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[jmhays]

I am trying to standardize my file structure the same as my friend, but I don't have the field "Artist Letter" as an option like he does.  This is a field (for him) in the Rename, Move & Copy Files function.  In the attached pictures, he is Mark, I am Joe.

We are both running v31, I just upgraded yesterday from v22 while I think he has had other upgrades in between v22 and v31.  That is the only difference between our setups that I know of.  Any idea how I can get "Artist Letter" added?

[JimH]

Check the options for the view.  Right click on it.

[jmhays]

If I right click on it, it just selects one of the Fields.  I am looking at Rule, Insert Field, and "Artist Letter" is not listed as one of the Fields I can choose.

[nonightsweats]

I don't have this field either - been updating all upgrades every time they appear. I'd assume that "Artist Letter" is a customised field with an expression set something like Left([Album Artist (auto)],1)

[nonightsweats]

I added this using Manage Fields and it came up in the lists etc:

[blgentry]

Indeed [Artist Letter] is not an MC default field.  It's a custom defined field.  Your friend "Mark" may be able to copy the definition of his field in the "Calculated Data" section of that field in his library.

I looked in my library and found one that I apparently defined a very long time ago.  I don't even remember doing it.  Mine is called [Artist_Letters].  The expression in my field is:

Code: [Select]

Regex([Artist], /#^(?:(?:the|an|a) +)?(.)#/,-1)if(Compare(1[R1], >=, 10), 0 - 9, [R1])
I'm pretty sure I wrote that because I tend to use Regex for a lot of things.  My definition strips out "the", "an", or "a" from the beginning of an artist name.  You could add more there if you have artists that start with some other article like "La", "Le", "Los", etc.

You might also notice that I'm accounting for Artists that start with a number.  In those cases I'm outputting "0 - 9" as the "letter" of the artist.  Thinking about it more, it might make more sense to output a hash symbol (#) instead.  In fact, it might make more sense to output "#" for anything that's not a letter.  Here's an expression that does that instead:

Code: [Select]

Regex([Artist], /#^(?:(?:the|an|a) +)?(.)#/,-1)if(IsRange([R1], a-z),[R1],#)
Brian.

[SkGe]

@blgentry
Do you have a mode that you deal with multiple artists in album? I'm trying to find a best solution for those albums. Any advice will be welcomed.
Thanks'

[blgentry]

Do you have a mode that you deal with multiple artists in album? I'm trying to find a best solution for those albums.

For a short time I had songs that showed multiple artists in a single track.  But I found it too difficult to manage and I changed all of my tracks that showed multiples to only show one artist instead.  I moved any extra information into the song title with "feat" or "featuring".

For some Jazz albums, I was experimenting for a while with the [People] field.  I was filling out things like the drummer and the pianist to show who played on each track.  This worked really well.  But ultimately it didn't help me do anything with my collection.  I never really use it to search or sort by particular players.  It was just fun to play with.

For albums which are compilations or something similar, I use the somewhat standard (Multiple Artists) as the value of [Album Artist] . Which leads me to realizing that my expression for [Artist Letter] above should probably use [Album Artist (auto)] is the source, rather than [Artist] .  I guess it depends on how you intend to use that field.  If it is for organizing albums, on disk, by artist, then using [Album Artist (auto)] is almost certainly the right source.

That would be extremely easy to change.

I hope that answers your question.  If not, please ask for more detail.

Brian.

[HPBEME]

I group artists by letter within MC that does not require a custom field or any expression language at all.

That said, it sounds like you want top level folders with artist letter for OS file management. On the off chance your ultimate goal for creating folders like this is so you can group artists by letter in MC, you could try my approach shown in the screenshot as simple solution.

[Drmark]

This is what I copied
<XMLPH version="1.0">
<Item Name="UseDirectoryRule">1</Item>
<Item Name="Name">Moving stuff</Item>
<Item Name="Replace Slash">1</Item>
<Item Name="JTVFolderMode">0</Item>
<Item Name="FilenameRule">[Track #] - [Name]
</Item>
<Item Name="Paths">\\Diskstation-V\Ben Done\Music\Redbook\;\\Diskstation-V\Ben Done\Music\HiRes\;\\Diskstation-V\Ben Done\Music\;F:\Music\Music\Redbook\;F:\Music\Music\Redbook\A\;C:\Users\marks\Music\</Item>
<Item Name="BasePath">\\Diskstation-V\Ben Done\Music\Redbook\</Item>
<Item Name="UseFilenameRule">1</Item>
<Item Name="Find"/>
<Item Name="Mode">0</Item>
<Item Name="UseFindReplace">0</Item>
<Item Name="Move All">0</Item>
<Item Name="DirectorySmartMultiArtistHandling">1</Item>
<Item Name="Replace"/>
<Item Name="CopySidecar">-16777215</Item>
<Item Name="DirectoryRule">[Artist Letter]\[Album Artist (auto)]\[Album]</Item>
</XMLPH>