Album view: doesn't show Artist or number of tracks (1 Viewer)

[doveman]

MediaPortal Version: v1.2.1
MediaPortal Skin: StreamedMP
Windows Version: Win7 Ult 64
CPU Type: Phenom II X4 955
HDD: 2TB Samsung F4
Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz
Motherboard: MSI 990FXA-GD80
Video Card: HD6950 2GB
Video Card Driver: 11.12
Sound Card: onboard Realtek AC97 (ALC892)
Sound Card AC3: no AC3
Sound Card Driver: 6.01.6482
1. TV Card: Hauppauge Nova-T 500
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver: 4.3.27240
MPEG2 Video Codec: Cyberlink PDVD11
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow
h.264 Video Codec: MS DTV-DVD
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case: Custom
Cooling: Scythe 120mm Bottom Intake Fan, TRUE Rev. c CPU HSF
Power Supply: Antec CP-850
Remote: Nova-T 500
TV: Sony XBR800 36"
TV - HTPC Connection: DVI

In Album view, the list shows only the Album data, not the AlbumArtist, so if I have 10 Albums with the same title (e.g. Greatest Hits), there's no indication which one is which. Even with separate Albums this information needs to be shown to make it easy to find a specific Album (e.g. currently it just shows "StreetSoul" whereas "StreetSoul (Guru)" or "Guru - Streetsoul" would make more sense).

It would also be quite useful if it showed the number of tracks on the album at the end of the line, so that users could easily see which are full albums and which just contain a couple of tracks they've ripped from one album but which they wanted to keep together, rather than blank the Album data and have appear in the folder with all the other tracks with blank Album data (singles).

 

[elliottmc]

In Album view, the list shows only the Album data, not the AlbumArtist, so if I have 10 Albums with the same title (e.g. Greatest Hits), there's no indication which one is which. Even with separate Albums this information needs to be shown to make it easy to find a specific Album (e.g. currently it just shows "StreetSoul" whereas "StreetSoul (Guru)" or "Guru - Streetsoul" would make more sense).

A screenshot might help here. If you have 10 albums called 'greatest hits', then you get 10 folders (albums) in album view, right?

I see you are using the streamedmp skin. Whether to show the artist in album view is the choice of the skin designer, and not a core feature of MP, so again I feel that there is no bug here.

Presumably you have cover art for your albums, so you can actually see which one is which.

It would also be quite useful if it showed the number of tracks on the album at the end of the line, so that users could easily see which are full albums and which just contain a couple of tracks they've ripped from one album but which they wanted to keep together, rather than blank the Album data and have appear in the folder with all the other tracks with blank Album data (singles).

But would this not clutter the view for people who do not want this? I would say so.

You might be able to edit the skin to provide this information. I am not sure. I certainly don't think adding a load of extra config options to allow this is the way to go.

MP tries to get the balance right for all users. You seem to have one specific and rather unusual user case where you want to use album view for tracks that are not albums (as such). We have to decide what is best on balance for all users. If we implement your suggestions, I am confident that more users would complain.

Mark

 

[doveman]

A screenshot might help here. If you have 10 albums called 'greatest hits', then you get 10 folders (albums) in album view, right?

I see you are using the streamedmp skin. Whether to show the artist in album view is the choice of the skin designer, and not a core feature of MP, so again I feel that there is no bug here.

Presumably you have cover art for your albums, so you can actually see which one is which.

But would this not clutter the view for people who do not want this? I would say so.

You might be able to edit the skin to provide this information. I am not sure. I certainly don't think adding a load of extra config options to allow this is the way to go.

MP tries to get the balance right for all users. You seem to have one specific and rather unusual user case where you want to use album view for tracks that are not albums (as such). We have to decide what is best on balance for all users. If we implement your suggestions, I am confident that more users would complain.

Mark

Actually I'm using PureVisionHD Blue skin now. Sorry for not updating my profile.

I don't actually have any albums titled "Greatest Hits" but jameson_uk was saying he has several albums with this title by different artists, so I presume he sees a folder for each with the same title. Certainly however, if I have an album with variations in the data in AlbumArtist this will produce multiple folders with the same name, so I'm sure it would for multiple Albums titled Greatest Hits with different AlbumArtists as well. I can illustrate this quite easily with the attached screenshots. Normally the Album "J.Period Presents" has AlbumArtist set to "Various", but for this demonstration I've put the Artist data in that field for a couple of tracks. As you can see from the first screenshot, this results in three "J.Period Presents" folders. The second and third screenshots show that the first two folders which each contain one track whilst the fourth screenshot shows the third folder, containing all the other tracks that still have AlbumArtist set to "Various".

I don't actually have cover art for most of my albums yet but even if I did it's rather small in list view to be able to easily identify who the artist is and I imagine some series' of Albums by the same publisher, such as "Greatest Hits" may well have very similar if not identical artwork anyway.

However, if it's just a matter of the skin needing to be tweaked to display the artist, that's great and I'll discuss this with catavolt.

