Browsing and organizing USB media library is very tedious

[Steve Woodhouse]

So @simbun I've looked at your screenshots, and they’re very impressive. But I wouldn’t swap out mine for those for the world.

And the tagging process, and search criteria input needed to get there is a million miles from being as convenient as what I have.

Click A-B. Click Beatles. Click singles.

How much is that easier, and I mean massively easier, than typing in a search term, and inputting the relevant criteria for sorting by release date.

Horses for courses. But this horse suits my course, and I suspect it will for many. The limitations are theoretical - searching or ordering things by parameters I’ll never use, or use, only very rarely.

I'd argue that (as an example) my Beatles singles view is far superior, more logical, and better-looking, than anything we've seen here. nd, as that's the view I'm going to use most of the time, why should I do something else?

And I dislike the accusation that I’m limiting myself. I’m freeing myself to see what I’ll want to see most of the time, in the order I’ll want to see it most of the time. At the expense of a ‘flexibility’ I’ll rarely use, which will look less optimal than what I see.

Oh. And I can still use that anyway if I choose.

Well, that’s me.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Just one more thing, adding a level.

Let’s say you have one band, 5 singles. Bingo. Just do as the above.

Now let’s say the Beatles catalogue of 24 singles is a bit too long for your liking. As you can see, you can fit 8 on a page.

So, if you like (or not, if you don’t like), you can create sub-folders in the ‘singles’ folder 1962-1964, 1965-1967 and 1968-2024.

Just eight singles per page.

Or hey, you don’t mind scrolling a bit, so it’s just two folders, 1962-1966 and 1967-2024.

It’s your choice.

Here’s the problem. You sign up to just relying on tagging, and you’re dependent on ever increasing complexities of search criteria, as demanded by the system.

It was supposed to set you free, but it’s tied you down.

 

[slartibartfast]

So @simbun I've looked at your screenshots, and they’re very impressive. But I wouldn’t swap out mine for those for the world.

And the tagging process, and search criteria input needed to get there is a million miles from being as convenient as what I have.

Click A-B. Click Beatles. Click singles.

How much is that easier, and I mean massively easier, than typing in a search term, and inputting the relevant criteria for sorting by release date.

Horses for courses. But this horse suits my course, and I suspect it will for many. The limitations are theoretical - searching or ordering things by parameters I’ll never use, or use, only very rarely.

I'd argue that (as an example) my Beatles singles view is far superior, more logical, and better-looking, than anything we've seen here. nd, as that's the view I'm going to use most of the time, why should I do something else?

And I dislike the accusation that I’m limiting myself. I’m freeing myself to see what I’ll want to see most of the time, in the order I’ll want to see it most of the time. At the expense of a ‘flexibility’ I’ll rarely use, which will look less optimal than what I see.

Oh. And I can still use that anyway if I choose.

Well, that’s me.

Why do you keep mentioning searching? Nobody needs to search to play a Beatles single.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Why do you keep mentioning searching? Nobody needs to search to play a Beatles single.

So...you use telepathy?

 

[simbun]

And the tagging process, and search criteria input needed to get there is a million miles from being as convenient as what I have.

Click A-B. Click Beatles. Click singles.

How much is that easier, and I mean massively easier, than typing in a search term, and inputting the relevant criteria for sorting by release date.

What do you mean by search and inputting criteria? In my example all you do is:
Click B, Click Beatles, Click Release Type (which could be avoided), Click Singles.

The only problem is the first page really as it includes an arbitrary banding (A-C, D-F etc) alongside compilations. The best way to achieve that functionality in tag view would be to put a compilation index at the top level, alongside the AlbumArtist index, but yes it's different.

The ordering of singles/albums etc is trivial if there are tags to support them.
There are a number of ways to display your singles, either as individual albums as you currently have them configured, or as part of a box set, as in my U2 example.

Do the numbers alongside your singles represent their chronological order, so if you acquired another you may need to renumber?

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Also have option of sorting on the fly. Can't do that with by folder

That's so awful and clunky.

It looks cheap.

And ultimately, most of us don't want that level of choice (sort by), especially if it adds an extra level.

We want to view our music one way for 99% of the time. I don't want to sort my Led Zep tracks by alphabetical. I can do that, by the way, but I don't want to. I want to view Led Zep by album. So I want it to look good/at its best in that format, I don't want that view to be compromised for the 'benefit' of being able to sort it by how long Jimmy Page's toenails were.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

What do you mean by search and inputting criteria? In my example all you do is:
Click B, Click Beatles, Click Release Type (which could be avoided), Click Singles.

The only problem is the first page really as it includes an arbitrary banding (A-C, D-F etc) alongside compilations. The best way to achieve that functionality in tag view would be to put a compilation index at the top level, alongside the AlbumArtist index, but yes it's different.

