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Tags used as Sort Order Only ( Feature Request? )
11-07-2013, 09:30
Post: #11
RE: Tags used as Sort Order Only ( Feature Request? )
Thanks very much for these comments and suggestions. See my responses inline below.

(11-07-2013 06:20)rjplummer Wrote:  You need to consider the case of multiple artists. Consider "Chester & Lester" by Chet Atkins and Les Paul. Most people would like to see this album under both "A" & "P". This means you have two ARTIST tags and two ARTISTSORT tags. But the tagging specs don't allow you to assume anything about the order of multiple tags so you can't know for sure that Atkins, Chet is the sort for "Chet Atkins" and not the sort for "Les Paul"

I don't think this is correct. Multiple tags have a well-defined order, based on which tag is placed first in the file. Tagging programs and music servers should respect this order.

Quote:Also, the idea of of a lastNameFirst flag is problematic. Consider "Jerry Jeff Walker" and "Eddie Van Halen". And again with multiiple artists, how do you decide which artist(s) are affected by the lastNameFirst flag.

This flag would be a configuration setting that applies to all tagged artist names.

Quote:If you are going to use flags, I'd just suggest a word order value that would override the sort order. Hence, "Eddie Van Halen" would use 231, "Jerry Jeff Walker" would use 312, "Gladys Knight and the Pips" would use 215.

This is an interesting idea, but I don't see much advantage over specifying a sort value string that is different from the display value string.

Quote:Ideally, you would store this with the Artist. For instance you could use the caret to separate the metadata from the displayable part of the tag, e.g., for the Chester and Lester example, you'd have two ARTIST tags, "Chet Atkins^21" and "Les Paul^21" and Bob Dylan and the Band would also have two ARTIST tags, "Bob Dylan^21" and "The Band^2"

I'm not too keen on the idea of adding this sorting information to the main ARTIST tag. I think it would be better to put it in an ARTISTSORT tag (or tags).
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11-07-2013, 17:34
Post: #12
RE: Tags used as Sort Order Only ( Feature Request? )
Thanks for the prompt reply:

(11-07-2013 09:30)simoncn Wrote:  Thanks very much for these comments and suggestions. See my responses inline below.

(11-07-2013 06:20)rjplummer Wrote:  You need to consider the case of multiple artists. Consider "Chester & Lester" by Chet Atkins and Les Paul. Most people would like to see this album under both "A" & "P". This means you have two ARTIST tags and two ARTISTSORT tags. But the tagging specs don't allow you to assume anything about the order of multiple tags so you can't know for sure that Atkins, Chet is the sort for "Chet Atkins" and not the sort for "Les Paul"

I don't think this is correct. Multiple tags have a well-defined order, based on which tag is placed first in the file. Tagging programs and music servers should respect this order.

This is, in fact, true. There don't even need to be the same number of ARTIST and ARTISTSORT tags, e.g., one could take "Love with Arthur Lee" and have ARTIST tags "Love" and "Arthur Lee" and only supply a "Lee, Arthur" ARTISTSORT tag.

Quote:
Quote:Also, the idea of of a lastNameFirst flag is problematic. Consider "Jerry Jeff Walker" and "Eddie Van Halen". And again with multiiple artists, how do you decide which artist(s) are affected by the lastNameFirst flag.

This flag would be a configuration setting that applies to all tagged artist names.

If this isn't a tag within the file, it's usefulness is quite limited.

Quote:
Quote:If you are going to use flags, I'd just suggest a word order value that would override the sort order. Hence, "Eddie Van Halen" would use 231, "Jerry Jeff Walker" would use 312, "Gladys Knight and the Pips" would use 215.

This is an interesting idea, but I don't see much advantage over specifying a sort value string that is different from the display value string.

It depends. It allows better data integrity, e.g., one doesn't have to worry about typos in one field and not the other. And minor changes to the ARTIST tag, e.g., correcting typos, wouldn't require sort order changes

Quote:
Quote:Ideally, you would store this with the Artist. For instance you could use the caret to separate the metadata from the displayable part of the tag, e.g., for the Chester and Lester example, you'd have two ARTIST tags, "Chet Atkins^21" and "Les Paul^21" and Bob Dylan and the Band would also have two ARTIST tags, "Bob Dylan^21" and "The Band^2"

I'm not too keen on the idea of adding this sorting information to the main ARTIST tag. I think it would be better to put it in an ARTISTSORT tag (or tags).

