Unknown artist

[djpete]

I don't use tags just file name as song details but I get unknown artists I can't see any way to switch this off I think this feature should be allowed so when you use song as filename only unknown artist does not show up 

Screenshot.....

https://ibb.co/B6sySzj

Edited September 5, 2023 by djpete
Added screenshot

[andrewilley]

You can currently hide the display of "Unknown Album" wording in lists and the Player Screen (in Settings=>Library=>Lists) but not yet "Unknown Artist". I agree it would be nice if that controlled both missing tags, as if the user doesn't want to see one warning message they probably don't want to see the other either.
 

Personally, I'd prefer this to be implemented as part of a larger long-standing Feature Request for the ability to fully customise the current Title and Artist-Album lines. The idea being to provide user-editable formatting strings in the List Options menus (plus a global default version in Settings). These strings would define exactly what tags the user wants to see, along with any literal text or symbols - e.g. "%artist% - %album% (%year%)".

To accomplish what you are asking for - i.e. hiding empty tags rather than showing them as "Unknown..." - you'd simply surround any such conditional items with square brackets to indicate they should only be displayed when the tag contains some data. Thus to make my earlier example hide any empty tags, you'd use:  "[%artist%][ - %album%][ (%year%)]".
 

While this would be an amazingly powerful feature, I can see there being quite a bit of work in implementing it - and especially testing with multiple permutations - so just widening the scope of the existing switch would seem to be a sensible interim measure.

Andre

[djpete]

Yes that's what you could do in Winamp music player which I use still on desktop. Thanks for the detailed reply

 

 

[MotleyG]

7 hours ago, djpete said:

I don't use tags just file name as song details but I get unknown artists

Slightly off topic, but making a recommendation for you - there are some very good tag editors that can use the existing info in your file names and create at least the simple Artist and Title tags for you. I’m not sure why you wouldn’t want this info to be included, as most modern players depend on the tags for a better browsing experience. My personal preference is mp3tag, free for PC users. Just a suggestion.

[djpete]

I hear you. I have that editor.

 

Maybe...

[andrewilley]

I'm with @MotleyG in that a well curated collection of music files, with accurate tags, is the ideal way to go. But there are still some occasions where stuff is badly tagged and you don't want to go to the bother of editing. Auto-downloaded podcasts spring to mind, which quite often show as "Unknown Artist - Unknown Album" - but as I'm going to delete them in a few days or weeks after listening, I don't bother re-editing their tags.

Andre