Artists view, how to not get multiple instance of same track?

[jonap]

sorry, I was replying to frankz
my comments were cause I tought he didn't understand what view I was talking about, instead he did understood and considering it's not possible he was suggesting another view

[frankz]

I know I said I'm not very interested, but it seems I am.

I can't get Artist view to look the way you have it in your screenshot.  Here is mine for that track.  I have Bowie tagged as guest, but even tagging him as artist doesn't duplicate the track.

How are you getting the result you're getting?  I'm sure I'm not set up the way you are, but maybe you could set up the way I am and get what you want after all.

[hiccup]

I think it is only when you are in Artist View that each actual tagged artist gets their own entry, which I think is appropriate.

Also for classical orchestra's containing 50+ musicians?

It looks like that assumption of mine was wrong.
I think that when you select 'Artists' as grouping, it will only show those labelled as 'Artist', 'Guest Artist', Performer' or 'Remixer'. Not the musician/instrument performers.
(but I am using Picard for tagging, which includes using plugins and some rather complicated scripts, so I can't really speak any 'generic truths' here)

@jonap, if this is important to you, take a good look at how your artists are tagged exactly (use Tag Inspector for that), and how/which ones you would like/expect to have displayed in 'Artists' view.
Then, if you are sure you have a good suggestion for improvement, create a wish for it.

[jonap]

@frankz in that view of yours, if you go to customize panel, you can chose between 3 options
your view has "directly under the selected album" which groups the tracks by album and only after selecting the artist
what I wanted is the "at the bottom of main panel", which leave a bottom panel with a list of all the tracks for every artist selected (when no artist is selected, all the tracks get listed, but with duplicates)

@hiccup I just wanted to know if it was possible, but it's a minor thing, I am gonna make a wishlist thread, but just for the sake of it, in case it's a very easy thing to update, otherwise it's ok anyway

[frankz]

OK I see what you're seeing now. Interesting view.  Wow I was still pretty off base about what you were seeing and why it would be that way.  Thanks for this it's educational I've only spent about 5 minutes ever in Artists view.

It's an interim view, not an end point.  The program displays an instance of each possible result you could get from clicking one of the options at the top.  I think the program expects that a user would choose one of the displayed artists at the top and drill down further, which would filter the results at the bottom.

I can see the logic of having it the way it is, but I can also see where it would be very difficult to select and queue tracks from here, because you'd obviously only need one of each.  Well, not "very difficult" because you would just have to click one of the artists and be on your way.

If this were a wishlist, I'd be in favor of showing nothing here and making a user drill down to the ultimate artist they wanted to view before displaying any tracks.

[hiccup]

I only now noticed this screenshot.
It's pretty much impossible that these two tracks are actually the same track/file.
If you right-click the first one, then Search > Locate in Windows Explorer
and then do the same with the second, do they both direct to the exact same file in the exact same location?
I'm pretty sure that can't be.

[jonap]

It's pretty much impossible that these two tracks are actually the same track/file.
If you right-click the first one, then Search > Locate in Windows Explorer
and then do the same with the second, do they both direct to the exact same file in the exact same location?
I'm pretty sure that can't be.

yes, they are the same file and direct to the same single file on your pc
it just gets listed for each of the artist
look at frankz screenshot too
it seems he has 3 tracks, and 1 of them gets listed 7 times

I can see the logic of having it the way it is, but I can also see where it would be very difficult to select and queue tracks from here, because you'd obviously only need one of each.  Well, not "very difficult" because you would just have to click one of the artists and be on your way.

If this were a wishlist, I'd be in favor of showing nothing here and making a user drill down to the ultimate artist they wanted to view before displaying any tracks.

so you would remove a view that exist and provides something, to get a different view that already exists and provide something else?
you can do that in the other customizing options, where the panel only appears after clicking the artist
in this customizing option the panel is always there, and the usefull feature is that lists tracks for each filter, and selecting the artist should be the last filter, not the only way to filter (I am not sure I explained exactly how I see this view to be usefull)

[hiccup]

yes, they are the same file and direct to the same single file on your pc
it just gets listed for each of the artist
look at frankz screenshot too
it seems he has 3 tracks, and 1 of them gets listed 7 times

Ah yes, you are right.
That's unusual to see, I'm not sure if that is how it is intended to work.

[jonap]

I guess it makes sense cause it sees a lot of elements and then lists every sub-elements for each
though it would be pretty easy (I guess) to implement a simple "if" in case the sub-element is already listed
maybe I am gonna post it in bugs first to see if it's just something that slipped or not

Made the thread in bugs and added few screenshots to explain the issue:
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=34528.0

[frankz]

so you would remove a view that exist and provides something, to get a different view that already exists and provide something else?
you can do that in the other customizing options, where the panel only appears after clicking the artist
in this customizing option the panel is always there, and the usefull feature is that lists tracks for each filter, and selecting the artist should be the last filter, not the only way to filter (I am not sure I explained exactly how I see this view to be usefull)

Yeah, what I said doesn't seem right either.  Because I like MB so much I think I sometimes get defensive of it and try to find a scenario where the way it does things can't be wrong.

This one actually seems like it shouldn't be this way.

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

Yes, I think that is what most people are going for when they tag artists.

Considering this wasn't raised before, you are probably right.

I'm a little late, but I experience what @jonap describes, as I use the Artist view most of the time, and I don't like it, actually.
However, it only displays in this manner under certain circumstances, plus it would likely take some time to "fix" from a programming perspective, so I've never bothered mentioning it.

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

A reddit user recently posted about this predicament.
Here's what it looks like with a multiple artist-tagged album in the Artists view when no artist is selected.