This part of the suggestion is solely to deal with the lack of a requirement that the number and order of ARTIST and ARTISTSORT tags must match. My suggestion in this respect isn't very practical since the spec doesn't support additional data in the ARTIST tag, though there's some support for tags with extra data, e.g., the ID3 SYLT tag.
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12-07-2013, 10:09
Post: #13
RE: Tags used as Sort Order Only ( Feature Request? )
(11-07-2013 17:34)rjplummer Wrote:  
(11-07-2013 09:30)simoncn Wrote:  
(11-07-2013 06:20)rjplummer Wrote:  But the tagging specs don't allow you to assume anything about the order of multiple tags
I don't think this is correct.
This is, in fact, true.

Can you give a reference to any tagging specs that say this?

Quote:There don't even need to be the same number of ARTIST and ARTISTSORT tags, e.g., one could take "Love with Arthur Lee" and have ARTIST tags "Love" and "Arthur Lee" and only supply a "Lee, Arthur" ARTISTSORT tag.

If there are two ARTIST values and one ARTISTSORT tag value, it seems reasonable to interpret the sort value as belonging to the main (first) artist, and log a warning so the user can correct this if it was not intended.

Quote:If this isn't a tag within the file, it's usefulness is quite limited.

This setting would be intended for use by people who have chosen to tag their library in a consistent "last name first" style.
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12-07-2013, 20:33
Post: #14
RE: Tags used as Sort Order Only ( Feature Request? )
(12-07-2013 10:09)simoncn Wrote:  
(11-07-2013 17:34)rjplummer Wrote:  
(11-07-2013 09:30)simoncn Wrote:  
(11-07-2013 06:20)rjplummer Wrote:  But the tagging specs don't allow you to assume anything about the order of multiple tags
I don't think this is correct.
This is, in fact, true.

Can you give a reference to any tagging specs that say this?
ARTISTSORT isn't part of any of the Vorbis Comment Spec, Windows Media spec or the APE spec. As best as I can tell, Apple doesn't specify this for their MP4 metadata.

The ID3 spec is silent on the behavior when multiple values of TSOP or TPE2 are used.

No popular tagging software enforces these constraints.

Quote:
Quote:There don't even need to be the same number of ARTIST and ARTISTSORT tags, e.g., one could take "Love with Arthur Lee" and have ARTIST tags "Love" and "Arthur Lee" and only supply a "Lee, Arthur" ARTISTSORT tag.

If there are two ARTIST values and one ARTISTSORT tag value, it seems reasonable to interpret the sort value as belonging to the main (first) artist, and log a warning so the user can correct this if it was not intended.

This may be reasonable but reasonable isn't a word I'd use to describe the tagging of music purchased from any online source.

But since you're breaking ground here, you might consider supporting multiple ARTISTSORT tags for a single ARTIST tag, e.g., allow ARTIST="Chet Atkins and Les Paul" and ARTISTSORT="Atkins, Chet","Paul Les"

Then your artist listing would be
...
Asleep at the Wheel
Chet Atkins [Chet Atkins solo albums]
Chet Atkins and Les Paul [Chest & Lester]
Emilie Autumn
...
Don Patterson
Chet Atkins and Les Paul [Chest & Lester]
Les Paul [Les Paul solo albums]
...

This wouldn't be desirable in the classical world, e.g., you'd have a separate item for every orchestra a soloist performed with. But in that case you could go with your assumption that ARTISTSORT and ARTIST match.
Quote:
Quote:If this isn't a tag within the file, it's usefulness is quite limited.

This setting would be intended for use by people who have chosen to tag their library in a consistent "last name first" style.

Ah! I think I understand. If this option is checked, I wouldn't have to populate ARTISTSORT for two word human names, e.g., if ARTIST="Atkins, Chet" and the flag was enabled, your server would display "Chet Atkins".

If my understanding is correct I think you could extend this rule to every case where there's exactly one comma and there are exactly one or two words after the comma.
This would work for:
  • Walker, Jerry Jeff
  • Van Halen, Eddie
  • Smith, Huey "Piano"
  • Giacobassi (english horn), Julie Ann

It would also correctly not reverse:
  • Peter, Paul & Mary [3 words after the comma]
  • Peter, Paul, and Mary [2 commas]
  • Ross, Diana and the Supremes [> 2 words after the comma, need to make this the ARTISTSORT]
  • Smith, Huey "Piano" and the Clowns [need to make this the ARTISTSORT]

I can't think of an example where the extended rule fails, though I'm sure there's some obscure band with a comma in its name.