The ordering of singles/albums etc is trivial if there are tags to support them.
There are a number of ways to display your singles, either as individual albums as you currently have them configured, or as part of a box set, as in my U2 example.

Do the numbers alongside your singles represent their chronological order, so if you acquired another you may need to renumber?

Thank you for that.

Regarding:

The only problem is the first page really as it includes an arbitrary banding (A-C, D-F etc)...

Not arbitrary. Bespoke.

...alongside compilations.

You've lost me. Or I've lost you. Artists are sorted by A-C, etc. This is bespoke. If I have a lot of 'B's I create a 'B' folder. If I have very few E, F, G and H artists, I stick them in one folder. Bespoke.

Regarding:

What do you mean by search and inputting criteria? In my example all you do is:
Click B, Click Beatles, Click Release Type (which could be avoided), Click Singles.


And EPs? And SDEs? I don't know, you tell me. I'm guessing each individual release requires its own tag, which (if bespoke) you have to create for each release, if it's not there already. What you're providing looks like it's populated by an online database. What if you disagree with the database? Can you alter that for individual albums? Or does the database kick back?

Okay, I have another challenge for you, I'm interested to see what it comes back with.

Tell me what you can see for the following.

Artist: Daran Duran
Release: Carnival

Let me know what you get.

 

[slartibartfast]

So...you use telepathy?

Click Beatles from the Artists list, click the single you want to play. No telepathy needed.

 

[slartibartfast]

Just one more thing, adding a level.

Let’s say you have one band, 5 singles. Bingo. Just do as the above.

Now let’s say the Beatles catalogue of 24 singles is a bit too long for your liking. As you can see, you can fit 8 on a page.

So, if you like (or not, if you don’t like), you can create sub-folders in the ‘singles’ folder 1962-1964, 1965-1967 and 1968-2024.

Just eight singles per page.

Or hey, you don’t mind scrolling a bit, so it’s just two folders, 1962-1966 and 1967-2024.

It’s your choice.

Here’s the problem. You sign up to just relying on tagging, and you’re dependent on ever increasing complexities of search criteria, as demanded by the system.

It was supposed to set you free, but it’s tied you down.

How do you play a random selection of Christmas songs if you fancy it? Or any other genre.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

A bit of history on that, because it's quite different to what we have now.

Internationally, Duran Duran had several releases across the globe best described as 12" EPs (even that doesn't quite get it).

Altogether there were 6 of these, Nite Romantics, Tiger! Tiger! and 4 different releases called Carnival. They generally compiled existing 12" mixes, b-sides, and brand new 'carnival' mixes, unique to that release. These compilations have never appeared on CD, but all the tracks involved have appeared elsewhere.

So I've recreated them myself.

Pics in a mo.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

 

[simbun]

The only problem is the first page really as it includes an arbitrary banding (A-C, D-F etc)...

Not arbitrary. Bespoke.

...alongside compilations.

You've lost me. Or I've lost you. Artists are sorted by A-C, etc. This is bespoke. If I have a lot of 'B's I create a 'B' folder. If I have very few E, F, G and H artists, I stick them in one folder. Bespoke.

Sorry it wasn't Compilations it was Various Artists (aka compilations) that is separated from the banding. Now that I think about it this could be implemented in AssetUPnP as it has a language layer to it where you can create virtual tags for browsing.

And EPs? And SDEs? I don't know, you tell me. I'm guessing each individual release requires its own tag,

There's just one tag in each file called releasetype (unless you want to call it something different) that you can put anything you like in, even multi value so releases could appear in multiple buckets.

Tell me what you can see for the following.

Artist: Daran Duran
Release: Carnival

Let me know what you get.

I'm not sure I follow. I don't have Duran Duran in my collection.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

The track listings for the Dutch, Spanish, Canadian and Japanese Carnivals are different, so they go on as separate releases. There's a lot of crossover, though. I've the created a sort of 'uberCarnival', containing all the tracks from these, but obviously only once each, hence '05 - Carnival (complete).

 

[simbun]

So I've recreated them myself.

If you've created them as albums (I assume with appropriate tags so they make sense on the Now Playing screen) then just tag them with an appropriate releasetype and they'll appear where you want them to.

Think of a music server as an excel spreadsheet. If you want to pick an artist then you filter on the AlbumArtist column, then the releasetype column and what's left are your releases. That's essentially how tag view works. You can put anything you like into any number of columns and use them for filtering (not searching), equivalent to one level in the file hierarchy.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Sorry it wasn't Compilations it was Various Artists (aka compilations) that is separated from the banding. Now that I think about it this could be implemented in AssetUPnP as it has a language layer to it where you can create virtual tags for browsing.

Cheers, I see what you're saying.

BTW, I have another folder beneath that, but I won't introduce it (certainly not just now) as it'd open a whole new can of worms.

My VA folder is then sub-divided several times over.

More in a mo.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Within VA.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

 

[Steve Woodhouse]