Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Simon C]

Everyone,

This is about the order in which albums are listed.

1. Within any genre, the artist are listed alphabetically (which is fine, leaving aside the fact that I would prefer it to be ordered by last name rather than first, but that is the subject of another query.

2. If, for each artist, I have selected "Group by" then "album" then the albums are listed, but ordered *not* in alphabetical order (as I would like) but by year.

3. I thought I could fix that problem by selecting "Group by", then "More (sort groups a-z)", then "Artist - Album (Year)". I works but not for the case of compilations of the work of various artists. These get displayed as if each track by each different artist was an album on it's own.
 
So, my question is this: going back to (2) above, how can I get the software to list the albums of each album artist in alphabetical order rather than by year? And at the same keep "various artist" compilations displayed as single albums?

Thanks,

Simon C.

[kensn]

In Group By - More (sort groups a-z) Select album.

[Simon C]

In Group By - More (sort groups a-z) Select album.

Kensn, I had tried the setting you suggest, before I posted my question. If I use it, then the display in the right pane if I select Genre, or "All Artists" in the left is simply an alphabetical list of all the albums in that genre. Not good at all.

What I'm trying to get is a list of the albums of each artist in turn (artists in alphabetical order), with the albums of each artist also listed in alphabetical order (rather than by year, as at present).

Aside from this specific question, I'd like to suggest to JRiver that you add a feature to the program that allows users to make these selections in a flexible way (radio buttons and checkboxes) and the program itself converting these choices internally into the regular expressions you seem to use. The categories "music lover" and "regular expression user / programmer" barely intersect.

Simon C.

 

[6233638]

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=92346.msg635991#msg635991

[dtc]

I am not a Panes guy, but I see what you are saying. Unfortunately, I cannot help you on panes. I use Category views.

You can set up a category view that is customized to sort in any order you want, sorting on any number of fields you want.  You can display the albums either using their cover art with text below the covers or as lists. Doing that you can definitely get a list of genre, artist, album. I use album covers, with three lines of text below the picture - Genre, Artist (or composer for Classical) and Album. You select list versus thumbnail (covers) from the pulldown from the View name. You select the sort order in the same place. Just select Custom. If you want text below an album cover, just build what you what for Thumbnail text. You can also customize the view, for example to show just classical or all none classical (Customize View - Set Rules for File Display). I find that useful since I sort on composer rather than artist for classical Not sure if that helps, but thought I would point out this option.

Swapping first and last names can get complicated. That is why there is seldom a universal option to do that. There are too many variations. If the logic in the other thread is too complicated, you can just create a sort field (like Artist Sort) and fill it in manually for each album. It takes a little work at first, but unless you are adding a huge number of albums on an ongoing basis, it is pretty easy. Once you have that field, you can just use it for sorting instead of Artist.

Hope that helps. Keep at it. You will get there.

[Simon C]

dtc,

Thank you for your reply. I'll have a look at "category views", they sound very flexible. I'm not an expert, as you've realised, and haven't tried them. Your suggestion regarding an "artist sort" field also seems good, for exactly the reasons you suggest. I'll investigate further. My impression of the documentation on the media centre is that it's rather scattered and incomplete - any directions to a good guide on this would be much appreciated. 

Simon C.

[dtc]

One of the strengths of MC is its flexibility, but it is also one of the hurdles  for new users. To got to a category view, just click on your view name (like Album) in the pane display, select Customize View and the in View As  select Category instead of Pane.  You might want to save that view under a new name so you can experiment with it easily. Any questions, just ask. Good luck.