Album Types (LP's ; EP's ; Singles ; Compilations, etc.)

[Bee-liever]

*I want to make a year-span tag based on the releasesortindex that contains the the earliest year followed by a dash followed by the last 2 digits of the latest year based on that thumbnail's tracks. Using a virtual tag would automate/auto update the yearspan when tracks are re-organised at any point

What are your ideas for this tag?
Are you going to make a custom tag the same as my releasesortindex with the format YYYYMMDD?
Is the latest year to be sourced from that same tag or will it come from the <Year> tag?
Will the year-span tag change format to 19##-20## if the dates span the century change?

[johnmillsjr]

yes to question 2 and 3

4. the release sort tag will be YYYYMMDDON (ON=ordering number/a 2  digit track number ie 01 02 03 etc). I also want to try make a virtual subheader tag made up of Album Artist, A tag with location + a few other things and a worded month date based on YYYYMMDD from the release sort index

Example

1930040801= April 8 1930 - Virtual Date tag would only have YYYYMMDD of the release sort index  (would like to have a comma after April 8 if I could work that in somehow)

For Circa dates I'm looking make the unknown month/day "00"

So if it detects "00" in in DD or MM (in most cases I'll know the Month and year- but would be good to set it up for both) of the release sort index tag- the worded month virtual tag displays "c."


Example:

19300400TN= c. April 1930

But If DD and MM both= 00 (which will be very rare) have something in place so it only shows "c." once and not "c. c. 1930"

But if I have 2 recording sessions that I know we're in chronological order with no other sessions in between year one after the other but don't know the exact days I could add a decimal

 
Example:

19300400.1ON equals "c. April"
19300400.2ON equals "c. April"

It will still order the the sessions chronologically.

Probably a better way, but this is what I have so far

[Bee-liever]

-I want to break my "Boxsets" grouping tracks into thumbnails based on Album Artist and delete their Album Tag

I think this might be the killer.
It's Album Covers view your using so if you delete the Album tag, I'm not sure how MB will behave.

[johnmillsjr]

I changed Group By to Virtual Grouping / Album Artist / Album

As Long as it has a grouping tag it works! I think as long as it has a grouping tag, it still is able to place a individual  thumbnail



I haven't tagged my album artists of the tracks in the box set Grouping (which is the only grouping I want this to apply to ), so I've had to test this on my live albums.

So I'll need to make the group by only apply to tracks with the 'Boxset' grouping

And can I keep the album tag displayed without albumartist displayed for albums without that grouping?

Perhaps a virtual tag along the lines if "$ifGROUPING contains "boxsets"=false Display ALBUM" so any albums with the Box sets grouping displays Album Artist in the virtual tag. But if it contains any other Grouping or "" it just displays the album name.

That way all my LPs and stuff will still show the album name and not albumartist below the thumbnail.

When you get a chance, could you also let me know your thoughts on the date stuff?

[johnmillsjr]

'Sub Grouping' sorts by the original value of the tag and the displays the processed value:

I don't think that is what is happening, and it also might qualify as a strange bug if that was the case.
The sorting order is most likely a result of having 'grouping' as a sorting factor somewhere.
Anyway, enough confusion for now, the one asking for help has the result he was looking for, so all's fine.

Yeah I can't get this to sort Groupings by the numbering

[Bee-liever]

Yeah I can't get this to sort Groupings by the numbering

I thought I covered this back in posts #106 and #111.
All fields sort on the actual value of the tag except when a virtual tag is used for sub-grouping in the Album Covers/Artwork view.
MB then uses the value of the tag before processing by the virtual tag formula for sorting.

This was done when Steven implemented the sub-grouping so the displayed headers did not have to be alphabetical.

[johnmillsjr]

Thanks johnmillsjr  
It's what I suspected.
Change the custom sorting from 'Album/ Grouping' to 'Grouping/ Album' and it should work correctly.

