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Group shown when only one item..
27-04-2015, 13:41
Post: #1
Group shown when only one item..
Simon, not sure if you consider this a bug or not but...

I'm using the Group tag which in most cases I have a MP3Tag script set to equal to the Composition tag. It generally works well in my browsing but there are a couple of quirks.

First off, where there is an album with only a single group, I would expect that the Group selection isn't shown: that is (as an example) where I browse
Tchaikovsky -- n Albums -- Swan Lake
the next level shown is a single selection "Swan Lake, Op.20" where as logically I would expect from there to show a list of tracks.

The second situation is the opposite really, where there is a number of Group tags in an album, but some of the groups only have a single entry: that is
Tchaikovsky"-- n Albums -- 1812 and other compositions
the next level shows amongst other things "1812 Overture, Op.49" even though there is only a single track and it would make more sense just to see the tracks.
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27-04-2015, 18:20
Post: #2
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(27-04-2015 13:41)audio_elf Wrote:  Simon, not sure if you consider this a bug or not but...

I'm using the Group tag which in most cases I have a MP3Tag script set to equal to the Composition tag. It generally works well in my browsing but there are a couple of quirks.

First off, where there is an album with only a single group, I would expect that the Group selection isn't shown: that is (as an example) where I browse
Tchaikovsky -- n Albums -- Swan Lake
the next level shown is a single selection "Swan Lake, Op.20" where as logically I would expect from there to show a list of tracks.

The second situation is the opposite really, where there is a number of Group tags in an album, but some of the groups only have a single entry: that is
Tchaikovsky"-- n Albums -- 1812 and other compositions
the next level shows amongst other things "1812 Overture, Op.49" even though there is only a single track and it would make more sense just to see the tracks.

Group is different from most tags because it creates an extra level of containment structure. To see the tracks inside a group, you need to open the group manually. The expectation is that you will almost always want to play the group as a whole (i.e., treat it as a single item) rather than selecting individual tracks from within the group. For music where this isn't the case, it would probably be more convenient not to tag it as part of a Group.
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27-04-2015, 22:44 (This post was last modified: 27-04-2015 23:00 by DavidHB.)
Post: #3
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(27-04-2015 18:20)simoncn Wrote:  Group is different from most tags because it creates an extra level of containment structure. To see the tracks inside a group, you need to open the group manually. The expectation is that you will almost always want to play the group as a whole (i.e., treat it as a single item) rather than selecting individual tracks from within the group. For music where this isn't the case, it would probably be more convenient not to tag it as part of a Group.

While acknowledging that this is a matter of personal preference, I tend to take rather a different view. I much prefer that each album, as so defined by MinimServer, should either be fully tagged as Groups, or not tagged as Groups at all. The reason for this preference is that I think that a mixed list of tracks and groups looks messy and confusing in the Control Points I mainly use (Bubble DS Next on Android and Kazoo on Windows).

For Eloise's first case (Swan Lake), I would either make the Group names subtly different from the title of the work (with a long ballet such as Swan Lake, I might use Groups to divide it into acts), or I might not use grouping at all.

The second example (the 1812 Overture) brings to mind the familiar case where a classical album mainly consists of one or more multi-track works but has a few single track works as 'fillers'. My practice with such an album is to group everything, even those works where the Group contains only one track, and even though this adds, as Eloise says, an extra and seemingly unnecessary selection step.

In practice however, Bubble DS Next gets me out of jail free on this issue. I tap on the one track group to select it, and there at the top of the track list screen is a convenient Play button, so I can play the group/track without having to select the track explicitly. Thank you, Bubbleguuum.

David
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27-04-2015, 23:02
Post: #4
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(27-04-2015 22:44)DavidHB Wrote:  In practice however, Bubble DS Next gets me out of jail free on this issue. I tap on the one track group to select it, and there at the top of the track list screen is a convenient Play button, so I can play the group/track without having to select the track explicitly. Thank you, Bubbleguuum.

Alternatively, you can play the complete group from the "three dots" symbol on the right without needing to open it.
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27-04-2015, 23:08 (This post was last modified: 27-04-2015 23:08 by DavidHB.)
Post: #5
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(27-04-2015 23:02)simoncn Wrote:  Alternatively, you can play the complete group from the "three dots" symbol on the right without needing to open it.

True. Thank you again, Bubbleguuum Smile. In either case, it's two taps to start playing the track, and I usually find the Group/track name easier to hit than the three dots. But the three dot menus are a nice feature.

