Sorting Albums by Year in Genres

[eryxmind]

When viewing your albums by Genre, the app only allows you to choose one sort parameter, (by Album or by Year, etc). It does not allow sorting the albums by Artist AND Year. I have to add the Year to the Album title to get the albums to be grouped and sorted by Artist, then by Year, (when viewing by Genre). Seems like a very basic function which most popular apps have, such as MusicBee and Windows Media player. Could we fix this? Thank you!

[andrewilley]

There is an existing Feature Request for more sorting options, especially for more layered ones such as your request. You can vote for it here (once your account is at least two days and two posts old):

Andre

[eryxmind]

Thank you for the info👍 Do you know if there is a tag feature I could add to the files to make them sort this way? (...besides adding the year to the Album title.) Thank you!

[andrewilley]

I tend to mostly use the Folders Hierarchy category, and sort it by path>filename. Then for any album subfolder names, I prefix them with the year. So for example in the Electric Light Orchestra folder, I might have subfolders named:

  (1976) A New World Record
  (1977) Out of the Blue
  (1979) Discovery
  (1981) Time

Adding a few extra sorting options (such as the Artist category allowing Year>Album) was in a list of "low hanging fruit" Feature Requests that I collated a couple of years ago in fact. My idea was to tick off a whole of bunch of these useful and often-requested - but simple-to-code - requests in a short time, as a break from working on larger-scale projects. I still think it would be a good idea, as it would make a good impact without too much complex work. 

Andre

[eryxmind]

Thanks for the quick response! That works too, however, it doesn't solve the problem of the year being displayed before the album name. The year takes up space on the screen, which can be a bit of a problem because a phone screen is so small, and it looks a little cluttered. It's not a big deal but it would be nice to have a standard feature that is included in most media players, starting with Windows Media Player, which has been around for decades.

[MotleyG]

1 minute ago, eryxmind said:

Thanks for the quick response! That works too, however, it doesn't solve the problem of the year being displayed before the album name. The year takes up space on the screen, which can be a bit of a problem because a phone screen is so small, and it looks a little cluttered. It's not a big deal but it would be nice to have a standard feature that is included in most media players, starting with Windows Media Player, which has been around for decades.

Don't change the Album name to add the Year. Change the Folder name instead and include the year in front of the album name. Then sort by the folder/file names. This won't show up in the list.

This is easiest if done in a batch on a PC with a tag editor program like mp3tag or similar.

[eryxmind]

Thanks for the suggestion... However, the screenshot shows the Folder name, not the file tags. So, your suggestion will not work.

...Also, there is an additional problem with using the Folder Hierarchy... it takes extra steps to get to your music.

[Fitzian]

2 hours ago, eryxmind said:

Thanks for the suggestion... However, the screenshot shows the Folder name, not the file tags. So, your suggestion will not work.

...Also, there is an additional problem with using the Folder Hierarchy... it takes extra steps to get to your music.

You can use the normal categories (non-folder), but choose sort by folder/filename.

[eryxmind]

Hmmm, thanks again, but I don't see that option anywhere. And even if it had that option, I don't see how that would solve the problem. Maybe I'm not understanding.🤔

There should be a way to sort albums by three parameters under Genre:

Genre

Artist > Year > Album

Without having to add the year to the Album Title, either on the folder or on the file tag.

 

[MotleyG]

11 minutes ago, eryxmind said:

There should be a way to sort albums by three parameters under Genre:

Genre

Artist > Year > Album

Someday I would hope to see this, too. That is what the open topic for in post #2 that @andrewilley mentioned is already suggesting.

But for now it would need to be an alternative workaround as has been suggested already.

[eryxmind]

Thank you. Yes, hopefully they will add this functionality since there is no workaround. Thanks for your time.👍