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[threephi]

I have only recently started using MC to organize my music, and it's quickly become one of my favorite programs.  The versatility and functionality are off the charts.  I'll get to the point however: I've become frustrated trying to figure out how to make the album list in the bottom half of the content area sort within the artist groupings by album name, and I cannot figure out how to do it despite scouring this forum and the wiki.  I'm using MC v20.0.047.

For the sake of clarity and reproducibility, I am looking at my albums using the default Audio > Artists view scheme.  The lower file listing area is set for List style > Details; Group By > Album; Sort Inside Groups By > (Default).  This gives me a grouping of albums on the bottom which list all the tracks, which I like, but the albums are listed by date, not by Album name.  Changing to Group By > Album (by Date) changes this list to reverse chronological order.  There is no setting that I have found which will make the album file list in the lower content area sort by album name.

Am I missing something, or is this a bug?

edit: here's a screen grab from the jriver wiki that shows the parts of the program window so everyone knows what I'm talking about (the "file listing" area at the bottom right side):


By amazing coincidence, this official screen shot actually illustrates this issue exactly as I have described--note that the view selected is Audio > Artists, and the listing for Beatles albums shows the last few tracks of Help! right above Rubber Soul.  Revolver would be previous if it were alphabetic listing.

[~OHM~]

try the panes view

[threephi]

That changes what happens in the top half, but not what happens on the bottom file list which is what I am talking about.

[~OHM~]

oh sry. I need to pay attention better....

[threephi]

No problem, it's late, at least where I am

I've changed my original post a little bit for clarity, and added a screen shot from the MC wiki page describing the standard view screen.  By astounding coincidence, it actually replicates the issue I am talking about exactly.

[Arindelle]

Hi and welcome to the forum

You can do what you want by clicking on the arrow next to "The Beatles" Files. Choose "Group by" then "More (sort groups a-z)" and click on Album. This will give you what you are asking for if I have followed you correctly

However, bear in mind that Category views are a little different than Panes or File views schemes. The bottrm area that you can keep open all the time or close it when you want to is really just an expansion of the upper content area as you called it. Category views are powerful in that they can be used to drill down. For example if you have [Album Artist] as the top level category, then You can create a "grouping" within the group by adding a second [Album Artist] Field. The first groups the Artist into an alphabet (eg A-B; C-D; etc) click it once and all the A and B artists are shown. Click on the Beatles and all the album covers of the Beatles will be shown alphabetically.

That way you don't have to scroll down to play the album you want, and you keep the more common way of sorting by release date if you decide not to drill down to the individual album. Also it makes an Album view unnecessary, which can becoming totally unwieldy with large collections any ways.

If this interests you I can can post screenshots showing you how this is done. You should click right on the View from the tree and pick customize and you can see that if you can think of it JRiver can probably do it.

[threephi]

Thank you Arindelle, that mostly (but not entirely) does what I want and is a reasonable workaround. 

I guess what I am really looking to do is to replicate the itunes "album by artist" view, which lists all one's albums in a file list sorted by album artist first, then album title second.  The method you suggested breaks artist groupings, and combines all the albums from all the selected artists into one global alphabetized list.  Perhaps it's a consequence of having used itunes for library management the previous ten years or so, but I do really like the album by artist method to browse my collection as it lets me page through the entire library serendipitously without forcing me to choose anything or narrow my list until I come across an album I want to hear.  Trust me however that the album by artist sorting scheme is literally the only thing I like about itunes.

I do still find it curious and completely counter-intuitive that in MC, selecting "group by > album" from the primary submenu does not sort albums by name, it sorts albums by date, and that feels like a bug to me.  All the more so since there is a separate choice for "group by > album (by date)".  I have done quite a bit of poking around experimenting with MC's myriad view options, and its versatility and power is indeed extremely impressive, which is why I bought a license within a few hours of using the program .  But it's a bit disappointing and surprising that it seems there is no way to replicate the itunes-style "album by artist" sorting in MC, which is in so many other ways one of the best pieces of software I have ever used.

I'm not certain I follow you about utilizing two concurrent "album artist" fields for sorting within the categories view scheme, could you explain that a bit more?  I  know you can put a selection alphabet up by checking that option in the customize view popup, but I think you're talking about something else.

