Author Topic: Album & Tracks View: Artist header selection  (Read 5053 times)

ma_t14

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When clicking on the artist header what it does is it makes a selection of the album under that header. Doesn't it make more sense to select ALL the albums of the artist? It would make selecting all the tracks from one artist much easier

Why have an artist header for each album? Wouldn't one artist header suffice with only headers for each album under that?

I may be wrong but I think it was not always this way

Thoughts? Anyone else that gets frustrated whenever he wants to select all the tracks from an artist with many albums and wishes it had been easier?

Video demosttration:

http://screencast.com/t/iI8ep8x6f

(If you want to select all the tracks of an artist you are forced to use Ctrl + Click on every ablum. Imagine wanting to select many artists  :-\ )

paq

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It seems redundant to show Album on the right side in the grouping header, since it already shows next to the album cover.

Open "Customize Panel settings" from the button left of the search bar, and then set "Grouping Header > R:" to nothing instead of Album. This will group your tracks only by Artist and not by Artist and Album.

Now you can select all tracks by an artist by clicking the header with the artist name :)

ma_t14

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Oops, that is a change I made recently. I think its better this way since you can instantly tell what album you are on when scrolling fast.

So Steven is this actually a bug?
Last Edit: October 20, 2012, 03:20:30 PM by ma_t14

Steven

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no - by displaying album info on the right of the header, you are forcing MB to group by album rather than by artist because it needs to show each change in album

ma_t14

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Oh, that sad  :(

But it would make more sense to select all the tracks when clicking on the artist. Now both artist and album headers select the same tracks

Steven

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why is that sad? if you have album information displayed in the header, what else would you expect it to do for grouping and display

ma_t14

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Because I its not possible to have only one album artist header and also keep the album headers on the right. As I said having the album headers on the right makes it more convenient and I would like to click the artist head to select all the tracks from that artist.
 

paq

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But it would make more sense to select all the tracks when clicking on the artist. Now both artist and album headers select the same tracks
I disagree with that making more sense. If I click a header, no matter if it has Artist on the left side or something on both sides, I expect only the tracks belonging to that the header to get selected. If more tracks above and below this header would get selected then I would get confused.

Remember also that everyone may not put Artist and/or Album in that header, but maybe other fields to group tracks together. For example, I have Artist to the left and Date Added to the right for all the tracks in my inbox, which I like.

Think of it this way: if clicking on Artist in the header would select all tracks by that Artist then clicking on Album in a header should select all tracks with that same Album name for consistency... So, 1) so if you have multiple albums with the same name, should all of them get selected? and 2) where would you then click in that header to select all tracks by that Artist and album?

Quote from: ma_t14
I think its better this way since you can instantly tell what album you are on when scrolling fast.
Quote from: ma_t14
As I said having the album headers on the right makes it more convenient...
Remember that the purpose of the header is to group tracks before being something "convenient" or "visually appealing". If you want the album name to stand out when you scroll you may want to configure just that, i.e. the font and the size of the album name next to the album cover, instead of putting Album in the header together with Artist.

Another thing that could suit you is if you'd create a custom view where the header only shows the Album on the right. Then use the track browser, or library browser, to see all the albums by an artist - and then you can select all from that artist with Ctrl+A and each album by clicking the headers while they stand out when you scroll.