Option to group genres

[GeilerHeinz]

For the most part the genre tag of my music files is filled with subgenres like for example indie pop, alternative rock, rock'n'roll, downtempo, nu jazz etc. That's why my genre category in PA with about 80 entries is very confusing. 

A nice solution would be an option to group several (sub-)genres to overall genres and the ability to freely name these overall genres user-defined. This way I could for example define an overall genre Pop/Rock which would contain the genres indie rock, alternative rock, rock'n'roll et al. The overall genres should be made available as separate category in the library menu and would be much more well-arranged like my current genre category. 

What do you think about it? 

Regards

[Kundun]

+1

[andrewilley]

A partial solution to this in the meantime would be to add an extra entry into the Genre tag of any song that you want to also see under a grouped entity. So for example, Genre tags would be set using wording like "Indie Rock ; (Pop/Rock)", "Alternative Rock ;(Pop/Rock)" or "(Pop/Rock) ; Rock'n'Roll", etc.

The Genre Category list would then show you each individual item - so you'd see "(Pop/Rock)" plus individual listings for "Indie Rock", "Alternative Rock" and "Rock'n'Roll". I used the brackets in "(Pop/Rock)" to ensure that the grouped item will get sorted at the top of the Category list for ease of use, but you could name it anything you like.

It would take a little effort to initially edit the tags, but with a batch editor like TagScanner or MP3Tag on a computer it shouldn't be a difficult task, and it'd only be a one-off job. In TagScanner for example, you'd import your whole music collection into the program, sort the long list by 'Genre', then select all the songs that you want to fall into a given grouping and use the 'Generate' tab to prefix (or append, if you prefer) any existing Genre wording with an extra term like "(Rock/Pop) ; " thus:

Andre

[GeilerHeinz]

Thanks, Andre, for replying.

Following your proposal the overall Genre Pop/Rock would show all albums of the genres Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, Rock'n'Roll etc. in a flat list. 

What I want is the overall Genres (e.g. Pop/Rock or Electronic) to be an additional level, which gives access to the particular genre categories defined by tags (e.g. Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, Rock'n'Roll etc.). 

Perhaps I should have been more precise beforehand.

Regards 

[andrewilley]

So you want Genre to become a drill-down system, with a few top-level categories and assorted nested items underneath those? Unfortunately neither the ID3 nor Vorbis tagging systems offer any sort of hierarchy for Genre tags - you can have multiple descriptions, but there is no way to define them as having a nested hierarchy. 

Andre 

[GeilerHeinz]

 

9 hours ago, andrewilley said:

So you want Genre to become a drill-down system, with a few top-level categories and assorted nested items underneath those? [...] 

Yes, in the end that's what I want to achieve. But the top-level categories shouldn't be derived from ID3 tags.

I only want to have the opportunity to manually group certain genre categories to top-level categories or let's call it "folders" exclusively within PA. These folders only act as system to get access to the (tag-driven) genre categories of my huge music collection in a well-arranged way.

Regards 

[andrewilley]

I see, so you are looking for a purely Poweramp-based feature to allow you to create your own folder-like subgroups within the Genre Category, to make browsing simpler.

I'm not sure how generally useful such a feature would be, but then this is the Feature Requests topic so maybe Max will come up with something at some point?

Andre

[Ash Roarshock]

I think the toyed around with idea of a favorites category could help with this and a few other big requests.

If there was a favorites category, you could add any genres you wanted to the Favorite "Pop/Rock".

You could also add a bunch of albums and songs to a favorite and this would solve the request for playlists that include drill down albums rather than just songs. This may eliminate the need for some wanting dynamic playlists.

Or you could add a bunch of artists to a favorite and then this would resolve the request for some people of being able to sort Genre->artist->albums. Some people just want to be able to group artists and name it something and they're trying to use genre to accomplish it.

There's probably a few other special requests this would solve, but you get the idea. 

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Ash Roarshock

[andrewilley]

@Ash Roarshock I think the concept of a 'Favourites' Category was not a nested system, but a simple flat list that you could put anything into. So for example you could put some songs in there, or Folders, Albums, Genres, etc. But each one would be a single 'thing'. I'm assuming that tapping on a song would play it immediately (like tapping on a song in any list) while tapping on a category (a folder/album/genre/etc) would open it for viewing - but maybe that could be configurable?

Andre

[Ash Roarshock]

It would be nice if it was a category. Within it was a list of user defined favorites. Whether the favorites contained albums, artists, genres, etc. All drill down able. 

[andrewilley]

The original discussed idea was just a simple list (like the Bookmarks list) which you could add things to using a new '+Favourite' button in the long-press action menu.

But maybe whenever this does get implemented, it might be possible to include some sort of management facility within the Category to allow you to create groups (rather like folders) to better organise the list?

Andre 

[Ash Roarshock]

That would be better.

[GeilerHeinz]

Thanks for the productive exchange of views. 

I think the implementation of a favourite feature as a category would be a really helpful and flexible improvement. 

Regards 

[drftr]

I got around this a few decades ago by doing something similar to Andre's first suggestion (but the other way 'round) and have adopted the system that a country name has the continent it belongs to as a prefix. So when searching for music from Nigeria I know I have to look at the tag "Africa: Nigeria". But this way I can also find all music for African countries. Same same but different. And works like a charm no matter what music app you use now or in the future.

 

drftr

[GeilerHeinz]

@maxmp Is the 'favourites' category, where you can pin to another categories, something you can imagine to implement in the future?

Regards