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[baldo]

I have a field called Genres and I would like to see how many artists I have in each Genre.  Is this possible without having to click on each Genre and see the files that way.

I would just like one number for each Genre.

Many thanks

[zybex]

Create a new view and add a Category of type "Expression" with:
expression to group = [genre]
expression to display = [genre] - GroupCount()

[baldo]

Perfect. Thanks for that super fast response. Did exactly what I was after.

[HPBEME]

zybex always has the answers!

While his solution is great, I use another approach you or others, may be interested in.  I personally am not a fan of browsing via the tree, so I accomplish pretty much the same thing with a category view but display the pertinent info as text underneath a large thumbnail. 

If you or anyone is interested in adopting this approach, use the following for the thumbnail text:

Code: [Select]

<b><font size="130">[Name]<//font><//b><font size="90">
IF(isequal(groupcount(artist), 1, 5), (groupcount(artist) Artists, (groupcount(album) Artist) ~ IF(isequal(groupcount(album), 1, 5), groupcount(album) Albums, groupcount(album) Album))<//font>
Note: since I increase the font size 130% for the genre/sub genre name, you must set the number of thumbnail text lines to 3, otherwise the second line will be empty.  You can also change 130 in the above expression to 100 (or less), and it will display with 2 thumbnail text lines.

[zybex]

Nice too

There is a typo in your expression, it says Album instead of Artist in one place. Your David Benoit thumbnail should likely be "1 Artist ~ 2 Albums" - notice it says "2 Artist", singular, due to the typo.

You can also optimize it to make the View faster by reducing the number of calls to the slow GroupCount() functions:

Code: [Select]

<b><font size="130">[Name]<//font><//b><font size="90">
save(groupcount(artist), _n1)/
save(groupcount(album), _n2)/
([_n1] Artist/##/if(isEqual([_n1],1),,s) ~ [_n2] Album/##/if(isEqual([_n2],1),,s))<//font>

The /##/ are just for readability and can be removed.

[baldo]

HPBEME, Dude, that's even better than the tree view.  In fact I would  prefer that appraoch, even though the tree view serves the purpose that I orginally had.

Thanks for that code.  Can you walk me though how I use it please.  I'm not that familiar with using expressions like this.  If you can give me some screenshots that would be even better, but general pointers on what to click would be fine.

Thanks

[baldo]

Btw, HPBEME, how do you get MC to show the waveform in the play bar at the top? 

I just have a straight line that gets filled in as the track is playing, I think you know what I mean.

[lepa]

Right click there and choose show waveform if available. To have it available you need to have enable analyze waveform in the options

[HPBEME]

HPBEME, Dude, that's even better than the tree view.  In fact I would  prefer that appraoch, even though the tree view serves the purpose that I orginally had.

I definitely like it better than the Treeview approach, and I thought others would as well, which conveniently, you have now verified.  Hah!

That said, zybex correctly points out that my expression can be slow.  This is especially true where there are a lot of artists/albums - it can take a while to load, or even hang, as your drilling down.  So thank you zybex for providing a much better and more efficient expression - you are amazing!

Thanks for that code.  Can you walk me though how I use it please.  I'm not that familiar with using expressions like this.  If you can give me some screenshots that would be even better, but general pointers on what to click would be fine.

To add it to MC, use the code/expression from zybex's post (shown again below):

Code: [Select]

<b><font size="130">[Name]<//font><//b><font size="90">
save(groupcount(artist), _n1)/
save(groupcount(album), _n2)/
([_n1] Artist/##/if(isEqual([_n1],1),,s) ~ [_n2] Album/##/if(isEqual([_n2],1),,s))<//font>and paste into the dialog box you get after selecting the items 1 thru 3 from the pic below. After that, go back to that same menu and this time choose Thumbnail text lines... (item 4 in the screenshot) and increase that count to 3, otherwise there is not enough room below the genre name to show the additional text (due to the 130% size for the genre name).

If you can give me some screenshots that would be even better, but general pointers on what to click would be fine.

I also feel strongly that screenshots are invaluable to ensuring guidance is clear and far less likely to be misinterpreted, which is why many of my posts include them, even though they are sometimes a bit tedious to produce. I am far from an expert myself - I just hack and slash on expressions provided by experts (like zybex) - between that and using zybex expression evaluator Zelda I can eventually get to where I want to go. I highly recommend downloading Zelda - you can find it on the third party software forum.