Anyway, my library of music isn't huge, which I suppose makes leafing through all my albums in my preferred non-pre-determined way feasible.  I do also prefer sorting alphabetically and do not like doing so by release date, so call me uncommon on both counts

[~OHM~]

Anyway, my library of music isn't huge, which I suppose makes leafing through all my albums in my preferred non-pre-determined way feasible.  I do also prefer sorting alphabetically and do not like doing so by release date, so call me uncommon on both counts

Glad you found a work a round...now I have a huge library and prefer to have albums sorted by the date as it's a bit faster to see what's missing and may need to be filled in....enjoy MC

[Arindelle]

I guess what I am really looking to do is to replicate the itunes "album by artist" view, which lists all one's albums in a file list sorted by album artist first, then album title second.  The method you suggested breaks artist groupings, and combines all the albums from all the selected artists into one global alphabetized list.

no, it shouldn't have  ?
 

Perhaps it's a consequence of having used itunes for library management the previous ten years or so, but I do really like the album by artist method to browse my collection as it lets me page through the entire library serendipitously without forcing me to choose anything or narrow my list until I come across an album I want to hear.  Trust me however that the album by artist sorting scheme is literally the only thing I like about itunes.

I'll have to find an iTunes installed somewhere ... but I'm sure it can be done. I'll look into it later so I don't waste time misunderstanding what you want. As for drilling down, the out of the box views don't have any sub-levels as examples . I fi have some time later I'll post a screen shot or two ...

If you are still used to iTunes, I hope you are not keeping their folder structure. If you don't have much music yet, and you have just imported te iTunes directories, it would be a good time to straighten that out sooner than later 

[6233638]

Tools → Options → Library & Folders → Manage Library Fields
Add a new field, give it a name. (e.g. "_Album Sort Header")
Make it a calculated data field, and paste the following expression:

Code: [Select]

<font size="10" alpha="0" color="ffffff">FirstNotEmpty([Artist Sort], [Album Artist (auto)])<//font>[Album]Delimit([Album Artist (auto)],,/ by/ )
Now group by your new field. (e.g. "_Album Sort Header")

[threephi]

If you are still used to iTunes, I hope you are not keeping their folder structure. If you don't have much music yet, and you have just imported te iTunes directories, it would be a good time to straighten that out sooner than later 

No worries there, one of the reasons I finally dumped itunes was that I had procured a dedicated DAP and re-ripped all my albums to FLAC.  I use an [Album Artist]\[Album] folder scheme for the most part.

[threephi]

Tools → Options → Library & Folders → Manage Library Fields
Add a new field, give it a name. (e.g. "_Album Sort Header")
Make it a calculated data field, and paste the following expression:

Code: [Select]

<font size="10" alpha="0" color="ffffff">FirstNotEmpty([Artist Sort], [Album Artist (auto)])<//font>[Album]Delimit([Album Artist (auto)],,/ by/ )
Now group by your new field. (e.g. "_Album Sort Header")

Thanks very much for this 6233638, I made a few small adjustments (I don't have an [artist sort] field, and sorting primarily by [album artist] is preferable anyway so as not to break up compilation albums) but this is a very clever solution.  I'm going to look into creating a global numeric sort code after the method shown here for the hidden white text, to keep it a uniform string size so the indents don't stagger.  And add in something to put the undefined album artist group "unassigned" at the end...

[threephi]

Well that didn't go as well as I'd hoped

I worked up a fairly complicated scheme using global variables that assigned a unique number to each album artist, and consecutive numbers to each album within the album artist's grouping; then concatenated both numbers into a six-digit code which is unique to each album, and I was rather proud of myself   I can't use it however because I can't figure out how to make MC iterate through the albums in any kind of useful order.  It's always the same order, but it's not alphabetic, it's not related to the album artist name, nor album by date, nor the file name or path, nor creation date, etc. etc. etc.  After beating my head against it for the last few hours, I gave up, and as usual only then did inspiration strike.

Following 6233638's lead, I made a new library field called Album by Artist, and defined it quite simply as this:

Code: [Select]

=albumkey()
Then group by > album by artist, and done.

I would still be curious to know if any developers are reading whether the primary issue which necessitated the workarounds is something that's on the radar, but I guess I've reached a relatively easy solution for now.