Multiple artists : display option ?

[otnp]

This is a detail, but :

When having multiple artists, could it be possible to display something else than the separator when playing ?

For example, on the image I joined, on play it displays "Czarface;MF DOOM" as the artist; could it display "Czarface & MF DOOM" instead ? I can't set & as the separator of course, because of all the groups with & in their names. Even then it would display "artist1&artist2".

Maybe if there's more than 2 it could manage to display something like "artist1, artist2 & artist3" ? That seem a little more complicated to implement though.

Thanks !

EDIT : Another possibility : display album artists instead. This could be a "problem" with V/A albums but eh, if it's an option. I think there's already an option for that, but i was thinking an option for displaying the AA only when there are multiple artists.

Edited May 8, 2021 by otnp

[andrewilley]

The artist line under song titles is displayed verbatim from the original tag, it is not rebuilt from any split names. This is useful if you have songs with "feat.", "ft.", "w/" etc so you can see how they were originally intended to be displayed - e.g. "Robin Thicke feat. Pharrell" if that's what the tag says.

If a file contains multiple individual tags (e.g. Vorbis files with several different ARTIST tags) then PA concatenates them together using <space><semicolon><space> as the separator. My own suggestion for this occurrence was to use a blob character. For example, a song like "Dancing in the Street" with two individual Vorbis ARTIST tags would be shown as being by "David Bowie ● Mick Jagger" rather than the current "David Bowie ; Mick Jagger" (the latter could just as easily have been a single string). 

[Edit] If you like the blob idea, you could always do a batch tag edit on all your music files to replace any semicolons in Artist tags with " ● " , and then set the blob character as one of your separator symbols in PA.

Andre

[otnp]

What I mean is :

I have "Czarface;MF DOOM" as the tag so that it appears under both artists in the library. When playing, it displays the tag as is, so "Czarface;MF DOOM". The problem is just aestethic, and "Czarface●MF DOOM" would be kinda "ugly" too. I was thinking displaying an altered version of the tag with " & " displayed in place of ";", or leave the possibility to display the album artists instead when there are multiple. In this case, the AA indeed is "Czarface & MF DOOM". Having & as the separator would split artists in two that are not meant to, like for exemple Bob Marley & The Wailers

[Absinthequ]

I use ❌ it shows up red and a lot of artists are using X instead of & or feat. 

You could also use a Unicode version of &. It looks identical and it wouldn't be confused with the regular one by Poweramp. 

﹠ - small ampersand 

＆ - full ampersand

& - standard keyboard 

 Just copy and paste into your tag. 

This is what the 3 different ones look like in Poweramp side by side :

Edited May 8, 2021 by Absinthequ

[andrewilley]

Whichever you decide (semicolon, blob, modified-ampersand) it would always look better if you use spaces either side for padding - e.g. "Czarface ● MF DOOM"

Andre

[Absinthequ]

8 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

Whichever you decide (semicolon, blob, modified-ampersand) it would always look better if you use spaces either side for padding - e.g. "Czarface ● MF DOOM"

Andre

Exactly.

You should be able to tag using the full ampersand "Czarface ＆ MF Doom" and add that special ＆ as the splitter. 

[otnp]

Full ampersand seems like a good idea yeah

9 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

Whichever you decide (semicolon, blob, modified-ampersand) it would always look better if you use spaces either side for padding - e.g. "Czarface ● MF DOOM"

Andre

By doing so, would they still appear under both artists with the added space ?

Thank both of you !

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, otnp said:

Full ampersand seems like a good idea yeah

By doing so, would they still appear under both artists with the added space ?

Thank both of you !

Yes, be sure to include the spaces when you define the separator for Poweramp.

EDIT: After a few tests I can confirm the spaces are trimmed. These are not required to be added in the defined symbol. In fact Poweramp removes any leading or trailing spaces when you save the symbol.

Edited May 8, 2021 by MotleyG

[andrewilley]

4 minutes ago, otnp said:

By doing so, would they still appear under both artists with the added space ?

No, leading and trailing spaces around separators are trimmed by the scanner. You can't include spaces within the symbols list either (or rather if you do, it will create several entries with one 'Add').

Andre

[Absinthequ]

1 minute ago, andrewilley said:

No, leading and trailing spaces around separators are trimmed by the scanner.

Andre

I was wondering if it did both.  when i used to tag mine as "artist; Artist 2" i noticed Poweramp trimmed the space in between. I wasn't sure it did both sides.

[MotleyG]

6 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

 

 

6 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

No, leading and trailing spaces around separators are trimmed by the scanner.

Andre

@andrewilley I thought that spaces could be defined as part of the separator so that "&" and " & " could yield different results. 

Example;

Smith&Wesson - separator "&" yields two artists "Smith" "Wesson" but separator " & "  only yields one artist as original.

Edited May 8, 2021 by MotleyG

[otnp]

Ok thanks a lot ! That should do the trick. Do you also know of a "fake" comma that can be used as a separator ?

[andrewilley]

Just now, otnp said:

Ok thanks a lot ! That should do the trick. Do you also know of a "fake" comma that can be used as a separator ?

There are extra variants of most characters in the Unicode list, I'm sure there must be a comma in there.

Andre

[otnp]

yeah ，can be used apparently (adds the space too)

[Absinthequ]

1 minute ago, otnp said:

Ok thanks a lot ! That should do the trick. Do you also know of a "fake" comma that can be used as a separator ?

Go to this page and search for any letter /character you're looking for. Towards the bottom of the page of that character it will show you alternatives you can try. If they show up on your phone,  they will show up in Poweramp. 

https://www.compart.com/en/unicode

[andrewilley]

14 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

I thought that spaces could be defined as part of the separator so that "&" and " & " could yield different results. 

Example;

Smith&Wesson - separator "&" yields two artists "Smith" "Wesson" but separator " & "  only yields one artist as original.

I don't think so. If you try to 'Add' a new separator with spaces either side of the character, you won't see the extra spaces in the resulting added item. Originally, when there was just one long string for the separator symbols, spaces were used as delimiters in the list.

Andre

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

I don't think so. If you try to 'Add' a new separator with spaces either side of the character, you won't see the extra spaces in the resulting added item. Originally, when there was just one long string for the separator symbols, spaces were used as delimiters in the list.

Andre

This is correct behaviour, spaces are ignored in the symbol definition, and trimmed in the Artist list. Thanks for clarifying.

Edited May 8, 2021 by MotleyG