Author Topic: Custom sorting  (Read 24584 times)

psychoadept

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In any case i was think of creating a Tagging Tools sort tag inconsistencies report for this purpose.

This sounds great!

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Also i might disable the new sorting functionality by default for new users for this very reason to save a bunch of new "bug" reports.

Maybe a pop-up when they upgrade, explaining the change?  Or offering to activate it?

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As long as you edit the sort tags the same way as before via the tag editor, MB should keep them in sync

You mean in terms of editing individual files?  When would they not be in sync?
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Steven

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redwing

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I keep sort tag in my music files only for classical music composers, but this feature now allows to use sort artist/composer without adding such tags to files.
But the problem is the list has to be edited manually if you don't have such file tags.
- Why not support using functions?
Then the user could enter a formula, the list gets updated populating new values, and the user ticks each "exception" box for band name that changes the sort value to the original, or overwrites sort values manually for some which turns on exception mark.
- Make these values an MB-internal tag so that they can be copied, edited, stored, and compared with other tags in main panel.
- Also support album artist list too in addition to the current artist and album list.
- Another issue is artist thumbnail which does not work currently. If MB already knows sort values of artist through this list, why not re-use thumbnails for original artist/composer for their sort values as well?

Steven

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i wont comment on your other proposals just yet but for this:
- Another issue is artist thumbnail which does not work currently. If MB already knows sort values of artist through this list, why not re-use thumbnails for original artist/composer for their sort values as well?
Are you showing Sort Artist as opposed to showing Artist (where its sorted by sort artist)

redwing

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Mostly using Artist which shows thumbnails fine. But with Sort Artist, it doesn't use those original thumbnails.

psychoadept

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I'm having problems with this because I prefer artists sorted by first name, but composers sorted by last name.  So if an artist is also a composer, they will end up sorting in the wrong place.  Any chance of treating them separately?  Or is there some way I can hack it so this doesn't happen?
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Steven

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I'm having problems with this because I prefer artists sorted by first name, but composers sorted by last name.  So if an artist is also a composer, they will end up sorting in the wrong place.  Any chance of treating them separately?  Or is there some way I can hack it so this doesn't happen?
for the next update i have added in the ability to explicity mark a sort mapping to apply to composers only. Just prefix the composer variation with "composer:"
eg.
John Smith                    Smith, John
composer:John Smith      John Smith


psychoadept

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Awesome, thanks!
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psychoadept

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The Composer trick is working great.

However, something is causing sort values not to be saved when entered in the pop-up list.  It doesn't happen 100% of the time, but fairly consistently.  Here's a GIF:

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psychoadept

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Confirmed, thanks!
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psychoadept

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Another detail... hopefully the last...

Right now I have a LOT of entries like this:



(!) says this:



There's a sort composer value entered, based on tags, but it hasn't been applied to the thumbnail browser, and resaving isn't enough to apply it.  I actually have to delete, save, and reenter it, or use the popup to make it work.  If there's a sort composer value in tags, shouldn't it automatically be applied as composer:etc...?

Also, if I go into the pop-up and enter the sort composer I want, with "composer:", it is applied correctly but the sorting tab just shows the regular name, which is a little disconcerting, especially since once you save the value, there's no way to access it again from the Sorting tab.  It doesn't show up in the Sort As box, and there's no button for the pop-up - or if there is a popup due to other tags, the "composer:" entry isn't shown there, anyway.

I would expect that if there's a "composer:" sort value, it would be shown in the "sort as" box for composer, and that if you enter a value in "sort as" for composer it should either automatically be turned into "composer:" or there should be a way to indicate that you want to do that.  And if not that, it should at least definitely show up in the pop-up list.


Oh, and a tiny but irritating bug: you can't enter a space in the Composer field on the Sorting tab.  As soon as you press Space, the cursor jumps to the beginning of the field.  So you have to go to the main tab to enter a composer.

Edit: One more bug I've come across - it's possible to trigger the save & go to next hotkey while you have the "edit custom sort values" pop up open.
Last Edit: May 28, 2017, 05:06:59 AM by psychoadept
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Steven

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There's a sort composer value entered, based on tags, but it hasn't been applied to the thumbnail browser, and resaving isn't enough to apply it.  I actually have to delete, save, and reenter it, or use the popup to make it work.  If there's a sort composer value in tags, shouldn't it automatically be applied as composer:etc...?
MusicBee only uses the custom sort mappings as defined in the Sorting/Grouping preferences and no longer uses the sort tags as the primary means of sorting artists and albums. I gave a detailed explaination for the reasoning for that, probably near the start of this topic and it relates to MB allowing multi-value artists which iTunes doesnt.

The first time a user starts MB with this new functionality, MB will scan existing files for the sort tags and automatically build up a default mapping. Looking at the code i realise now it only did that for music library file and not files from the Inbox so i will change that. Additionally MB scans new files added to the library and creates new custom sort mappings when needed.
The reason i have left sort fields in the tag editor is so users can maintain updating those tags for other applications that might use them. Editing the sort mapping values via the tag editor does update the MusicBee sort mappings

Specially to the ! message, i expect it really is the case George Winston is not defined as a custom artist mapping. As "George Winston" doesnt need to set as "composer:George Winston" - the composer: prefix is only needed if George Winston also was set in the artist field and you wanted it sorted differently.
edit: Actually there might have been a bug in your case with the ! validation. Try again with the new verson when its available before doing the next steps below.

If you have a lot of inconsistencies and are confident the sort tags in your files are correct, you could force MB to reload the artist and album mappings by closing down MB, and editing MusicBee3Settings.ini and removing these (keep the text somewhere in case you decide you want to restore the old mappings
Code
<ArtistSortMapping>...</ArtistSortMapping>
<AlbumSortMapping>...</AlbumSortMapping>
on the next restart MB will rebuild the initial sort mappings


edit:
the couple of bugs around the handling for "composer:xxxx" not being reflected in the tag editor after updating the "Edit Custom Sort Values" dialog are fixed for the next update
Last Edit: May 28, 2017, 12:27:23 PM by Steven

Steven

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