Album view: looks at other fields in MP3s with blank Album, creates multiple folders (3 Viewers)

[elliottmc]

Re: Album view: looks at other fields in MP3s with blank Album, creates multiple fold

To me it's the right way to do this, I've asked in the past about why my singels appear in the album view. With this addition I can have an albums view which only contains album tracks and a seperate singles view for files with no album tag.

Are you really so bothered by having one untitled folder containing all your singles (i.e. tracks with blank Album tag) in the Album view, that you'd want to inconvenience other users (like myself) who like having this folder as it saves them having to go through the menus to switch to another view to access their singles? (not that there is a singles view at the moment, as jameson_uk says, but even if there was).

Once again, we have to think about logical expected intuitive behaviour.

It is very easy for you to get your singles (with no album tag data) to show in the album view. Tag them!

You keep pushing and pushing this issue. Then when someone decides, after careful consideration, what the actual bug is and agrees to fix it, you complain that you don't like the solution.

If you want something to show up in album view, tag it as an album. This won't break any other view.

Mark

 

[emphatic]

I "solved" this issue in my collection by selecting all of my non-album tracks and dropping them into my tag editor (iTunes) then sorting them by genre. Finally, I select all tracks in "Trance" and name the album "Various Trance" and add the Album Artist as "Various Artists". Then the same for the next genre.

If MediaPortal could mimic the above solution by:
Choosing all empty album tag tracks then sorting them by genre and presenting them this way I would be happy. But it's a 10 minute job for a user and I don't know how long for a dev.

 

[doveman]

Re: Album view: looks at other fields in MP3s with blank Album, creates multiple fold

Once again, we have to think about logical expected intuitive behaviour.

I really don't think that having one folder with singles in it appearing in the Album view is so illogical and unexpected or unintuitive that it's going to really confuse anyone (or can't easily be explained) to the extent that it outweighs the advantages/convenience of being able to access your singles without switching view.

It is very easy for you to get your singles (with no album tag data) to show in the album view. Tag them!

Do you really think it's more logical and intuitive for the user to have to tag their non-album tracks with Album tags?

You keep pushing and pushing this issue. Then when someone decides, after careful consideration, what the actual bug is and agrees to fix it, you complain that you don't like the solution.

I posted about something that I found somewhat inconvenient and non-user-friendly (having to wipe all album-related tags for singles) and asked if a certain change could be made to make it more so (only needing to have a blank Album tag). The result is that someone's decided that in fact the bug is something quite different (that the view shows non-Albums at all) and that they're going to make it even more inconvenient (forcing the user to tag non-album tracks with Album tags). Of course I don't like this idea! I would have been better off if I'd never brought it up. I guess this is one way to reduce the amount of posts about issues people don't like, find inconvenient or think could be improved. I'll just keep my mouth shut in future.

If you want something to show up in album view, tag it as an album. This won't break any other view.

If I tag all my singles as Album "Singles" this will appear in the middle of the list somewhere. The only way to make the folder appear at the top of the list, where I consider it to be most convenient, would be to use a nonsense tag like "1" or "A".

I "solved" this issue in my collection by selecting all of my non-album tracks and dropping them into my tag editor (iTunes) then sorting them by genre. Finally, I select all tracks in "Trance" and name the album "Various Trance" and add the Album Artist as "Various Artists". Then the same for the next genre.

If MediaPortal could mimic the above solution by:
Choosing all empty album tag tracks then sorting them by genre and presenting them this way I would be happy. But it's a 10 minute job for a user and I don't know how long for a dev.

I can see how what you've done would be worth it for someone with a lot of non-album tracks (and as you say may be a big job for a dev to replicate), but for someone who doesn't have a lot of non-album tracks or doesn't mind them not being seperated by Genre, just having them all in a single folder at the top of the list is sufficient.

 

[elliottmc]

Re: Album view: looks at other fields in MP3s with blank Album, creates multiple fold

Once again, we have to think about logical expected intuitive behaviour.

I really don't think that having one folder with singles in it appearing in the Album view is so illogical and unexpected or unintuitive that it's going to really confuse anyone (or can't easily be explained) to the extent that it outweighs the advantages/convenience of being able to access your singles without switching view.

It is very easy for you to get your singles (with no album tag data) to show in the album view. Tag them!

Do you really think it's more logical and intuitive for the user to have to tag their non-album tracks with Album tags?

Yes, if they expect them to show up in album view.

We aren't going to agree on this one. I think we just need to accept that.

Personally, I don't understand why you don't just use shares view so you have complete control over the folder hierarchy.

Mark

 

[doveman]

Re: Album view: looks at other fields in MP3s with blank Album, creates multiple fold

Personally, I don't understand why you don't just use shares view so you have complete control over the folder hierarchy.

Because if I have Genre\ or Genre\Artist or Artist\ or any such multiple layered hierarcy there's no way to see all my non-album tracks in one list like I could in Albums view. The only way to acheive this would be to have Music\Album and all my non-album tracks under Music\ which is rather limiting.

