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timster · 06-01-2016, 16:03

(06-01-2016 15:06)simoncn Wrote:
(06-01-2016 14:34)Briain Wrote: Are you thinking that navigating into the albums container, then after opening the 'Z' sub-container you would find the album 'Afterburner' (by ZZ Top), for example, or am I totally misunderstanding the request (I'm assuming you aren't suggesting that, but I'm just using that to highlight my confusion over what is being proposed)?

Yes, this is what is being proposed if you have set Album.sortTags={Artist, Album}.

I suspect you are not the only person who would find this surprising.

Haha, well I never do anything normal and it is perhaps peculiar to others and not something most people would use. Let me explain my reasoning (if that is what it is).

My particulars are that I use Kazoo as a control point, which (for # albums) displays the album title and album artist under the album art. I find having all albums on the one browse level sorted like that is the nicest way to browse. No need to keep going back up and down through artists for example. In fact if I am really looking for something in particular for a particular reason I tend to use Search. It's just that normally I browse and pick what I fancy.

I know roughly where an album is alphabetically by artist so that's not the problem - usually. However, I have just purchased a Linx tablet. Not such a big screen, and not so easy to scroll, and not so fast, as the laptop which I use. So for that device, it would be nice to have this feature I requested to break down my album collection a little. Going as far as per artist is too far - it may seem odd to browse all albums by artists beginning with A or whatever, but I'm not talking a search here - it's browsing.

Hope this clears it up, and if it's not something you'd use then don't Wink

Martin H · 06-01-2016, 17:33

Not sure I understand it either - sorry. I think I must be misunderstanding what is proposed.

What I think you are saying is :

I choose albums at the top level and instead of them being displayed in alphabetical order of the album name they would instead be grouped under the artist name? But isn't that what happens if I just choose Artist at the highest level anyway?

So I think I am misunderstanding it still. Sorry for being thick. It does occur to me that if its so complicated it might not be that clever an idea but.... it might help if someone could describe the 'why' with an example? i.e. why would I do/want this?

timster · (This post was last modified: 06-01-2016 17:56 by timster.)

(06-01-2016 17:33)Martin H Wrote: Not sure I understand it either - sorry. I think I must be misunderstanding what is proposed.

What I think you are saying is :

I choose albums at the top level and instead of them being displayed in alphabetical order of the album name they would instead be grouped under the artist name? But isn't that what happens if I just choose Artist at the highest level anyway?

So I think I am misunderstanding it still. Sorry for being thick. It does occur to me that if its so complicated it might not be that clever an idea but.... it might help if someone could describe the 'why' with an example? i.e. why would I do/want this?

No, they are displayed in alphabetical order of artist name, then album name. So all albuyms by an artist are displayed together - they aren't "under" the artist. See my above post for the "why".

See screen shot as to how albums are listed when sorted by artist. All I want is the same when they are alphagroup'd.

Briain · (This post was last modified: 06-01-2016 21:18 by Briain.)

(06-01-2016 15:06)simoncn Wrote:
(06-01-2016 14:34)Briain Wrote: Are you thinking that navigating into the albums container, then after opening the 'Z' sub-container you would find the album 'Afterburner' (by ZZ Top), for example, or am I totally misunderstanding the request (I'm assuming you aren't suggesting that, but I'm just using that to highlight my confusion over what is being proposed)?

Yes, this is what is being proposed if you have set Album.sortTags={Artist, Album}.

I suspect you are not the only person who would find this surprising.

I think that I can see what's being requested; you select artist, then apply an alphanumeric filter on the first character of the artist's name (like all the 'Z' ones in my ZZ Top example), then show all albums (but then sorted alphabetically, by the album name) that the above filtration spits out. Personally - based on my own usage patterns - I can't quite think why this would be very useful, unless you'd forgotten the entire name of the artist, but knew it started with a 'Z', (for example) and would then recognise the album by its cover art; not a very frequently required feature, I'd have thought.

