getmusicbee.com

Support => Questions => Topic started by: constantinemerus on August 23, 2019, 04:49:33 PM

Title: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 23, 2019, 04:49:33 PM
Greetings,

First, let me tell you what I am trying to do, maybe you guys have a better a solution than me.

This is my layout:

(https://cdn1.imggmi.com/uploads/2019/8/23/c5b9fad4c82f518c21640558248fb227-full.jpg)

As you can see, I am using left main panel to list Album Artists. Which is great. Now, there are quite a lot of artists with multiple projects. I thought it would be nice to group their projects under their name. For that, I am using 'Original Artist' field. There's no Group By: Original Artist so I had to create a virtual-tag for that. So now it looks something like this, which is fine:

(https://cdn1.imggmi.com/uploads/2019/8/23/c027f0f2dd83756dae19e149a312aef6-full.jpg)

Here's my problem. When Original Artist field is blank, it would be listed under 'Unknown Original Artist' which is less than pleasant. Is there any way to not show that or change the error message? Or any other suggestion to do this. Thanks.
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: phred on August 23, 2019, 05:18:51 PM
I don't understand why people don't use the 'preview' button before posting. Especially when posting screenshots. Because your screenshots don't appear.

You can modify your post to include your screenshots or just post them as a reply.

See my sig for screenshot info.
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 24, 2019, 04:43:44 AM
Well mate, I don't understand neither, my images do show up for me. Let me try a different host.


(https://i.imgur.com/11dKAtW.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/0t66MX2.jpg)
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: Zak on August 24, 2019, 09:38:31 AM
You should be able to add an $IsNull() function to your virtual tag to change it to something else if it's empty.
Code
$IsNull(<YourVirtualTag>,Other,<YourVirtualTag>)
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 24, 2019, 04:14:21 PM
@Zak that worked perfectly, thanks!
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 24, 2019, 04:28:38 PM
Okay seems I got excited too quickly. Although that solution has made things a lot better. But now there's a sorting problem. I get all the artists with the filled field which I am grouping by sorted A-Z, then the ones with the blank field sorted A-Z.

Is there a way, not to group artists when the group by field is blank? I'm not sure if I am making sense so I try to explain with an example.

Let's say I have A, B, D, E, their 'Original Artist' field is blank.
And then there is C1, C2, C3, that has 'Original Artist' field set to "C".

Right now it shows it like this:

C
C1
C2
C3

Other
A
B
D
E


What I like to happen is this

A
B

C
C1
C2
C3

D
E


I hope I am making sense. It's like that I only want to group some of the artists, not all of them. Thanks for the help.
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: hiccup on August 24, 2019, 04:48:34 PM
What happens when in your virtual formula you replace 'Other' with <Album Artist>
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 24, 2019, 04:58:51 PM
Solves the sorting problem, but results in duplicate names which is a tad less than pleasant.

(https://i.imgur.com/h7PU4Xe.jpg)
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: hiccup on August 24, 2019, 05:04:51 PM
What duplicates in your screenshot are you referring to exactly?
Your screenshots are not pixel-perfect, and (to me) it's not completely obvious what are your artists and what are their projects.
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 24, 2019, 05:08:12 PM
Sorry mate. Here's a better one:

(https://i.imgur.com/o7K0MwV.jpg)


It's not that big of a deal. But I wish it was just different, I do have a bit of an OCD  :-X
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: hiccup on August 24, 2019, 05:24:38 PM
But I wish it was just different, I do have a bit of an OCD  :-X

That's not a bad thing, you might be speaking for most of us here ;-)

Quickly testing this myself a little bit, the result looks like how I would like it myself:

(https://i.imgur.com/PpPl9BT.png)

Maybe you could explain what you don't like about this, and how you would like to have this displaying exactly?
(perhaps by means of a mock-up screenshot?)
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 24, 2019, 06:24:24 PM
It works just fine when there's an artist with multiple projects. But single projects are shown like my previous screenshot.

Amorphis
Amorphis

Animals As Leaders
Animals As Leaders

and so on.

This is closer to my ideal:
(https://i.imgur.com/V5F5W7F.jpg)
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: hiccup on August 24, 2019, 06:31:27 PM
Taking that screenshot (too OCD) literally:

It gives the impression that 'Between the Burried and Me' is a project by Arjen Anthony Lucassen.

So something will need to happen additionally with regards to bold fonts or dividing lines.
I'll see if I can give it some thought at a later moment.

Hopefully other members have some good suggestion?
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 24, 2019, 06:39:58 PM
Yes, you are absolutely right. It needs some sort of a separator or something. Thanks mate.
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: hiccup on August 24, 2019, 06:47:32 PM
This might only be possible if there was some sub-grouping option for the thumbnail browser. (as it is available in the Album and Tracks main panel)
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: Zak on August 25, 2019, 03:07:26 AM
I may have misunderstood what you're trying to do (there's something to be said for using familiar artists in your examples, though I'm sure Amorphis are lovely folks), but I set up a small test and got this:

(https://i.imgur.com/R7x2iIt.png)

Thumbnail Browser is showing V: Artist Group, grouped by Album Artist.

V: Artist Group is just this virtual tag:
Code
$IsNull(<Original Artist>," ",<Original Artist>)
Artist for all albums is "Mike Patton", Original Artist is the side project name.

The first album has no Original Artist tag, so nothing is shown to imply that those albums are under the artist's original name.
MusicBee has an all or nothing approach to showing fields, so there's nothing that can be done to remove the blank row there.

Obviously, what works for a three album test may not work on a full library, but with the right custom tags and virtual formulas, you could probably get what you need.

-edit-
Just looked at your screenshot again and realised mine is kinda backwards.
Back to the drawing board...

-edit edit-

Tried again, but I don't think your latest mockup can be achieved.

Quote
Is there a way, not to group artists when the group by field is blank

Because the answer to this is no. When grouping, MusicBee will always resolve to group a track by something. It can be the same thing for all non-grouped tracks, but then you'll be back where you started.

Also, if this is a new tagging venture you're embarking on, I strongly suggest creating a custom tag to use for the side-project information instead of Original Artist. You might not need it now, but in a few years time when you realise you want to use that tag for something else (like for tagging your cover songs), you'll have to spend more time retrofitting all those tags first and that's not fun.
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: Zak on August 25, 2019, 04:31:24 AM
Also realised my example wasn't ideal because I had the tags the wrong way around - it would be preferable for the Artist tag to reflect the side project name and the Original artist to be the artist name.
This can be fixed by using two virtual tags:

V: Artist Group:
Code
$IsNull(<Original Artist>,<Album Artist>,<Original Artist>)
V: Artist Heading:
Code
$IsNull(<Original Artist>," ",<Album Artist>)
Use Artist Heading as the displayed tag, and Artist Group as the Group by tag.
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: hiccup on August 25, 2019, 05:25:45 PM
Use Artist Heading as the displayed tag, and Artist Group as the Group by tag.

Ah, that's clever. I didn't think of just leaving 'heading' empty for all albums except the ones that have an 'original artist'.
Title: Re: Hide 'Unknown' while grouping
Post by: constantinemerus on August 27, 2019, 08:20:21 PM
Seems this is the next best thing, thanks Zak. There's a small problem. Thumbnails no longer show Album Artist picture, it shows the first album's cover image instead. Any way to fix that?

Cheers.