Add "List Options: All Songs -> By album artist"

[Calabaza63]

I've been trying to find workarounds throughout post and so on, but none seem to work. Is it too much to ask for that feature to be added to All Songs? I am really enjoying this app but little things like this destroy the user experience.

Also, please add the Alphabet Index to it as well. I notice that other List Options are missing this features and I fail to understand why.

[Bencherished]

Hello @Calabaza63, I think Poweramp have what you are asking for but you changed the order by which it appears. 

If you want to see all songs by an artist, in their various albums, go through the category > Artist. You will see all albums pertaining to the artist. 

If you want to see all the songs in a list by an artist, according to albums > when you enter the Artist, below the album art, you will see all artist songs. 

Bencherished 

[Calabaza63]

12 minutes ago, Bencherished said:

Hello @Calabaza63, I think Poweramp have what you are asking for but you changed the order by which it appears. 

If you want to see all songs by an artist, in their various albums, go through the category > Artist. You will see all albums pertaining to the artist. 

If you want to see all the songs in a list by an artist, according to albums > when you enter the Artist, below the album art, you will see all artist songs. 

Bencherished 

Not quite, I want to see all the songs in my library sorted by album artist without the need to enter a sub-folder.

Having all songs being displayed makes it really easy to navigate through songs instead of having to back out a sub-folder every time

[andrewilley]

While technically it would be easy to add some more sort options to the All Songs list, sorting a huge list of individual songs by Album Artist (rather than by Song Artist) seems a but nonsensical - you'd have a huge block for 'Various Artists' with hundreds of randomly placed songs in for example.  

Andre

[Calabaza63]

4 hours ago, andrewilley said:

While technically it would be easy to add some more sort options to the All Songs list, sorting a huge list of individual songs by Album Artist (rather than by Song Artist) seems a but nonsensical - you'd have a huge block for 'Various Artists' with hundreds of randomly placed songs in for example.  

Andre

Thats true, but the way I have set-up my library is with a single artist, show/game name, or group as the Album Artist (I edited all tags manually on mp3tag since my collection is old). While Artist name would have some Prefix like OST, BGM, and others would have Suffix such as Opening 2, Ending 5.

In other words, I have set all my album artist tags so that none of them would be tagged as "Various Artists", having the option to sort by it would make the app experience so much better for those with similar situations like mine.

 

By the way, thank you for responding, I was not expecting to get a reply so fast.

[MotleyG]

8 hours ago, Calabaza63 said:

Not quite, I want to see all the songs in my library sorted by album artist without the need to enter a sub-folder.

Having all songs being displayed makes it really easy to navigate through songs instead of having to back out a sub-folder every time

I don't quite understand how browsing a full list of all songs, but sorted by Album Artist, would at all be an easy way to look through your library. If you have 10-20,000 songs, this would not be an easy way to find a song, album, or artist. The main library headings show how each list is managed. If you choose all songs, they are listed typically alphabetically by title to search that list for a song. The Album list is to browse by album. The AlbumArtist and Artist lists, not surprisingly, find the artists. I know everybody has their own way of doing things, but this really does not seem to be any easier than moving in and out of the selected subheading of any of these currently available libraries. Certainly not for any library of music with more than a few albums worth of songs.

[andrewilley]

@Calabaza63 Unfortunately, if you have chosen to use the Artist and Album Artist tags for your own purposes, rather than the documented/accepted Track Artist and Album Grouping uses, you can't be too surprised if apps don't then behave quite the way you want them to.

Andre

[Calabaza63]

4 hours ago, MotleyG said:

I don't quite understand how browsing a full list of all songs, but sorted by Album Artist, would at all be an easy way to look through your library. If you have 10-20,000 songs, this would not be an easy way to find a song, album, or artist. The main library headings show how each list is managed. If you choose all songs, they are listed typically alphabetically by title to search that list for a song. The Album list is to browse by album. The AlbumArtist and Artist lists, not surprisingly, find the artists. I know everybody has their own way of doing things, but this really does not seem to be any easier than moving in and out of the selected subheading of any of these currently available libraries. Certainly not for any library of music with more than a few albums worth of songs.

