Prefere "Album Artist" over "Artist"

[zefix]

Hi,
I test your app for the moment and I'm thinking about buying it, because its great. But I have a question/feature request first. I know there are some similar Topic answered already, but not exactly this one:
My hole library has the artist tag filled. But if there are multible artists for a compilation or featured tracks inside an album, I created an album artist tag for that.

Isn't it possible to add an option to prefere album artist over artist in artist view or pay attention to the artist tag in the album artists view if no album artist tag exists?

 

Thanks

Zefix

 

[andrewilley]

In Artists view PA should always use Track Artist rather than Album Artist (otherwise you'd never find songs that exist in Various Artists compilation albums).

However I do agree that the Album Artists category should definitely have the option (or probably just the default) of falling back to using the Track Artist tag whenever there is no Album Artist tag in a file.

Andre

[zefix]

You are right. It doesn't make sense in artist, but in album artist view.

 

Have you already planned this feature? When can I expect a first version in your great app?

[andrewilley]

Just now, zefix said:

Have you already planned this feature? When can I expect a first version in your great app?

As it says in my sig, it's not my app, @maxmp is the developer and I don't know whether he plans to implement something like this or not. It would make sense to me, but there could be some underlying reason why not

Andre

[zefix]

Sorry Andre

I probably missed that.

@maxmp

Is there a chance to get such a feature?

Zefix

[Azul]

+1

[null]

I don't quite understand what you're asking for. Unless I am, and then well, the feature is there.

You can select which categories are shown in the library view. Two of these categories are the album artist categories. One of these two categories will sort albums by album artist, and optionally show all the tracks in albums by that album artist.

[andrewilley]

I think the OP was asking for Album Artist views to fall back to using the regular Artist tag whenever an Album Artist tag is not present, rather than sorting all such tracks as Unknown Album Artist.

Andre

[null]

15 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I think the OP was asking for Album Artist views to fall back to using the regular Artist tag whenever an Album Artist tag is not present, rather than sorting all such tracks as Unknown Album Artist.

Andre

Ah yeah, now that you explained it it makes sense.

[andrewilley]

While we're discussing how untagged artists and albums are displayed in lists, would anyone else prefer these to be shown at the very end of the normal list of names, rather than hidden away sorted under 'U'? Perhaps simply define the generated display name to start with a square bracket, and the sort process will do it automatically? Such as "[Unknown Artist]" and "[Unknown Album]" at the end of the list of real names.

Andre

[null]

@andrewilley At the end? That'd be damn confusing. At the start, maybe.

[andrewilley]

Why would you want random unlisted stuff at the start of the list, before the genuine items? I'd have thought tucking it away at the end of the list, like an appendix, would be better. Whichever though, sorting it under 'U' seems strange as it's really a group of items that are not part of the list.

Andre

[MotleyG]

On 5/1/2020 at 7:01 PM, andrewilley said:

Why would you want random unlisted stuff at the start of the list, before the genuine items? I'd have thought tucking it away at the end of the list, like an appendix, would be better. Whichever though, sorting it under 'U' seems strange as it's really a group of items that are not part of the list.

Andre

Definitely prefer the end. Or better yet an option to hide "unknown" tracks with incomplete tag info for the current list. This could be Composer, Artist, Album Artist, etc. All by the songs list of necessary.

G

[null]

@andrewilley In my opinion, general categories should be immediately visible, not hidden away at the end because you don't know they're there.

You know your album artists are filling up your albums by artist category. For the unknown, however, you'd have to guess that the Unknown artist category is at the end. Hell, you have to guess that it's at the 'U' point.

It makes sense to you to put it at the end because you would actually know that it's at the end and you don't want to see it. What about the rest of the userbase?

[andrewilley]

'Unknown' is not a general category at all, it's more of a non-category. Personally I'd still stick it at the end, basically as an afterthought so it doesn't get in the way of all the properly indexed stuff. But I think we're all in agreement that filing it under 'U' makes no sense at all in longer lists (as it could just as easily be hidden under 'N' for Not Listed, 'A' for Absent, or 'H' for Haven't a Clue  ) 

Andre

[null]

On 5/3/2020 at 6:12 AM, andrewilley said:

'Unknown' is not a general category at all, it's more of a non-category.

Does that really mean anything? I mean, it's still a way to sort the files.

 

On 5/3/2020 at 6:12 AM, andrewilley said:

Personally I'd still stick it at the end, basically as an afterthought so it doesn't get in the way of all the properly indexed stuff.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that the overall Poweramp userbase does not care as long as it isn't in the U section, and even then nobody has said anything about it until now. Those who do care probably either: 

1) want to see those immediately to fix it, or

2) want to keep it at hand because they're not going to fix the tags. The Venn diagram between this one and Poweramp users is probably two separate circles.

