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[Afrosheen]

Hi, I was wondering if it's possible to change the artist field into a list rather than a string?  Could I also ask as to why it cannot be changed?  Thanks in advance!

[Afrosheen]

I found this thread that touches this subject, but have yet found any news updating whether it would be a feature that would be considered.  Basically what would be nice would be that the artist field would be a normal list instead of a string, and to maintain compatibility the first artist will be the artist that would be used.  Though in Media Center we would find who all the artists are. 

[bunglemebaby]

My understanding is that it's not ever going to happen. The difficulties that would arise with a list based Artist field seem to heavily outweigh the benefits from what the devs and others have mentioned previously. Also, the devs seem very against the notion.

One trick you can use is to create two more Artist fields. One called [Additional Artists] and another called [Artists] (with the 's') (or choose names that you like  ). Have both of them be list type fields. Fill in the [Add'l Artists] manually and create an expression to fill in [Artists] automatically with a combination of [Artist] and [Additional Artists]. It should just be =[Artist];[Additional Artists] (you might have to toy with this, I'm not around MC right now). Then you can use the [Artists] field instead of the [Artist] field, it will be list type and will still use any imported [Artist] data. It's a tad more work than an ideal solution, but not much.

-JB

[dcwebman]

I also just have the [Artists] field created but that's the only one. After I import and get the [Artist] correct, I use Move/Copy Fields to copy the value from [Artist] to [Artists]. Then if there are other artists, I just add them to that one field and then use [Artists] everywhere instead of [Artist].

[gappie]

i also use an artists field. i actually think the seperation is handy. in the artist field i put the artist as on the cover, in the artists field i put the artists i want the record to be filed under. so for instance the artist is: bill frisell quartet, artists: bill frisell
or artist: bill frisell & petra haden, artists: bill frisell;petra haden

both different artist can now be found under the artists bill frisell, the artist tag under the album shows with what band the record was made.
for me the result is clear and clean.

 
gab

[Afrosheen]

Nice, I like these ideas better than what I wanted.  Thank you very much for the responses.