How to create a Album Titles view

[Greb]

Since this post   http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=9164.0   is not being very successful, I'm gonna write here how to 'fake' an Album Titles view.

NOTE: you're gonna need to use a tag that you're not using to store some codes. I chose 'BPM', but you're free to use any other one if you actually use BPM for anything else (as song's bpm, for example). In what follows, I suppose the BPM tag is chosen, otherwise you only have to change it for the one you chose.

1. Select the whole collection and copy the 'Track#' tag to 'BPM' tag.

2. Create a virtual tag with this mask:   $Split(<BPM>,"/",1)

3. Create a auto-playlist and configure it like that:



NOTE: I used Virtual10 virtual tag in step 2. No need to say you don't need to use exactly this one, but the auto-playlist has to fit the one you chose in that step.


4. Now enter the playlist, select 'Track view' and group by Album Artist. I suggest to choose as columns 'Album', 'Genre', 'Album Duration' and 'Album Track Count'.

You should get something like this:




5. To play or queue an entire album:   Contextual Menu > Play more... > Play album now   or    Contextual Menu > Play more... > Queue album last

Don't use Contextual menu > Play now because it will play only the first track

6. If you want to see the album's tracks you can use those this  Contextual Menu > Search > Find Album '[Album]'    (here the album&tracks view is very appropiate), from where you can go back using the back arrow.

7. Probably you'll have to 'clean' a bit the collection in a few cases. If the same album appears more than once, delete the bpm tag in the duplicated tracks to avoid id. If and album doesn't appear, choose its first track and write '1' in the bpm tag.

[BeeBeeKing]

I can see this is a workaround, but how do you expand and contract the tracks, without this it's not much use to me.
I thought this would be a standard view option for something as sophisticated as MB.
If you agree maybe register your thoughts here http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=9164.0

[redwing]

Maybe the following rules can replace step 1 & 2:

<All>
Track# is 1
Track count has a value

You may also add "Album has a value."

[Greb]

I can see this is a workaround, but how do you expand and contract the tracks, without this it's not much use to me.
I thought this would be a standard view option for something as sophisticated as MB.
If you agree maybe register your thoughts here http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=9164.0

Of course, this is not a real view, and there's no way to expand the albums. But you can 'fake' it with    Contextual Menu > Search > Find Album '[Album]', from where you can go back using the back arrow.

[Anyway, good remark. I added it to main post]

Maybe the following rules can replace step 1 & 2:

<All>
Track# is 1
Track count has a value

You may also add "Album has a value."

I'm afraid not. The reason I'm copying to a secondary tag is that sometimes Track# has not the right format so you must 'clean' a bit. And it's better to be able to do so without messing with the original values.

For example, imagine you have an album with the tracks numbered '101, 102, 103... 201, 202, 203...' (the album has two cds). In this case you should change the first track from '101' to '1'.

If you have some tracks collected but not numbered, you should at least put a '1' in one of them, even thoug the rest of them keep unnumbered.

Using a secondary tag you don't have to worry about messes in the Track# tag.

[greenday1987]

Thread moved to How To's