Changing sort order of Browse Artwork

[Triode]

I've just added some code to 6.5 to support alternative sorting orders for the web Browse Artwork page. I would be keen on people's feedback on how well the different sort orders work with their library.

Using a simple skin [Default etc], the easy way to test it is to select an alternative sort order in Server Settings - Interface - Browse By Artwork Order. This allows a subset of the possible options (the ones I thought were most appropriate).

It is also possible to select the sort order by specifying the sort parameter in the url used to load the page:
http://<server>:9000/browsedb.html?hierarchy=artwork,track&level=0&sort =year,artist,album

Displays artwork sorted by year, then artist, then album title.

In this case sort should take any of the keys defined for sortFieldMaps defined in DataModels.pm. These are:
'title', 'genre', 'album', 'artist', 'year', 'age'
'artist,album', 'artist,year,album', 'year,album', 'year,artist','year,artist,album', 'year,genre,album', 'year,genre,artist','year,genre,artist,album','gen re,artist','genre,artist,album','genre,artist,year ,album'

I've not sucessfully tested any of the genre based sort orders, so would be definately interested in feedback on this.

[MrC]

Hello Andre,

This is a very nice enhancement.

I'm finding that the index to move to subsequent pages is not working correctly. I selected the Artist-Year-Album sort order, and the index list is:

1 2 3 V W X Y Z

Missing is at least A - U.

The links 1, 2, 3 and V all link to the first page displayed. W and the rest go to the correct index.

[MrC]

Some additional trouble I see, it seems like albums that have various artists (soundtracks, scores, compilations) are getting sorted with the artist for one of the tracks.

For example, when sorting by Artist-Album, I'm seeing these three titles in this order:

Title: Treacherous: A History of the Neville Brothers Disc 1
Artist: several, including Art Neville
Album Artist: The Neville Brothers

Title: Romeo is Bleeding
Artist: (none for most tracks, track 2: Abbey Lincoln)
Album Artist: Original Soundtrack


Title: You've Gotta Pay the Band
Artist: Abbey Lincoln

It seems the Artist field is being used no matter what - perhaps Album Artist should be used instead if it exists, or Various Artists when appropriate.

[JJZolx]

I'm seeing pretty much the same thing. A pagebar of

1 A B V W Y Z

and only two actual pages of covers. 1 to V are the same, with about 400 items and W to Z has the remaining albums in my collection.

VA albums are interspersed throughout instead of being grouped. Something tells me that its something to do with the 'Various Artists' albums also screwing up the paging, since both MrC and I get a V page and then the W page is correctly placed.

Setting the sort order to just 'Album' works as it always has, with correct pagination, pagebar, and grouping of compilations.

[Triode]

Thanks for the feedback. This difficulty of testing this is that you need a database with the different cases in order to find them..

I've reverted one small change I made to attempt to make the pagebar work better. This was in an attempt to hide occasional mis-sorts, but was erroneous. If you try now it will probably still look wrong, but you should get one pagebar entry per letter.

Does your pagebar now reflect the order of displayed albums, and are there even numbers of albums per page? If so I need to track down the reason for the mis-sorting. I think MrC is onto something about the various artist - but would be good to confirm what is special about mis-sorted albums for others.
[I've not added any new code for sorting, so think this is an artifact of the datamodel which I need to understand more..]

Thanks for testing thus far,

Adrian

[JJZolx]

r5712 - better. The pagination now appears to be correct.

But the page bar is still off. Mine is:

1 A B V B C V C V C V C D E D E F G H I J V J K V K L V L M V M V M N O V O P V P R S M S T V T M T U V W C W Y Z

And compilation albums are still spread throughout.

[Triode]

Thanks - do V's in the pagebar match the location of the albums with Various artists?

[JJZolx]

Thanks - do V's in the pagebar match the location of the albums with Various artists?

Looks like it. Each V seems to correlate with a single VA album on that page. The last page in the list ('W C W Y Z') has no VA albums.

[MrC]

Because I have so many Various Artists albums, soundtracks, etc., my index is pretty funny looking:


1 2 3 C V C 3 4 V 8 V A V A N O A V A V A V A O A V A V A V A V R O A V A B V B V B P B S B V B V B O V W S B V B C T B V B V B O B V B V B O V B K T V O B L B J V B V B H E B O B R B M T C V C V C O C O C V C V C T C B C V C V C P C F C D O V D S D V D O V D V D E D C V D V D V D V D V E D O A D E V O E O E B V E O E V O E F V F V F T F V G V G V G J G O G M H I P I O I S O J O J V J V U O J O J V J V J V J K L K O K V L V L V L V L O L R V L O L O L V B L V M V M O M O M O V M O M V N V N O N V N O V O P O P O P V P O V P V P Q R T R O R V R V R S V S V S V O S V S T O T U V W X Y Z

[Triode]

Could anyone try svn r5733 and post what the pagebar looks like now..

[cbemoore]

Using svn5733, and sorting by artist-year-album, I get the following:

833 albums with 11449 songs by 1101 artists.
2 3 F 4 8 S A S A M A G A S A B T B F T E B Q B D B N B C V B S B D B T B C D C T C D C D H D L D O E D O D E S F S F E F G H I J M J K L D L D L M E M D M N Q M N 1 N S N O P T P C T P Q R W R S R B R J R S R S T S R S T S T G T U B U B V W Y Z

[cbemoore]

If I sort by artist-album, the result is slightly different:

833 albums with 11449 songs by 1101 artists.
2 3 F 4 8 S A S A M G A S A B T B F T E B Q B D B N B V B D C S T B C D C T C D C D H D L D O D E D O D E S F S F E F G H I J M J K L D L D L M E M D M N Q M N 1 N S N O P T P C T P Q R W R S R B R J R S R S T S R S T S T G T U B V W Y Z

[Triode]

Hum..

If you look at the actual artwork order, are there albums with a legitimate artist name in the wrong place which cause this.

If so, do these have multiple contributors (artists etc?)

[cbemoore]

From what I can tell, the Various Artists handling doesn't work correctly.

If an album has no "album artist", but each track has a different "track artist", then the album is sorted as follows:

- The list sorting uses the first track's artist.
- The index and album caption use the last track's artist.

For example, where my index goes "8 S A", the "S" refers to the following album:

Album : Romeo Must Die
First track : Try Again, by Aaliyah
Last track : Swing On, by Stanley Clarke

This album should appear under "V" for Various Artists. However, it actually appears between "8" and "A", with an index of "S".

The album presumably appears between "8" and "A" because the first track's artist is Aaliyah.
Meanwhile, the index is "S" because the last track's artist is Stanley Clarke. Also, the album caption (below the album art) reads "Romeo Must Die by Stanley Clarke".

Does this help?

Chris

[Triode]

OK that confirms my quess..

I need to look at the datamodel more to understand what is possible in terms of sorting. At present I agree it sorts by track.

What do you have the Server Settings - Behaviour - Compilation options set to?