Custom Sorting is a feature that enables tags to be sorted in an order other than their usual alphabetical sort order. This affects sorting in the main panel as well as the Thumbnail Browser, Column Browser and Library Explorer. An example usage would be to force the artist 'Big Joe Turner' to be sorted under 'J' or 'T' rather than it’s normal sorting under 'B'.
For a long time MusicBee has had this feature available for <Artist>, <Album Artist>, <Composer>, <Album> and <Title>. With the release of version
3.6.9153, this custom sorting functionality has been greatly expanded to include most tags, including custom and virtual tags.
Edit Preferences > Sorting/GroupingCustom sorting can be enabled here using the '
enable custom sort values….' checkbox option.
• This is a 'global' option, meaning that when enabled, all fields (that have this functionality) on all tracks in your library will be sorted by their custom sort values.
• If no custom sort value is set then that tag value will be sorted alphabetically as usual.
The custom sort values are set by pressing the '
Edit Custom Sort Values...' button.
• This will open the Custom Sorting dialogue window which consists of a dropdown list of available tags and a table of values.
• In the left-hand column you should enter the actual tag value that you require to be sorted and in the right-hand column the desired custom sort value.
• Note that setting custom sort values here does not save anything to the audio file, only to the MusicBee database (settings file).
A couple of basic examples just to whet your appetite:
Example 1: Sorting 'Various Artists' albums to the end of any Album Artist list:If you don't like seeing your Various Artists sitting between your extensive Val Doonican and Velvet Underground collections, then try this:
Set sort value for 'Various Artists' to 'zzz Various Artists' (using zzz here to ensure it is sorted below 'ZZ Top'):
Example 2: Sorting 'Release Type' to your personal requirements:So you have carefully tagged Release Type in a custom field for all your music (e.g. with values 'Collections', 'Compilation Albums', 'EPs', 'Live Albums', 'Singles', 'Studio Albums' etc.) but of course you want your Studio albums listed first, Live Albums second and so on:
For a predefined list of values like this you can use a simple numerical custom sort system so that they are displayed in your required order:
With both examples implemented:
(note the location of Various Artists in the Thumbnail browser and the defined order of the Release Types in the main panel)
Notes:
• Custom sort values for <Artist>, <Album Artist> and <Composer> are all stored in the same list: '
Artist, Composer'.
• For <Composer>, field values (in the left-hand column) must be preceded with "
composer:" to identify the entry as composer rather than artist.
• <Artist> and <Album Artist> use the same custom sort values.
Right-Click on Track > Edit > Sorting TabAs in Edit Preferences > Sorting/Grouping (above), custom sorting can be enabled here using the '
enable custom sorting….' checkbox option. Again, this is a 'global' option.
The custom sort values can be set by pressing the '
Edit Custom Sort Values...' button which opens the
Custom Sorting dialogue window, but this is now fixed on the '
Artist, Composer' list and will only be populated with the custom sort values of the selected track. Other than that, it works in the same way as the Edit Preferences > Sorting/Grouping method.
However, in this Sorting tab you can also set the custom sort value by directly typing into any of the '
sort as:' boxes. This will save the new custom sort value to the MusicBee database as before but will also write this value to the file in the <Sort ....> tag.
Show Posts
