to sort as a date, any custom or virtual tags need to be configured as Dates in Tags(2)/ Fields
I can confirm that this in not the case with yyyy-MM-dd specifically. yyyy-MM-dd sorts very well as a string because it's
designed to work in exactly that way. The virtual tag I outlined, configured as a string, corrects the issue I see when sorting by <Original Year>. I haven't bothered to test my virtual tag as a date because there has been no need. But, for giggles, let's see what happens when I change my virtual tag to a date...
...and nothing changes.
Sorting by my virtual tag <Sort Original Year> still fixes the problem, and sorting by <Original Year> still has the problem.
I get why it's hard to understand what I'm saying is happening, that's why I provided files so others can reproduce the issue. Here are the steps, you will need to have the custom tag <Original Year> set up in Tags (1):
1) Place all eight files in your library.
2) Set custom sorting on the Albums view: Album Artist/ Original Year/ Year/ Album
3) Observe they are sorted EFGHABCD
4) Set custom sorting: Album Artist/
$Date(<Original Year>,yyyy-MM-dd)/ Year/ Album where the underlined text is a virtual tag you create (string, date, doesn't matter how it's configured).
5) Observe that the albums are now sorted to ABCDEFGH as they should be based on the dates entered into the <Year> and <Original Year> tags.
There is a problem with how MB sorts by dates that have different but supported formats.
Before 3.1.6216, this same issue affected the <Year> tags, but not anymore. Another workaround would be for me to find a date format that my flac and mp3 files could both use, but I'm fine with my fix and don't want to put in the unnecessary work.
Home Desk ~ MB 3.3 Portable • Questyle CMA400i (ASIO) • Sennheiser HD 660S (balanced) / Audeze EL-8 Closed Back / Fostex TR-X00 Ebony • Teac AI-101DA • Jamo C93 + Dayton Audio SUB-1000
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OTG ~ FiiO M11 • Audiofly AF180 / B&O H6