improve Auto playlist limit to / select by "custom sorting"

[Giusseppe]

First of all I want to congratulate Steven for his tremendous contribution with musicbee
Since I discovered this program, it has all the options I have always dreamed of, although it can still improve

I would like to add the option to customize the order when limiting the number of songs in an autoplaylist with custom sorting in addition to the limited options
i always wanted to sort by year, track number or bitrate

in addition, another error that I notice is that when I sort the list by track number, the numbers with a leading zero are wrongly ordered first even though they are the same number.
example
if i define custom sorting as track# ascending and year (yyyy) ascending
the correct order should be
 1 - 1977-01-01
01 - 1980
 2 - 1970
02 - 1997-05-27
But MusicBee makes the mistake of ordering like this
01 - 1980
 1 - 1977-01-01
02 - 1997-05-27
 2 - 1970

[Giusseppe]

I think this is totally possible.




If this exists year and year (yyyy) should be track and track (##) or something like this

[Mayibongwe]

Another error that I notice is that when I sort the list by track number, the numbers with a leading zero are wrongly ordered first even though they are the same number.
The correct order should be ... But MusicBee makes the mistake of ordering like this ...

In mathematical language, 002 and 2 might be the same number or mean the same thing.
But in computer language, more often than not, those two will not be treated as one and the same, rightly so.

It's kind of like expecting computers to treat a semi-colon ( ; ) and a Greek question mark ( ; ) as one and the same.
Visually, they're the same. But computationally, they are not.
Same as your track numbers...mathematically, they're the same. But computationally, they are not.

________

Would you be against deleting the leading zeroes so that your track numbers are all uniform and can be sorted as desired?
The operation can be done all in one go with a search and replace across your whole library.

Edit: see reply #4

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

To tag onto @Mayibongwe's explanation, sorting by track number... is for sorting by track number.
Those who desire to sort their tracks by unique methods generally use track number because they're thinking back to the days when sorting by anything else was difficult. With MusicBee's extensive tagging ability, it is not necessary to think in this manner.

My advice would be to redetermine the logic (instead of 1 01 001 0001, something that makes more sense) and then use a spare tag or Custom Tag to implement it.

[Mayibongwe]

It's kind of like expecting computers to treat a comma ( ; ) ..

Oh boy, in what world/language is that symbol a comma, lmao.
Sorry, I meant to say semi colon.

[phred]

Oh boy, in what world/language is that symbol a comma, lmao.
Sorry, I meant to say semi colon.

I noticed that also and thought the same thing.

I suggest you edit the reply and correct it.

[hiccup]

in addition, another error that I notice is that when I sort the list by track number, the numbers with a leading zero are wrongly ordered first even though they are the same number.
example

Then how should MusicBee sort such tracknumbers?
A computer always needs to sort on 'something'.

In your mockup you are suggesting that this:



would be a correct sort order.
But that makes no sense.

- - -

In brief: you are posting this as a Wish, but your are also stating there is some Bug.
In my opinion this is neither a Wish nor a Bug, but just a Question.
To which the answer would be:

Create a virtual tag that applies the $Pad function to the 'tracknumber' tag.
Then sort on:
¹ that virtual tag
² the year tag

[Giusseppe]

I appreciate all of your time to try to help me.
The focus of this post is to achieve "custom sorting" in the auto-playlists limit, since it is something that is beyond my capabilities, however it would be very, very useful to me. this is my greatest wish

I regret having implied that there is a bug, when that was not the intention this is a wish, just as year and year(yyyy) tags exists, I need something like track(xx)
to answer my second wish, I decided to learn and use the virtual tags, I use this formula

"$Pad(<Track#>,3)"

and try this too

"$If(<Track#>>0,$Abs(<Track#>),<Track#>)"

, visually they fulfill their function but unfortunately when I organize the list (track(virtual)-year(yyyy)), I get the order i want only in the individual track files but in the cuesheet tracks files they stay in his own order together in a block as if they had the same track number, instead of being distributed among the entire list
I do not know what I'm doing wrong

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

, visually they fulfill their function but unfortunately when I organize the list (track(virtual)-year(yyyy)), I get the order i want only in the individual track files but in the cuesheet tracks files they stay in his own order together in a block as if they had the same track number, instead of being distributed among the entire list
I do not know what I'm doing wrong

When I briefly flirted with using cuesheets instead of individual files, the primary reason I reverted was using anything more complicated than basic <Artist> <Title> <Album> <Year> etc. was impossible.
Again - you will have better success determining a different sorting method than track numbers. A lot of us have used MusicBee in some amazingly complex ways, but it often required forgoing how we were used to thinking about metadata tagging.

[hiccup]

I appreciate all of your time to try to help me.
The focus of this post is to achieve "custom sorting" in the auto-playlists limit, since it is something that is beyond my capabilities, however it would be very, very useful to me. this is my greatest wish
I regret having implied that there is a bug, when that was not the intention this is a wish, just as year and year(yyyy) tags exists, I need something like track(xx)

It's becoming more clear to me, thanks for explaining Giusseppe.

The way this forum works (and has been working for a long time) is that there are three forum boards that are pretty essential:

- Questions
- Bugs
- Wishes

In general any question/bug/request will get the optimal attention and responses when posted as a singular, well-described case in the appropriate board.
So you may want to consider splitting up the things that are causing you problems at the moment, and create specific topics in the appropriate boards for them.
It will enhance the chance of receiving good answers, having bugs squashed, and having wishes granted.

But about 'Wishes', to be honest, it doesn't seem the best of times to make Wishlist requests for new features or enhancements.
I don't think there have been much responses or fulfillments on those by the developer of MusicBee lately.
It doesn't seem to be a good time for those.