Assuming that to be the case, perhaps a better way would be to select 'artists' then have a filter field in which you could type the first character (or indeed the first few characters) then select the album filter (to show all the album names that complied with that artist filter part-entry)? So, if you had tagged all your artists in the form 'David Bowie' (as opposed to 'Bowie, David') and knew you wanted to hear an album by someone called 'Dave' or 'David', but couldn't remember his full name, you could select artist, then type 'DAV' in the filter box, then it would show all the albums whose artist began with 'DAV'.

Okay, it could be quite fun, but speaking personally, I doubt that I'd ever use it in that form, but if pondering a feature such as this, perhaps an even better way [than developing it from the output from an alpha-grouping filter based on the first - or first few - characters] would instead be an entry field such that you could type 'dav' (for example) then it showed all the albums 'under' that filter (so more like *dav*, in effect). That way, you'd see all albums where the artist contained the letters 'dav' (so all albums by David Bowie, Bowie, David and Miles Davis would appear).

To be honest, the entire concept makes my head spin, but that's not entirely surprising given the great age of my head, how few brain cells within it remain functional and also my tenancy to intake fine red wines from dawn 'til dusk! Perhaps I'm best sticking with an LP12 and a long stick to both cue the tonearm and poke the volume up/down buttons on my KK (which is now almost as obsolete as I am, according to certain people from the Eaglesham area) Tongue

Bri

Martin H · 07-01-2016, 00:48

Briain. Doesn't the search feature give you the answer to your scenario already though. i.e. you type in Z and the artists beginning with Z would be listed - you choose the artist you were looking for. Or is the scenario that you can remember it starts with a Z but still can't remember the name when you see the list? Which seems unlikely.

TBH with my memory these days I needs a search that interprets thingy that played in that band thingymajig with so and so. So I regularly use search to track down things.

To check back on the problem. It's because when you have a lot of albums scrolling through the artists list takes too long (I have almost 3700 now) and the idea is you can select the letter of the alphabet that the artist begins with and then instead of seeing the artists listed - the requirement is to see all of the albums listed but grouped in alphabetical order within groupings for each artist - also in order. Is that it?

If that is right then I would still say this has likely been superceded by the availability of search hasn't it? I may be missing something still. Apologies but I was just trying to support Timster because I couldn't see a lot of answers. It's interesting how hard it is to understand something sometimes that is so obvious to someone else purely to differing habits/experiences.

timster · 07-01-2016, 09:08

(07-01-2016 00:48)Martin H Wrote: Briain. Doesn't the search feature give you the answer to your scenario already though. i.e. you type in Z and the artists beginning with Z would be listed - you choose the artist you were looking for. Or is the scenario that you can remember it starts with a Z but still can't remember the name when you see the list? Which seems unlikely.

TBH with my memory these days I needs a search that interprets thingy that played in that band thingymajig with so and so. So I regularly use search to track down things.

To check back on the problem. It's because when you have a lot of albums scrolling through the artists list takes too long (I have almost 3700 now) and the idea is you can select the letter of the alphabet that the artist begins with and then instead of seeing the artists listed - the requirement is to see all of the albums listed but grouped in alphabetical order within groupings for each artist - also in order. Is that it?

If that is right then I would still say this has likely been superceded by the availability of search hasn't it? I may be missing something still. Apologies but I was just trying to support Timster because I couldn't see a lot of answers. It's interesting how hard it is to understand something sometimes that is so obvious to someone else purely to differing habits/experiences.

Martin, thanks for the support. Yes, you got it right. Too many artists/albums to scroll through, hence the alphagroups. It is perhaps that my preference for the '# albums' to be listed in order of artist rather than album name is a little unusual but all I was suggesting was that if albums were also alphagroup'd I'd like the same rule to be applied (rather than it reverting to default album-name sorting).

