more.

[Denti]

[Denti]

[MrC]

The screenshots aren't full size, so its hard to read.  It might be better to do this.

Select the files in question, and use File > Export Playlist.  Select:

   Format: Text File (CSV delimited)
   Included Fields: All Fields
   Output Range: Selection

Save it to the Desktop, zip it, and attach it in a reply here.  In the reply, list the names of the relevant fields.

[Denti]

OK, just attached the Lou Reed and one comp with Lou Reed on it. Hope that helps.

[MrC]

In your view, its hard to read from the screenshot, but I think you're using Album Artist (auto).

You'll need to replace that with:

   [Album Artist (auto)]; [Artist]&datatype=[list]

so that Lou Reed appears both under (Multiple Artists) and under Lou Reed even for compilations.

And you are using Release Type (and I'll assume that is just the library field Release Type and not an expression).  Redefine that level instead of being the Release Type field to be:

   FirstNotEmpty([Release Type],   Compilations\[Artist])&datatype=[list]

or maybe:

   FirstNotEmpty([Release Type],  if(IsEqual([Album Artist (auto)], /(Multiple Artists/)), Compilations\[Artist], [Artist]))&datatype=[list]

Most of the values in your All Artists (Last Name) field are not last, first, so I haven't used that field above, but once you correct those values then you might get the results closer to what you want if you use that field instead of [Artist] above.

[Denti]

Thank you very much for your help!

But, this is unfortunately still not working. The first expression simply brings out all the Multiple Artists from under (Various) and gives them their own place among the other artists. I've already done that with my All Artists view:



And under that view, by adding "Compilations" as a Release Type, I can get all of Lou Reed's compilation appearances to show up:



What I want is for those same compilation appearances to appear at that same level for each artist for whom I already have at least one full release. That is, in this view:



That is, referring to the above, I'd like only those compilation appearances by !!!, 2Pac, 3 Mustaphas 3, 4 Hero, and 4g to appear, along with those artists' Albums, EPs, etc., but not the compilation appearances of 2 Foot Yard, 3 Hur El, 3Ds, 4th Pyramid, and The 5, 6, 7, 8s. The reason is that I have too many "one off" compilation bands that I'd like to be able to browse, but only in the "All Artists" view. In the regular "Artists" view I want them relegated to their "Various" compilations, but still have the "main artists"'s (for whom I already have releases) compilation appearances appear with those other releases.

[MrC]

Maybe we can do some remote help.  It's difficult from here to see what you have done.  Contact me via PM if you want to go this route.