Still not ordering LP and Live correctly

I changed Live to performances, I just was not able to make it order by the G1...G2 I think it's a bug honestly

Sort By Virtual Grouping/Album

Group By Virtual Grouping

For some reason it didn't need that No Album Artist tag anymore to stop it breaking up Albums (which I want to happen now- I meant before I had this idea) Not even gonna question it
[/quote]

I Just tried making a virutal tag that grabs the G# and then tried to sort by that

Code

$Left(<Grouping>,2)

Didn't work either, does this work for you??? Because no matter what, the alphabetical order is constantly overriding the G#

Also, here's an updated version of my Grouping tag as I added a Grouping:

Code

$If($First(<Grouping>)="G1",Boxsets,$If($First(<Grouping>)="G2",Transcriptions,$If($First(<Grouping>)="G3",Broadcasts,$If($First(<Grouping>)="G4",LPs,$If($First(<Grouping>)="G5",Performances,$If($First(<Grouping>)="G6","Post Release",))))))

Surely this must be a bug

[Bee-liever]

Surely this must be a bug

No. The sorting with G1, G2 etc only works for the Sub-Grouping.

If you need it to work for Grouping, you would probably need to WishList a request for $SortAs(field,sorting) function in virtual tags

[johnmillsjr]

I saw that there are zero width spaces, but I haven't figured out how to insert them into normal text. I also don't see how inserting spaces will solve the issue.

they be always sorted after a-z letters. so just add several invisible chars at the beginning of tag to sorts it last. eg:

Studio Release
[zero-width space]EP
[zero-width space][zero-width space]Single
[zero-width space][zero-width space][zero-width space]Live Album
etc...

Doest this work? I've tried adding the text [zero-width space] to groupings and matching them in the virtual tag, is it a unicode symbol or something?

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

I saw that there are zero width spaces, but I haven't figured out how to insert them into normal text. I also don't see how inserting spaces will solve the issue.

they be always sorted after a-z letters. so just add several invisible chars at the beginning of tag to sorts it last. eg:

Studio Release
[zero-width space]EP
[zero-width space][zero-width space]Single
[zero-width space][zero-width space][zero-width space]Live Album
etc...

Doest this work? I've tried adding the text [zero-width space] to groupings and matching them in the virtual tag, is it a unicode symbol or something?

Copy from here

[johnmillsjr]

I saw that there are zero width spaces, but I haven't figured out how to insert them into normal text. I also don't see how inserting spaces will solve the issue.

they be always sorted after a-z letters. so just add several invisible chars at the beginning of tag to sorts it last. eg:

Studio Release
[zero-width space]EP
[zero-width space][zero-width space]Single
[zero-width space][zero-width space][zero-width space]Live Album
etc...

Doest this work? I've tried adding the text [zero-width space] to groupings and matching them in the virtual tag, is it a unicode symbol or something?

Copy from here

Thank you! can that be added/mentioned in OP?

[KoRnFrEaK]

SUCCESS

It's too bad we can't make the headers bigger. I'm going to make a wishlish post to see if Steven can make this all a but more simpler by adding better ordering support for groupings

Nevermind, I was doing it slightly wrong- Have it working at 100% as intended!

How did you do that, that the grouping header is bigger and underlined? I tried nearly every possibility to change a font size, but i didn't found the one for the grouping headlines.

[psychoadept]

How did you do that, that the grouping header is bigger and underlined? I tried nearly every possibility to change a font size, but i didn't found the one for the grouping headlines.

Try the menu at the top right of the main panel (should say Album and Tracks), then Customize Panel. Grouping Header is the first setting.

[KoRnFrEaK]

But in the picture it is the Album Cover view and not the Album and Tracks view. So it doesn't change the size for the Grouping Headers Boxset, Live and LPs

[blackwood]

hi I'm new here and I can't seem to get a clear idea how to implement this in my library, can somebody please tell me how?