Like I said, it's not a search thing, it's a browse thing. At the moment I scroll through my albums and see what I fancy - usually a bit random as scrolling isn't an exact science! And on the same screen I can also scroll to a particular artist if I wish, without having to think of a particular album or go up and down again through the artist route. Using alphagroups as it is at the moment I could say to myself, let's browse through "T" today, and it'll be all albums beginning with T, which is inconsistent with my sort preference (which would return all albums by artists beginning with T).

No biggy, but I guess it's consistency in the way it sorts is what I'm getting at.

FlorentL · 07-01-2016, 09:22

I would use this feature, my sortTags is set to Album.sortTags={AlbumArtist, OriginalDate, Date , Album} (same sort order as for my CDs). I either use the search (looking for something specific) or browse the "# albums" container.

Martin H · 08-01-2016, 00:34

(07-01-2016 09:08)timster Wrote:
(07-01-2016 00:48)Martin H Wrote: Briain. Doesn't the search feature give you the answer to your scenario already though. i.e. you type in Z and the artists beginning with Z would be listed - you choose the artist you were looking for. Or is the scenario that you can remember it starts with a Z but still can't remember the name when you see the list? Which seems unlikely.

TBH with my memory these days I needs a search that interprets thingy that played in that band thingymajig with so and so. So I regularly use search to track down things.

To check back on the problem. It's because when you have a lot of albums scrolling through the artists list takes too long (I have almost 3700 now) and the idea is you can select the letter of the alphabet that the artist begins with and then instead of seeing the artists listed - the requirement is to see all of the albums listed but grouped in alphabetical order within groupings for each artist - also in order. Is that it?

If that is right then I would still say this has likely been superceded by the availability of search hasn't it? I may be missing something still. Apologies but I was just trying to support Timster because I couldn't see a lot of answers. It's interesting how hard it is to understand something sometimes that is so obvious to someone else purely to differing habits/experiences.

Martin, thanks for the support. Yes, you got it right. Too many artists/albums to scroll through, hence the alphagroups. It is perhaps that my preference for the '# albums' to be listed in order of artist rather than album name is a little unusual but all I was suggesting was that if albums were also alphagroup'd I'd like the same rule to be applied (rather than it reverting to default album-name sorting).

Like I said, it's not a search thing, it's a browse thing. At the moment I scroll through my albums and see what I fancy - usually a bit random as scrolling isn't an exact science! And on the same screen I can also scroll to a particular artist if I wish, without having to think of a particular album or go up and down again through the artist route. Using alphagroups as it is at the moment I could say to myself, let's browse through "T" today, and it'll be all albums beginning with T, which is inconsistent with my sort preference (which would return all albums by artists beginning with T).

No biggy, but I guess it's consistency in the way it sorts is what I'm getting at.

Thanks for your patience. I do understand what you are looking for now and why. I often browse to create a playlist but I don't think it's ever occurred to me as a problem that it didn't work that way today but I can understand it.

timalina · (This post was last modified: 10-09-2016 02:51 by timalina.)

Hi. I know this discussion was some time ago, but I was wondering if there is any likelihood of it being implemented. As I understand it, this is exactly what I'm looking for.

I have an extremely large collection so the album list sorted by album artist seems very odd when broken down by into alpha grouping by album title. I know I can search by album artist, but you have to dig a couple of levels further down to look at album titles.

Anyway, thanks very much for this server software. I'm brand new to servers and MinimServer looks the most likely to be able to accommodate my collection, even if it a bit of an uphill battle trying to understand how it all works.

Pepsican · 12-09-2016, 10:22

(07-01-2016 09:22)FlorentL Wrote: I would use this feature, my sortTags is set to Album.sortTags={AlbumArtist, OriginalDate, Date , Album} (same sort order as for my CDs). I either use the search (looking for something specific) or browse the "# albums" container.

I would use it the same way. I wouldn't want the album listed alphabetically but chronologically so as to be able to see an artist's progression as I listen through their catalog.