Displaying sort by date added

[beeing good]

I can't work out how to do this properly so I'm hoping someone can help. I would like to have my inbox (in album & tracks view) sorted by date added but if I choose just that then it sometimes gets messy if the tracks weren't added in the correct order or if they're weren't added at exactly the same time. Maybe this makes it clearer:



What I want is for the albums to be grouped by album and in the correct track order but for the albums to be ordered by date added. Is there a way to do this?

[sukerman]

its exactly what i want to do too but dont know how,hope someone can help.

[Steven]

What I want is for the albums to be grouped by album and in the correct track order but for the albums to be ordered by date added. Is there a way to do this?

i will look to add a function that gets the min or max of a field for an album as that could be useful for date added, date last played, highest/ lowest rating etc.
If i havent done it in a couple of weeks make sure you remind me!

[beeing good]

Excellent, I look forward to that. Thanks Steven!

[paq]

I have made somewhat of a solution, it goes like this:

• Create the Virtual tag Date Added (yyyy-mm-dd): <Left(<Date Added>,10)>
  You do so in Preferences > Tags (1) > Define New Tags...
  Assuming that the Date Added values are on the format 2012-07-03 13:37, it will transform that into 2012-07-03.
  
  • This will ensure that the exact time when added won't matter for tracks added by monitoring folders while MusicBee is running.
  • However, if tracks were added over a period of time around twelve noon, then tracks may not order up correctly.
  
  
• Show the field Date Added (yyyy-mm-dd) and click it to sort your tracks, either once or twice for ascending/descending order. If you're not happy with having to show Date Added value for each track, or if your tracks don't sort well, keep reading.
  
  
• Create a Sorting set: Date Added (yyyy-mm-dd) (Desc) / Path / Year (Desc) / Album / Track#
  You do so in Preferences > Sorting/Grouping.
  
  • Date Added (yyyy-mm-dd) (Descending)
    This will make sure that the latest added tracks appear above all else, ordered by day but not by time of day.
  • Path (Ascending)
    Optional. This will group the tracks by their folder, nice if you monitor different folders and drives.
  • Year (Descending)
    If a discography is imported within the same day, then the albums will order according to release year, from last released to first.
  • Album (Ascending)
    Group the tracks by album and sort the albums alphabetically when their Year is the same.
  • Track# (Ascending)
    Lastly, to make sure the songs appear by their track number order.
    
    
  • You can of course customize this sorting set to your liking, say if you want to sort by Artist alphabetically when several artists were added the same day.
  
  
• Right-click the column headers in your view and choose Sort By and then your newly created sorting set

Good luck!

[SimonBRT]

+1 to this request.
Does sound like Paq has an excellent workaround but it would be nice if there was more intuitive solution....

[Steven]

what i have done as a starting point is if you are using the Album & Tracks layout then sorting by the date fields: "date added", "last played" treats the unit of comparison as by album eg. it would use the maximum date added for any of the tracks in the album

I'm open to comments if people dont think its appropriate and if not then the next step would be to provide a function but i think its better if its automatic. Also i have seen where people get confused because the album splits up (because the album tracks have a different value for the field being sorted on), so this will help reduce that.

Its in the next update

[beeing good]

That sounds good, if I understand correctly. Automatic sounds fine, I can't think of a circumstance where you would want an album to be split up, even if it was added at a different time.

[Steven]

its in this version:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

[beeing good]

That seems to work perfectly, thanks a lot for doing this.

[SimonBRT]

not tested it yet but that, in principle, sounds exactly like what was needed.

[paq]

When you right-click the column headers and choose "Sort by" you'll get a list of sorting sets, where some are "bult in" (Album, Artist/Album etc.) and the rest are your custom sorting sets.

Could Date added be added to the list of sorting sets that comes with MusicBee? Because then you don't need to sacrifice one custom sorting set for it if you wish to sort your Inbox, or something else, without having to show the column Date added at the same time.