On the matter of track counts, I don't really see how adding a two-digit number to the end of each folder would "clutter the view". Nor do I agree that this is only something that would benefit me because I have an unusual case where I want to use Album view to view non-albums. If several tracks have been ripped from an Album, and correctly tagged, they will have the Album data filled in and will thus appear as a separate folder in Album view. I think it would be useful to most people to be able to see how many tracks are in that folder. The only way to prevent this folder appearing at all (which you seem to be suggesting is what should happen, as it's not a proper/full album) would be for the user to blank the Album and AlbumArtist data, so that the tracks appear in the untitled folder at the top, but that seems to go against the general advice to have files correctly tagged, would require the user to delete data they might want to keep, and would put the tracks in the untitled folder which the user may not want.

 

[elliottmc]

Certainly however, if I have an album with variations in the data in AlbumArtist this will produce multiple folders with the same name, so I'm sure it would for multiple Albums titled Greatest Hits with different AlbumArtists as well. I can illustrate this quite easily with the attached screenshots. Normally the Album "J.Period Presents" has AlbumArtist set to "Various", but for this demonstration I've put the Artist data in that field for a couple of tracks. As you can see from the first screenshot, this results in three "J.Period Presents" folders. The second and third screenshots show that the first two folders which each contain one track whilst the fourth screenshot shows the third folder, containing all the other tracks that still have AlbumArtist set to "Various".

This is the expected behaviour. The albumartist tag is designed so that if you have an album by a number of different artists, you can have one consistent tagging in this tag to keep them together.

If you put different things in the albumartist tag and MediaPortal doesn't think they are separate albums, THAT would be a bug. As it is, everything is working fine.

If you really want to use album view, it isn't difficult to understand how MediaPortal sorts this view and to tag your songs accordingly (apart from the likely bug with wav files).

 

[doveman]

Certainly however, if I have an album with variations in the data in AlbumArtist this will produce multiple folders with the same name, so I'm sure it would for multiple Albums titled Greatest Hits with different AlbumArtists as well. I can illustrate this quite easily with the attached screenshots. Normally the Album "J.Period Presents" has AlbumArtist set to "Various", but for this demonstration I've put the Artist data in that field for a couple of tracks. As you can see from the first screenshot, this results in three "J.Period Presents" folders. The second and third screenshots show that the first two folders which each contain one track whilst the fourth screenshot shows the third folder, containing all the other tracks that still have AlbumArtist set to "Various".

This is the expected behaviour. The albumartist tag is designed so that if you have an album by a number of different artists, you can have one consistent tagging in this tag to keep them together.

If you put different things in the albumartist tag and MediaPortal doesn't think they are separate albums, THAT would be a bug. As it is, everything is working fine.

If you really want to use album view, it isn't difficult to understand how MediaPortal sorts this view and to tag your songs accordingly (apart from the likely bug with wav files).

I've never said this is unexpected behaviour or that MP shouldn't display them as separate Albums, but that by not displaying the artist it's impossible to tell Albums with the same title apart. If, as you say, this is merely something that needs to be enabled in the skinfiles, then this is not a bug and can be marked as such.

 

[doveman]

Well I've now been advised by catavolt that displaying the AlbumArtist as well as the Album is not a skin issue but something that would have to be changed by a dev, so I'd consider this a bug again and would appreciate if you could change the status accordingly. https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/purevision-258/purevisionhd-16-9-a-28714/index171.html#post830480

 

[mm1352000]

Hi doveman

Just to be clear: a bug is a mistake/error in an existing feature. What you're raising sounds like an improvement request since MP doesn't actually support what you're asking for right now. If you don't have album covers then I admit that the lack of artist info would be problematic for you so from that perspective I get where you're coming from.

Personally I think there is a balance to be maintained here.

On one side you've got the desire to keep clutter to a minimum which would dictate that we minimise the amount of text on the screen. For those who have album covers it is immediately obvious that the albums are different and the artist can often be determined from the cover.

On another side you've got the already mentioned desire to have the information available. I'm not sure how many people would want this change.

Of course it doesn't have to be all or nothing - a third approach might be to add a configuration option, but there is a balance to be maintained there too. We want to be careful that we don't make configuration too complex like we have been guilty of in the past.

I'm undecided whether I would want the extra info or not...

mm

 

[doveman]

I appreciate what you're saying. Sometimes it's hard to decide whether something should be reported as a bug or a feature request. For example, if the Now Playing screen (or even the Album view) didn't display any information because it was designed that way, strictly it wouldn't be a bug (not that I'm suggesting anyone would ever design MP in that way!), but it would IMHO seriously affect the usability of MP enough to qualify as a bug.

I'll try and bear in mind what you've said in future though. I've found it rather frustrating when I've posted feature requests in the past and they haven't even been acknowledged though and whilst I appreciate everyone's busy and probably wants to spend what time they have fixing bugs, it would make users feel their input was more worthwhile if the team could try and ensure that someone at least responds briefly saying whether something's a good idea and will be considered or is not really possible or is unlikely to be implemented in the foreseeable future.

Getting back to the topic, even with album covers, in list view I find them rather small to eliminate the need to display the AlbumArtist. I appreciate that many people probably use the more graphical views where this isn't an issue, but I personally find it easier and quicker to browse using list view (not just in music but in movies, etc). I think I also find that the side-menu pops-up unexpectedly more in Covers view, as it's triggered when going up on the top row (and maybe down on the bottom row), whereas in list view I know it will only open if I go left, but that's another topic

If this could be made an option (the AlbumArtist more so than the number of tracks) available to skinners, perhaps that would be the best compromise and avoid the need to add extra options to the config, although I have no idea if that's possible or would entail more work than making it an option in config.