INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 12 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: BenRad on February 01, 2008, 10:25:10 pm
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I bailed on Media Center around version 11 after getting a bit sour with the J River support staff, but time heals all wounds, and I've come crawling back. I've been checking out MC12 and I feel I may be ready to commit again. Anyway, it's good to be back.
I searched the 12 forum and hadn't seen any mention of it, but has anyone come up with a not-very-complicated way to sort artists by their last name in the views? I don't want to have to tag my files last name, first name and I've grown accustomed to that other music player's new feature that allows you to assign a sort field and then apply it to that same artist. Is there any equivalent in MC12?
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There's no easy way to automatically sort by last name. I don't see how a computer could do it because there are so many special cases like Bon Jovi.
If you are willing to make a custom field (Options > Library) and fill it in, you can sort by it in any view.
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Assuming I understand what you're trying to do:
I differentiate between artist (Tom Petty) and album artist (Petty, Tom) and I don't use album artist (auto) as a sorting tool. My view displays artist name (Tom Petty) but places it where it belongs alphabetically (Petty, Tom). This can done a buch of ways (for example (Dave Brubeck Quartet) sorted alphabetically (Brubeck, Dave)).
(http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/1638/screenshotvd7.th.jpg) (http://img146.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshotvd7.jpg)
(http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5017/topviewgh4.th.jpg) (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=topviewgh4.jpg)
(http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/641/customviewoi5.th.jpg) (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=customviewoi5.jpg)
Hope that helps.
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I differentiate between artist (Tom Petty) and album artist (Petty, Tom) and I don't use album artist (auto) as a sorting tool.
Actually, you could as well use Album Artist (auto). It works like this:
- Artist: abc, Album Artist: empty => Album Artist (auto): abc
- Artist: abc, Album Artist: xyz => Album Artist (auto): xyz
- Artist: the album has many artists, Album Artist: empty => Album Artist (auto): (Multiple Artists)
- Artist: the album has many artists, Album Artist: DJ x => Album Artist (auto): DJ x
I.e. the Album Artist (auto) field has always an automatic value, but when appropriate you can override the auto value by adding a value in the Album Artist field.
With this automatic system you would not need to fill the Album Artist value when it would be identical with the Artist value (e.g. Abba, Pink Floyd, U2, etc).
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Thanks for the advice. I'll play around with these ideas. I am willing to do the work.
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Welcome back, Ben.