This flag should also apply to ALBUMARTIST, ARRANGER, AUTHOR, COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, LYRICIST, PERFORMER

This is a useful feature, especially since ARTISTSORT is not very useful.

I assume you also have implemented a method for displaying multiple tags, e.g., putting " and " or "&" before the last tag and commas between the others.
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13-07-2013, 10:46
Post: #15
RE: Tags used as Sort Order Only ( Feature Request? )
(12-07-2013 20:33)rjplummer Wrote:  ARTISTSORT isn't part of any of the Vorbis Comment Spec, Windows Media spec or the APE spec. As best as I can tell, Apple doesn't specify this for their MP4 metadata.

The Vorbis comment spec allows any value for the tag name, so ARTISTSORT is valid. The Vorbis comment spec also allows repeated values for any tag name.

MinimServer doesn't support WMA or APE tagging.

Apple uses the 'soar' tag for the artist sort value in their MP4 metadata. See this section for details of how MinimServer handles iTunes MP4 tags.

Quote:The ID3 spec is silent on the behavior when multiple values of TSOP or TPE2 are used.

Section 4.2 of the ID3 v2.4 spec says: "All text information frames supports multiple strings, stored as a null separated list, where null is reperesented by the termination code for the charater encoding." This means there is no need to use repeated TSOP (artist sort) or TPE1 (artist) frames, because a single frame can contain an ordered sequence of values.

Quote:No popular tagging software enforces these constraints.

I have never had any problems when using Mp3tag to edit an ordered list of tag values. The correct ordering is displayed and preserved.

Quote:But since you're breaking ground here, you might consider supporting multiple ARTISTSORT tags for a single ARTIST tag, e.g., allow ARTIST="Chet Atkins and Les Paul" and ARTISTSORT="Atkins, Chet","Paul Les"

MinimServer currently maintains a one-to-one correspondence between the display value and the sort value. Changing this to allow multiple sort values for the same display value wouldn't be easy to implement and wouldn't perform as well as the current design (which is important for libraries containing thousands of artists).

Quote:Ah! I think I understand. If this option is checked, I wouldn't have to populate ARTISTSORT for two word human names, e.g., if ARTIST="Atkins, Chet" and the flag was enabled, your server would display "Chet Atkins".

Yes, that's the idea. Automatic reversing could take care of nearly all artist names containing a comma, and the rare exceptions could be handed with ARTISTSORT tags.

Quote:If my understanding is correct I think you could extend this rule to every case where there's exactly one comma and there are exactly one or two words after the comma.
This would work for:
  • Walker, Jerry Jeff
  • Van Halen, Eddie
  • Smith, Huey "Piano"
  • Giacobassi (english horn), Julie Ann

It would also correctly not reverse:
  • Peter, Paul & Mary [3 words after the comma]
  • Peter, Paul, and Mary [2 commas]
  • Ross, Diana and the Supremes [> 2 words after the comma, need to make this the ARTISTSORT]
  • Smith, Huey "Piano" and the Clowns [need to make this the ARTISTSORT]

I can't think of an example where the extended rule fails, though I'm sure there's some obscure band with a comma in its name.

This is similar to what I had in mind. The final details of the reversing algorithm are not yet decided, and I'll take this input into consideration.

Quote:This flag should also apply to ALBUMARTIST, ARRANGER, AUTHOR, COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, LYRICIST, PERFORMER

This is a useful feature, especially since ARTISTSORT is not very useful.

MinimServer supports user-defined custom tags, so it's hard to come up with a fixed list of tag names that would be right for all users. I'm planning to start with the existing standard names: TITLE/TITLESORT, ALBUM/ALBUMSORT, ARTIST/ARTISTSORT, ALBUMARTIST/ALBUMARTISTSORT and COMPOSER/COMPOSERSORT. I think any additions to this list should be configurable by the user.

Quote:I assume you also have implemented a method for displaying multiple tags, e.g., putting " and " or "&" before the last tag and commas between the others.

By default, the values are separated by ', '. This separator can be customized using the tagFormat property.
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