David
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27-04-2015, 23:25 (This post was last modified: 27-04-2015 23:25 by simoncn.)
Post: #6
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(27-04-2015 23:08)DavidHB Wrote:  In either case, it's two taps to start playing the track

There is also the extra tap that you need to get back from the opened group to the album container. Smile
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28-04-2015, 00:17
Post: #7
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(27-04-2015 23:25)simoncn Wrote:  There is also the extra tap that you need to get back from the opened group to the album container. Smile

But by then I'm sitting back enjoying the music, and with any luck where I might want to go to next will seem wholly irrelevant ... Smile.

David
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30-04-2015, 10:45
Post: #8
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(27-04-2015 22:44)DavidHB Wrote:  For Eloise's first case (Swan Lake), I would either make the Group names subtly different from the title of the work (with a long ballet such as Swan Lake, I might use Groups to divide it into acts), or I might not use grouping at all.
Actually (regardless of my thoughts about how "Group" should work) I like that idea...
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30-04-2015, 12:19
Post: #9
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(30-04-2015 10:45)audio_elf Wrote:  
(27-04-2015 22:44)DavidHB Wrote:  For Eloise's first case (Swan Lake), I would either make the Group names subtly different from the title of the work (with a long ballet such as Swan Lake, I might use Groups to divide it into acts), or I might not use grouping at all.

Actually (regardless of my thoughts about how "Group" should work) I like that idea...

It's only one aspect of the creative way you can use MinimServer if your Control Point allows it (which both Bubble and Kazoo certainly do).

I really enjoy using the freedom MinimServer gives you to define albums in different ways. These days, much of the classical back catalogue can be bought remarkably cheaply as boxed sets, or increasingly as downloads. As the definition of an album is no longer constrained by the format limitations of the CD, the whole set can be tagged as a single item, awkward breaks can be removed, and grouping can be used to mark the divisions of the work intended by the composer. Conversely, sometimes a set (or even a single CD) with, say, separate substantial but disparate works, should be split into more than one logical album.

I also learned early on that Group and Composition, though they will often have the same content, have rather different functions. Composition is used before a particular album is selected, or when an album is not going to be explicitly selected at all. It is important that different recordings of the same work have the same Composition tag, as choosing a particular performance may be an important part of the selection process. Group on the other hand is only used after an album has been explicitly selected, and is used to offer a choice of sections that can be played separately. This difference will on occasion require Composition and Group to have different (if usually related) content. Although this is not a hard and fast rule, I usually find that, where there needs to be such a difference, Group is usually more specific and less aggregated than Composition.

I hope that these thoughts are useful. It would be good to know what use others make of the Album (and related), Composition and Group tags, particularly if their practice is markedly different from the description I have given.

David
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30-04-2015, 12:35
Post: #10
RE: Group shown when only one item..
(30-04-2015 12:19)DavidHB Wrote:  I really enjoy using the freedom MinimServer gives you to define albums in different ways. These days, much of the classical back catalogue can be bought remarkably cheaply as boxed sets, or increasingly as downloads. As the definition of an album is no longer constrained by the format limitations of the CD, the whole set can be tagged as a single item, awkward breaks can be removed, and grouping can be used to mark the divisions of the work intended by the composer. Conversely, sometimes a set (or even a single CD) with, say, separate substantial but disparate works, should be split into more than one logical album.

I also learned early on that Group and Composition, though they will often have the same content, have rather different functions. Composition is used before a particular album is selected, or when an album is not going to be explicitly selected at all. It is important that different recordings of the same work have the same Composition tag, as choosing a particular performance may be an important part of the selection process. Group on the other hand is only used after an album has been explicitly selected, and is used to offer a choice of sections that can be played separately. This difference will on occasion require Composition and Group to have different (if usually related) content. Although this is not a hard and fast rule, I usually find that, where there needs to be such a difference, Group is usually more specific and less aggregated than Composition.

I hope that these thoughts are useful. It would be good to know what use others make of the Album (and related), Composition and Group tags, particularly if their practice is markedly different from the description I have given.

David

One further thought: the full containment hierarchy supported by MinimServer is Album > Disc > Group > Track. The Disc level would usually correspond to a physical disc but it can be used for any purpose. The "discs" can be named (instead of numbered) by populating the DISCSUBTITLE tag.
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