Oh well, I tried (wish I hadn't!)

 

[elliottmc]

Re: Album view: looks at other fields in MP3s with blank Album, creates multiple fold

Personally, I don't understand why you don't just use shares view so you have complete control over the folder hierarchy.

Because if I have Genre\ or Genre\Artist or Artist\ or any such multiple layered hierarcy there's no way to see all my non-album tracks in one list like I could in Albums view. The only way to acheive this would be to have Music\Album and all my non-album tracks under Music\ which is rather limiting.

Oh well, I tried (wish I hadn't!)

Just tag them as album '0' - that is a zero so that they appear at the top of your list in album view, exactly as you want to happen.

 

[Prorok Rak]

Well, I read through this thread and previous one and I saw it got pretty emotional. However, the reason why I came to this forum was that I saw a strange behaviour of MP that I wanted to report, not to take sides.

I saw a lot of repetitious folders in Album view. It never happened in Libraries of other software like Winamp or Media Player. When I went to the Media Library in those programs and chose to see albums, I saw the albums - every album once. It really confused me when I started MP and saw 17 albums "25 Oldies Best Volume 5" 19 albums "25 Oldies Best Volume 6" 22 albums "25 Oldies Best Volume 7" when I have only one of each album with 25 tracks in each of them. I went to "Configuration" to check settings of Music View and I set it to view it this way.
Selection | Layout | Sortby | Asc
Album | List | Album | Yes
track | List | track | Yes

I would consider it logical that when I select SortBy Album, it will sort by Album not by anything else. If I would want to sort or group by other fields, I would select other fields (like Album Artist or something else). Since MP groups my music collection by something what I didn't choose I consider this behaviour to be a bug.

What is really pain when you have 17 identical Albums is that when you enter 16th entry and then you go back to the upper level to see what is under 17th entry you will find yourself on the 1st entry. So you have to press "down" key 16 times!

Well, I don't see why a user should be punished for not having filled all tags. What is the difference between having AlbumArtist field empty and having it filled with some "blablabla" text? Why I cannot have one entry for one album if Album tag is correctly filled?

Please, fix this odd behaviour.

(How to reproduce this strange behaviour? It's very easy. Take a compilation album with all fields correctly filled and clear the field AlbumArtist.)

 

[elliottmc]

Please, fix this odd behaviour.

(How to reproduce this strange behaviour? It's very easy. Take a compilation album with all fields correctly filled and clear the field AlbumArtist.)

Hi,

I think what you are seeing is the intended behaviour.

Let's say you have your album "25 Oldies Best Volume 5" with 17 tracks by different artists. If you don't have albumartist tagged, how does MP know that this is all one album?

Supposing, for example that you have two albums called 'Greatest Hits' by different artists - do you expect them to be grouped together into one single album? (actually this can happen, but is fixed in 1.2.3).

Have you tried checking 'treat tracks in an individual folder as an album' in Configuration.exe -> Music -> Music Database

this should give you the behaviour you want. Alternatively, with respect, there is a reason for the AlbumArtist tag. It is because the name of the album and the artist for the track does not always give enough information to group tracks in the correct way.

Hope this helps.

Mark

 

[Prorok Rak]

Supposing, for example that you have two albums called 'Greatest Hits' by different artists - do you expect them to be grouped together into one single album?

If I don't have AlbumArtist filled then I would expect that all those albums will be grouped together. It is exactly the same situation as it would have been filled with "(not set)" text. I mean, what is the difference between being empty and being filled with "(not set)" text?

This employs some kind of hidden logic which is quite confusing and difficult to understand.

Have you tried checking 'treat tracks in an individual folder as an album' in Configuration.exe -> Music -> Music Database

I don't want use this option. I explain why.
Let's say I created my own compilations to be played in my car CD/MP3 player. I like variety so I created 7x700MB of MP3 files scattered in 7 folders (to be able to burn them to CD's easily). Let's say there are 110 files in each folder. The only thing I changed is the information in Album field - it's now "Music for my car". If I would have checked the option you mention I would have 7 albums named "Music for my car". However, in MP I want to have only one "Music for my car album" with all 770 files.

 

[elliottmc]

Okay, so the problem with what you want is that if we changed this, other people would think that it was wrong. Things would be grouped together that should not be. I think you are seeing the expected and most logical behaviour, and the correct solution for an album with a number of different artists is to fill the 'AlbumArtist' tag with 'Compilation' or similar.

The logic is that it is very possible to have two different albums with the same name. Therefore, the album title is not a unique way of grouping tracks, because we can't tell if a different artist means a different or the same album. The album name and albumartist are the correct combination to use. If you don't want to use this, then we provide a further option to treat all tracks in one folder as an album.

There is also a tag (checkbox in iTunes) for 'Part of a Compilation'. Have you checked this?

Mark