How to get a Track List without Artist in it? (1 Viewer)

[Dadeo]

How do I create a View of Tracks without having the artist name repeated in the list over and over again?

I mean, if I use Aritsts View, then select an Album, or if I use Album view and select an Album I get a list of all tracks like this:

1. The Original Five Blind Boys of Alabama - All the Way [Take 1]
2. The Original Five Blind Boys of Alabama - Does Jesus Care [Take 3][Alternate Take]
and so on.

Is this because my files are named that way (i.e with the Artist in the Track name)?

I would like to list the artist somewhere on this view and NOT have it repeated in the list. I would also like to list the album somewhere on this view, but I can't seem to! Does this view support the #artist and #album Gui Properties? I tried adding them to the layout but they don't work!

 

[Dadeo]

Is this because my files are named that way (i.e with the Artist in the Track name)?

Partly! If I use remove the artist name from the filename and use Shares views, then the artist name does not appear in the Track listing. However, I still cannot get the Artist or Album to display separately on the Tracks View.

AND the artist name still appears in the Track listing if I use Albums or Artists or Songs View to go there. I have tried multiple ways of defining the Tracks view to accomplish this, but no luck!

Interestingly, in the Music Database, in Tracks View, the Artist, Album and Track are stored as separate fields, however the Tracks GUI View does not seem to support them independently (only scrolling altogether on the list) ???

 

[hwahrmann]

if you look at the "Music Views" section in config you'll notice the "SortBy" column for every row.
now select "Music Sort" and you may define the format of fields that are displayed on that level.

 

[Dadeo]

THANK YOU! I looked everywhere in Views and couldn't figure it out. Didn't think formatting would be under Sort, but it makes sense since the format then determines the sort!

Any chance of getting at least #artist and #album on the Tracks view?

 

[hwahrmann]

Any chance of getting at least #artist and #album on the Tracks view?

no, i can't change the default, since that will cause troubles to a lot of users.
but you can change it the way you need it by yourself.

 

[Dadeo]

Sorry, either I wasn't clear or I don't understand.

I'm not wanting to change the defaults or alter the structure of the Music database. I just want to display:

Artist
   Album
     Track1
     Track2
     Track3....

NOT

    Artist-Album-Track1
    Artist-Album-Track2
    Artist-Album-Track3...

but you can change it the way you need it by yourself

How?

 

[kiwijunglist]

change the track sort field to %title%
reply if you can't figure it out and i will post screen shot

 

[Dadeo]

I did change track sort, based on hwahrmann's instructions above. Well actually I changed it to %track%.%title% and now I get the list of just tracks without the artist name in it, which is great. But I still cannot display the aritst and album name anywhere else on the screen and I DON'T want them cluttering up the list.

Here's a screenshot of how it looks in streamedMP (sorry the image is a bit distorted cuz i am running it on 4:3)

So if you know how to get the artist name and album name to display on the track view other than putting them in the list, I would really appreciate it!

 

[kiwijunglist]

thats not easy you'll have to edit musicgenres.xml to add that information (genres xml file also includes artist view etc)
you'll need to add a control element that uses #selected.artist and #selected.album
not sure if its #selected.artist or #selectedartist
it's probably more trouble than its worth if you don't know how to skin
you could try getting musicgenres.xml from mediastream, not sure if it displays that or not

 

[Dadeo]

Thanks, I have never heard of #selectedartist and #selectedalbum being supported GUI Properties. But I tried them (all the variations) and they didn't work. I only know of #selecteditem and #selecteditem2 (and sometimes #selecteditem3). However, the problem in tracks view is that only #selecteditem is supported because you define tracks (i.e #selecteditem) to list whatever you want - artist, album, track number, track etc.

I wanted Tracks view to ALSO support #selecteditem2 (Artist name) and #selecteditem3 (Album name) which skinners could use if they wish (not required). This should be possible since #selecteditem and #selecteditem2 are defined differently in Artist and Album views. But then I don't know how the Music database code works. In any case, I think the answer is NO. Artist and Album can only be displayed in Track view as part of the list.

I do know how to skin, a bit and my question was because I wanted to improve the Tracks view for aMPed 3.0. I did check MediaStream and it doesn't support it either. I kinda figure if MediaStream and streamedMP don't do it, it is not possible

But thanks a lot for the discussion, it did help me understand it better.