You want to hide it in case you're not going to fix the tags immediately, but are probably going to fix them later on and don't want to make your library look ugly. I would guess a good portion of the userbase would rather know immediately whether their tags are wrong, like me, and another good portion would rather hide it away, like you.

I think this ought to be another optional feature, if it really matters, which it probably doesn't so I'm not going to bother Max about it.

[MotleyG]

I agree that this is probably a very polarized requirement as @null has mentioned. Either highlight unknown tags in the appropriate lists (Artist, Album Artist, Composer, Album, maybe even Genre) and move them to the top of the list. Or in cases where users don't care to notice, have the ability in the list options to completely hide items that are unknown.

 OR... let your OCD take over and have all of your tags completed so that it is irrelevant!😋

[null]

36 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

I agree that this is probably a very polarized requirement as @null has mentioned. 

Well, with a sample size of two people, one of which doesn't even really care, it's hard to say…

 

37 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

OR... let your OCD take over and have all of your tags completed so that it is irrelevant!😋

I don't even have to say it, but almost all of the userbase has done that already, I'm sure.

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, null said:

Does that really mean anything? I mean, it's still a way to sort the files.

Not really, it's more of a way of finding something do with any files that can't be sorted. Hence my thought process of dumping them at the end of a properly sorted list, like an appendix. I'd prefer to see the correctly indexed stuff first, and anything unlistable bunched up at the end. But as I said, I think we all agree that putting them alphabetically under 'U' is not the best idea.

Andre

[vanon]

Thanks for making this topic and feature request, zefix. And everyone else for caring and considering how to fix this issue for us.

This problem has been driving me a bit nuts for a while, because I thought I must be setting something wrong. I just couldn't accept that the amazing and endlessly customizable Poweramp can't show my albums like... just about every other music player.

I only set the Album Artist tag (usually as "Various Artists") when there are multiple artists for an album (compilation), mostly to simplify and clean up Artist category sorting. I do not enter an Album Artist tag otherwise; most of my albums do not have one.

Whether this problem will be solved by changing Artist category (prefer Album Artist first), or changing Album Artist category (sort by Artist if no Album Artist, not "unknown"), or some other setting... I'll take anything. Please, before my brain melts. (The burning has subsided since I found this topic, though.)

[andrewilley]

Although both the Album Artist and the Artist categories are correctly "doing what they say on tin", I do agree that from a usability point of view the Album Artist sorting modes should ideally fall back to using the Artist tag whenever an Album Artist tag is not present in a file, rather than the current functionality of treating them as Unknown.

Of course ideally an Album Artist tag should always be present anyway - even if it is exactly the same as the Artist tag - for any album-oriented tracks. For individual Singles of course, there won't be either an Album Artist or even an Album title, and it is for those types of song that the Unknown groups do still need to exist.

Albums view should in my opinion prefer to use an Album Artist tag if one is present, and fall back to using the Artist tag if not.

Artists view should only use the Artist tag though, never Album Artist, as part of the reason for having an Artist view is to see who the individual tracks are by rather than lumping everything that exists in a compilation album into one listing.

Andre

[Niggle]

Sort of related to this thread, I hope, but in the library's 'Albums' listing, I would like to see the option of sorting by album artist, instead of (or in addition to) track artist.

And if this 'album artist' option is selected, then obviously also displaying the album artist (not the track artist) for each album, in this listing.

In this way, compilation albums would be grouped together by their album artist, instead of being distributed according to the artist of the last track of each album (which seems to be the current behaviour).

Many thanks, Nigel

[andrewilley]

@Niggle That's pretty much what I was saying. In Albums view, it makes little sense to use an individual Artist tag whenever there is an Album Artist tag supplied for that song.  

Andre

[Niggle]

Ah, ok.  Missed that bit, sorry

[vanon]

9 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I do agree that from a usability point of view the Album Artist sorting modes should ideally fall back to using the Artist tag whenever an Album Artist tag is not present in a file, rather than the current functionality of treating them as Unknown

Exactly. I hope this will be implemented.

 

Quote

Of course ideally an Album Artist tag should always be present anyway - even if it is exactly the same as the Artist tag - for any album-oriented tracks.

I would be tempted to start adding an Album Artist tag to all albums if there were problems in a few of my media players. However, they all sort Artist fine, even by default. (They always prefer Album Artist first, then Artist. None ignore Album Artist tag, although I can see the value in that, and now understand the origin of this Poweramp behavior). I wouldn't mind using Album Artist category instead, if it would fall back to using Artist tag as stated. Or a setting for Artist to prefer Album Artist tag (like other apps) would also work (...or not, and just ignore this).

Sorry if this has already been said. I think we're all hopeful for a simple change or toggle to one of these, but my brain numbs as I think the words "album" and "artist" over and over and over again.