Sorting Questions

[TN4U]

Hi. I'm fairly inexperienced to all of this so excuse me if I sound like I'm not making any sense.

I got some some songs and artists in my library that start with "A", "The" and symbols such as "(" and "...". I want the songs (A to Z to #), artists (A to Z to #), and albums (A to Z to #; Album Artist/Year/Album) sorted like what I have in my iTunes library. It's almost sorted the way I want it to, only problem is I have a preference of sorting number-first songs and artists on the bottom of an alphabetical list like what my iTunes library does. Is there a way to sort them this way? Also, does MusicBee have something similar to iTunes' "sort as" tags?

One more question. I understand that MusicBee is not very ideal to sync with iPods but I sync'd my library successfully with the program to my 7th gen iPod but with a small problem. Prefixes ("The", "A", symbols, etc.) are not ignored for some reason, and again songs and artists starting with numbers are listed first (and some compilation albums not being sorted as compilations!!!). Is that simply a bug or is it because of me not using iTunes with sort as tags to sync?

I'll gladly send pictures if requested.

[CritterMan]

Crtl+o > Sorting/Grouping

[TN4U]

I've already made settings to ignore prefixes in my library, but I still don't know (if there's even a way) how to sort number-first titles in an ascending list to the bottom instead of the top.

For example (It's sorted like this on my iPod as well):



The songs from 10538 Overture to #9 Dream I would want to be sorted at the bottom, like what I have in my iTunes library:

[CritterMan]

Sounds like a wishlist item. At this point I believe MB only places numbers and symbols at the beginning of an ascending list or the bottom of a descending one.

[TN4U]

Hmm. Okay. It's not a huge dealbreaker for me. I'll make a couple suggestions in the wishlist forum.

As for the iPod, I think I'll continue to use iTunes to sync my music over for now.

[psychoadept]

You can always hack it by giving MusicBee a sorting value in the sorting tab that will place it where you want.

[redwing]

Somebody asked a similar question a while ago and using a virtual tag can help: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=8631.msg53703#msg53703
But that took care of only letter before number.

This will work better as it will sort title in letter-number-symbol order and it won't require additional virtual tags.

Code

$If($IsMatch(<Title>,"^[a-zA-Z]")="T",1<Title>,$If($IsMatch(<Title>,"^[0-9]")="T",2<Title>,3<Title>))

You can either create a custom sorting set using that virtual tag and sort by that field or just add the virtual tag to the main panel and sort by it.
Also you can create the same sorting virtual tags for <Artist> and <Album> if you just replace <Title> with those fields using the formula above.

[redwing]

Prefixes ("The", "A", symbols, etc.) are not ignored for some reason, and again songs and artists starting with numbers are listed first (and some compilation albums not being sorted as compilations!!!). Is that simply a bug or is it because of me not using iTunes with sort as tags to sync?

That's a known issue and MB can't help. If you want to avoid it, use iTunes for syncing.

[TN4U]

I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. Here's what I did in MusicBee:

Label:

Code

G_Title

Formula:

Code

$If($IsMatch(<Title>,"^[a-zA-Z]")="T",1<Title>,$If($IsMatch(<Title>,"^[0-9]")="T",2<Title>,3<Title>))

I grouped the songs in track view by this label, and it did in fact sort the songs with numerals in front at the bottom. However, prefixes (such as "The", "A", "(", etc.) are now not being ignored, and I have checked on the "ignore words" option in the Grouping/Sorting tab in preferences. Do I have to do something else?

Also, is there a way to turn off the green text that appears over the song titles? The text is formatted like this: 1Song Title

[redwing]

No, the new formula does not need grouping. Just use it as sorting field with no grouping setting.

To use "ignore words" option, replace "<field>" with "$Sort(<field>)". So for "<Title>", use "$Sort(<Title>)" instead.