I don't have a huge amount of songs to have the need to scroll multiple times to get to the next letter. Having to go in and out of subfolders is a pain when I know what I want to listen to next is two taps away or the subfolder below.

Is there a way to show all songs in List Option: Album Artist instead of folders? 

[Calabaza63]

4 hours ago, andrewilley said:

@Calabaza63 Unfortunately, if you have chosen to use the Artist and Album Artist tags for your own purposes, rather than the documented/accepted Track Artist and Album Grouping uses, you can't be too surprised if apps don't then behave quite the way you want them to.

Andre

I am aware, I don't know much about  app development but I thought adding that one extra option would not be hard or detrimental to the app overall.

Specially when it seems to be constantly updating

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, Calabaza63 said:

I don't have a huge amount of songs to have the need to scroll multiple times to get to the next letter. Having to go in and out of subfolders is a pain when I know what I want to listen to next is two taps away or the subfolder below.

Is there a way to show all songs in List Option: Album Artist instead of folders? 

If you don't have that many songs, then you can at least choose the "By album" setting in the List Options. At least that will keep your separate albums grouped together. There is an Artist option as well, but that will separate any compilation albums. Given there are 5+ million unlocker app downloads, but just this one request for this additional option, I can't see it coming any time soon.

[andrewilley]

I can't see any harm in adding this feature at some point, but equally I can't see it being high up the priority list either.

IMHO it would be more useful to put the work into a more flexible general customisation feature for categories, which could do the same thing.

Andre

[Calabaza63]

2 hours ago, MotleyG said:

If you don't have that many songs, then you can at least choose the "By album" setting in the List Options. At least that will keep your separate albums grouped together. There is an Artist option as well, but that will separate any compilation albums. Given there are 5+ million unlocker app downloads, but just this one request for this additional option, I can't see it coming any time soon.

I wanted to do it by Albums but I am keeping the oringinal names for those, so Gorillaz will have Demon Days, Plastic Beach, and such

[Calabaza63]

55 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

I can't see any harm in adding this feature at some point, but equally I can't see it being high up the priority list either.

IMHO it would be more useful to put the work into a more flexible general customisation feature for categories, which could do the same thing.

Andre

More customization will always be welcome.

Another thing I wanted to mention, have you been informed that the A-Z index is not working on all sorting options? If so, do you plan to fix these as well?

Also, I was able to bruteforce my way into sorting by Album Artist on "List Options: All Songs" By artist, but now many letters are skipped on the A-Z Index even when there are songs starting missing letters.
I got this by enabling the following 3:

Album Artist Label for Tracks
Album Artist Label for Albums
Album Artist Label for Album Artist Tracks

 

[andrewilley]

@Calabaza63 Glad you've found a solution to your personal choice of tag customisations; yes, setting Album Artist to replace Artist in all lists would probably work for you if that's the way you've chosen to edit your tags.

A-Z indexing (the column down the right-hand side of lists) should be available in any alphabetically-sorted library views (so for Title, Artist, Album, etc but not for Track#, path, etc sorting). What is not working for you?

Andre 

[Calabaza63]

22 hours ago, andrewilley said:

@Calabaza63 Glad you've found a solution to your personal choice of tag customisations; yes, setting Album Artist to replace Artist in all lists would probably work for you if that's the way you've chosen to edit your tags.

A-Z indexing (the column down the right-hand side of lists) should be available in any alphabetically-sorted library views (so for Title, Artist, Album, etc but not for Track#, path, etc sorting). What is not working for you?

Andre 

The solution I found is not working properly, allow me to explain with these screenshots:

1- When choosing "E", first song with that letter is not selected (First album artist is "Earth, Wind & Fire")
2- When choosing "F", nothing changes as if there are no songs with that letter
3- Shows that there are songs that have Album Artist that start with "F"

(Indexes work well with plain old "Sort By Artist")

 

The second issue with Indexes not showing in all sorts options is the following:

Index is shown on "By artist", but not in "By filename" (Also not in "By path", both which were my plan B if Album Artist doesn't work)