Btw, HPBEME, how do you get MC to show the waveform in the play bar at the top?

Exactly what lepa said.

[baldo]

I finally got this to work. Took a while but I got there.

Can I ask, how do I get it show Genre, Artists, & Albums on three separate line?  At the moment it shows the Genre and then Artists and Albums on the next line.

Many thanks.

[baldo]

Ignore my last post, I found the answer. Just add the text onto the next line!

[baldo]

Just a quick note of thanks to you guys here for the above code. I managed to implement it and am very pleased with the results.

Perfect.

[baldo]

Can I ask whatI am doing wrong in this expression?

<font size="100">;[Name]<//font><//b><font size="100">
save(groupcount(artist), _n1)/
save(groupcount(album), _n2)/
save(groupcount(Name), _n3)/
save(groupcount(era), _n4)/
[_n1] Artist/##/if(isEqual([_n1],1),,s)
[_n2] Album/##/if(isEqual([_n2],1),,s)
[_n3] Tracks/##/if(isEqual([_n3],1),,s)
[_n4] Era/##/if(isEqual([_n4],1),,s) <//font>

It returns the correct number for all the items except for "Era", which shows up as 0 for all of them.

What am I missing here?

[zybex]

Looks good. Did you rename the 'Era' field at some point? Check if 'Era' is just the 'Display Name' for that field and not the actual name.

[baldo]

I might have done.  How do I check this?

[zybex]

Tools->Options->Manage Library Fields -> Select the 'Era' field
Check the field Name on top (grayed out) and the Display name. For expressions, you need to use the Name, which can't be changed.

[baldo]

Here's the screen shot.

[zybex]

Name: Grouping

That's the original/internal name of the field, so you need to use that instead of Era.
To avoid confusion you may want to create a new field actually called "Era":
- do a DB backup
- change the Display Name of your Era (grouping) field to "Era2"
- create a new field called Era
- open a Details view showing all your files. Select ALL files
- open the Tag Editor panel. Find the "Era" tag and set it to "=[Grouping]" (this should copy all data from the Era2 to the new Era field
- check if Era has all the same data as the Era2 field
- delete the Era2 field

Then you can use [Era] as expected. If something goes wrong just restore the backup.

[baldo]

thanks for that. Will give it a go tomorrow.

[baldo]

ok, I've most of this but I can't delete the Era2 field.  The Delete field is greyed out.

I can delete Era!!

[zybex]

Ah right, that's because 'Grouping' is a default MC field that you had renamed to Era. Just change its Display Name back to Grouping/Groupings and leave it be.

[baldo]

ok Should I delete the one that I can and leave the other one be?

[baldo]

If I delete the Era field (which is the one that I newly created) I end up with the same issue as earlier, that is the Era is not being counted. Even if I rename Era2 back to Era.

I now have two fields, Era (the Name is Era) and Era2 (the Name is Grouping ie a default filed)

We are almost back where we started...

[zybex]

Read what I wrote carefully.

- New field must be called Era/Era/Eras
- Old field must be called Grouping/Grouping/Groupings

Both fields must exist, no need to delete one of them. Just rename Era2 to Grouping.

- check if Era has all the same data as the Era2 field

You did do this step, right?

[baldo]

Quote from: zybex on February 02, 2025, 05:07:32 pm

    - check if Era has all the same data as the Era2 field

You did do this step, right?

Yes. Checked that and they are the same.

Ok so I have done that now.

I have a field called Group/Groupings  (the old Era field)
and I have afield called Era.

Do I now have to enter the tags for BOTH of these fields each time?  Can I not set Group=Era by default?

[zybex]

Just ignore the Grouping field, remove it from your views and don't use it anymore.. You can clear its contents if you want to avoid confusion.

All of this was just so you could use 'era' in expressions, which you now can.

[baldo]

OK. Thanks for that.

I'll Group/Grouping as an item there and continue to use Era for my view purposes.

Side note, must say that there is A LOT of stuff under the hood of MC that I was not even aware of or used, even though I think I've used it for the best part of more than a decade now.