Some thoughts on Library list sorting, and tags

[andrewilley]

I initially started writing this as a reply to a request for sorting lists by size/bitrate, but it got away from that concept somewhat...

So here are some personal thoughts on the whole issue of sorting generally:

It strikes me that with the exception of Playlists/Queued tracks, all of the various playback modes (Folders/Library, Albums, Artists, Genre, Recent, Top Rated, etc.) are basically the same thing but with a different sort order and/or display mode.

They could all be replaced by a unified, generally simpler, system which allows multi-level sorting and various display options.

For example, the order could be sorted by Artist first, then by Album Title at the second level, then by Track Number. Or sort by direct folder-paths then filenames only. Or by Genre then Artist then Album Title then Song Title. Or just a simple 'Newest first' listing with nothing set for second-level sorting. Allow about four sorting levels, each with exactly the same wide range of options to make the coding simpler and give users' maximum flexibility.

There would also need to be a 'grouping' feature to control the drill-down hierarchy - e.g. a new display level could occur for each sorting level (so you could see all of your Genres, then drill down to Artists, then down Albums) or set a view-change to occur further down (so although you might be sorting by Genre than Artist, you'd just see a long list of all the Artists and only drill-down once, to see the Album titles).

Show/hide album art and/or song thumbnails for each grouping level would be a good idea too. So if you are using a folders/files structure where album art may not be relevant, you could disable thumbnails completely for the folder view, and only see the embedded (i.e. song) thumbnails when you drill down to the file level.

Maybe even allow filter settings for each sort level too, so you could have one view where only podcasts and audiobooks are visible, and another where only music tracks less than 10 minutes long are displayed?

These sort/grouping/display options would be saved as named User Presets (for which the provided defaults would perform in exactly the same way as the current Library modes work, in order to make it simpler for users upgrading) but still allowing total flexibility to set up any regularly-used modes. The presets would be available via tabs scrolled along the bottom of the listing screen (where the Folders/Library tab titles are presently shown).

This would initially be quite a bit of work to code, but boy would it be elegant, flexible and powerful (and everything would be unified, so very easily reconfigured or expanded) once done.

Thoughts? Any obvious downsides? (Apart from Max's sanity!)

Andre

[andrewilley]

We so often get people asking about sorting by tags, album artist field, how to display libraries differently, etc. that I'm surprised no one has anything to say about this. It just seemed to me an ideal way to solve a whole load of things in one go. It would allow people who don't like the default modes to simply set up their own customised library views (and thus control playback order) with their own multi-level sort order and display choices.

 

Andre

[Izaku]

I totally agree with andrewilley.

 

First things first, I've always found not being able to sort all my songs according to bit rate a tad bit frustrating. I have a fair bit of lossless files as well as music with bit rates between 400-500kbps and when I want to either sort out these files or just listen to only my lossless files I had to manually go through my library in an arduous search for them and dump them all in one playlist. So being able to sort songs by bit rate or filter songs according to a specified bit rate range would be a much welcomed feature. 

 

Secondly I personally think andrewilley's suggestions would definitely make for a much more elegant and organised interface. It would be best to be able to have such an interface but I think as andrewilley has pointed out, this kind of work takes a lot of time and effort. I don't really have any major gripes on the current system though I would concede that there is room for improvement. 

[etienv]

I would really like to see a few options my self, I see there is a rating list. Once you rating your library, it would be nice to be able to only play 5 star rated songs, or 3 to 5 star, etc etc. Another thing that would be nice is to be able to repeat a list instead of going to the next one. Qued songs seem to get stuck on repeat now, which didn't happen before. Selecting more then one item seems to be a big concern, especially if your going to add more search functions...

Just some of my thoughts.

Todd Vandenbroecke

[Stinger]

Great idea Andrewilly.  I'd add that visual sorting is best, such as the ability to slide tags from a list of optional sorts to be stacked on each other, like pancakes.  A users can thus instantly visualize his sort hierarchy, add, remove change order, etc. 

[David Afonso]

This is not only very elegant but also very powerful. Having hierarchical sorting and filtering options would make Poweramp even more impressive.
Now there are some tags that are missing in the current options like BPM and filerate. With those included in your idea it would be crazy.

[FM]

I agree.

Because currently:
- When I sort by Album, then the tracks within those albums are random (and it's a minor convenience the artists are random)
- When I sort by Artist, then all the tracks across all albums for that artist are random
- When I sort by track number, then artist, album, year are random
- When I sort by filename, then still everything is random (there is no sort by "path + filename")
- When I sort by year, then album, artist and track are random

So either:
- Introduce "sort by path + filename"

Or allow multi-level sorting, so I can:
- Sort by Genre
- then by Artist
- then by Year
- then by Album name
- then by Track number

I recently purchased Poweramp, and hoped that it would sensible sorting options and was a bit disappointed that it didn't (yet).

[andrewilley]

On the current system, if you view by Album (e.g. with that Album-list level sorting set to alphabetical) then you can set the Songs sort order to "Track #". Song-level sorting can be set independently for different top-level lists.

Also, if you use Folders sorting (which is my preference) then you can sort the folders level by path, and then the songs level by filename.

These are all controlled by using Menu > List Options, which has a discrete set of choices for each level of each list type.

Andre

[FM]

Well, I wanted to continuously play all songs in my library.
So I selected "All Songs". Then I find I can only choose one sort order.

Or if I want to play all songs from one artist:
If I'd change sort order to "By year", then it still screws up when there are multiple albums in that year. And it totally messes up track order within those albums.

[andrewilley]

All Songs is not a terribly useful way to use Poweramp for daily use as it only has the one level, i.e. 'All'.

Better to choose the way you want to sort your songs first (e.g. Albums, or Artists) and then the rest is pretty much done for you. PA will still play every song in your collection (if you leave it going for long enough anyway) but in the order you want - e.g. sorted alphabetically by albums at the top level, then by track# at the songs level. 

Andre