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[MrVegas]

A few weeks ago I asked about this and a few folks offered suggestions for smartlists and playlists.

I want to know if you can add a view of albums by decade under the Media Library (not playlists).  The beauty of having it here is that you can click on the "+" and see a listing in the left window of all the albums that fit the decade.

This feature used to be built into MC9 but now it's gone.  

[NoCodeUK]

The best way to do this is to set up a view scheme on Date(year) with grouping set to 10.  This will give you a decade view scheme showing the decade in the first column of the panes.  If you also click on the check box to populate the tree it will appear exactly like it did in MC9 in the tree.  For my decade scheme I then set a second date(year) column but with grouping set to 1.  This allows you to select a decade and then an individual year if necessary...

Hope this helps.  If you need any further help please ask!

Adam

[jleerigby]

NoCode is right but something else to bear in mind is that, for this to work cleanly, all tracks on an album need to be tagged with the same year (or in the same decade).  Otherwise the same album will appear in several decades.  A solution to this would be to create a new field (Tools>Options>Tree & View Settings>Add) and put decade (80s, 90s etc) in there.  

One advantage of this approach is that you can tag an album with a particular decade without necessarily knowing what year the tracks were released in.  e.g. If you have a 'greatest hits of the 80s album' or a 'Howard Jones greatest hits album' etc you could just assign a decade of 80s without knowing the year for each track.

I used to use the grouping by year method but then realised that I was missing a lot of tracks in the relevant decade because the year wasn't tagged.  These were therefore listed as 'Unassigned'.  Now - every track in my library has a decade tag, though only about 75% have the year.

[MrVegas]

Could you walk me through the specific steps on how to do this?

When I right-click on Media Library / Audio I select "Add View Scheme" and then my choices are:  audio, video, other, images and custom.  None of these choices have "date" or "year" as something you can select.  

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks

[JimH]

Try pushing some of those buttons.  There's no harm in making new schemes this way.  You can delete them anytime.

[MrVegas]

JimH:

with all due respect, I don't know which buttons to push.  that is WHY I asked for specific steps on how to do it.

[JimH]

JimH:

with all due respect, I don't know which buttons to push.

Any.  Just use the options you refer to above and try things.

Also try Help in MC.

[drosoph]

Media Library
Right Click -->
Add  View Scheme --> Audio -- Empty
Right Click "EMPTY" --> Edit View Scheme
Uncheck Auto-Name -- Fill in "DECADES"
Check the box for POPULATE TREE "If & only if" you want to also be able to navigate the tree from the media library

Go to Panes
Right-Click on "Empty (click here to configure)-->
Column Type -- Advanced -- Date (Year)
Right Click Date (Year) Column --> Go to Properties
Add a grouping level ... set to 10

Right Click Date (Year) column ...
Add Column  ... Advanced ... Date (Year)
Right Click Date (Year) column (second one)
Add Column ... ALBUM

See if that works for you ..

FOR ME:  I like to have the following columns in my DECADES Library View
Date (Year) (Grouped 10) -- Date (year) -- Rating -- Genre -- Artist

I don't like to listen to entire albums .. I prefer to pick the genre or the artist ..
With the ratings and King's Chart Finder plugin I can choose Top 20 Hits by choosing "5" in the ratings .. so If I want a tTop 20 80's night .. I choose the 1980-1989 and Rating = 5 ... DONE !

I hope htis helps

[MrVegas]

Drosoph:

Thank you for the awesome specific directions on how to do this!!!!!!!!!  Now I have what I wanted!

I appreciate the extra time and effort you took to write it all down very much.  

[jleerigby]

I don't think Jim was being deliberately unhelpful.  I think he wanted to learn just how easy users find it use MC and/or MC Help.  A UAT test if you like.