Confused by Tags

[GavinB]

I've checked the Alltags file, and there are values of ALBUM SORT of 1993 - Anthology and 2011 - Anthology.
I've also found two instances of albums called Heartbreaker - Free and Ryan Adams.

Any idea what's happening with the warning?

[simoncn]

Each tag value can only have one sort value. For this purpose, ALBUM=Anthology is a single tag value even though it might be applied to more than one album.

This restriction is clearly necessary for tag values that appear in indexTags (such as ARTIST and GENRE) as it would be very confusing for a tag value to appear multiple times in an index in different sort positions. The same restriction applies to ALBUM even though the situation is a bit different as an album name would normally appear only in the 'n albums' list and this list could contain albums with the same name in different sort positions.

You can solve this problem by using a slightly different configuration, as follows:

1) Set itemTags to: Artist Sort, Album Artist Sort, Album Sort, SortAlbum

2) Set tagValue to: Artist.value.sort={Artist Sort}, AlbumArtist.value.sort={Album Artist Sort}, SortAlbum.default={Album Sort, Album}

3) Set tagOptions to: Album.sortTags={SortAlbum, Artist}

This works by creating a "virtual tag" named SortAlbum for each file. The value of this tag is either the Album Sort value (if present) or the Album value otherwise. It also changes the sort order for the 'n albums' list to use SortAlbum and Artist tags instead of the default setting of using Album and Artist tags. The combination of these settings should sort your Anthology albums (and other similar cases) in the positions you expect.

[paultaylor]

(29-12-2021 15:00)simoncn Wrote:  Another way to verify the tag names is to use the writeAllTags property

If you have a Melco then you can use the installed SongKong software to see your existing tag data by running a Status Report

You can also use SongKong to modify your tag data, including adding sort names in a consistent way.

[GavinB]

Thanks, Paul. I found the equivalent option for my current tag editor and think I've now sorted the inconsistencies.