Subsonic 4.7.beta2 released

[pemholder]

That's how my actual directories in Linux/Windows are named, and that is also how they've appeared in Subsonic for over 7 years. When I think of the Beatles' first album, I don't think of Abbey Road (first alphabetically), I think of Please Please Me from 1963 because it's the first one they ever released. Chronological/discography-style display is the only way I could ever conceive of looking at an artist's albums.

To my opinion the sorting system of SS was never created to be sorted like this but \music\artist\album.
When I started to use SS some time ago I had given up about thinking of the year as a sort criterium for a long time, because I never was able to decide which year was relevant.
When i rip a my CDs i have to decide which year to take:
- the release year of the analog album in the sixties? (This is not always exactly the same album like the CD-Release)
- the release of the first CD of this analog album in mono?
- the release of the first CD of this analog stereo?
- the remaster of 2004 with 3 bonus songs?
- the anniversary release with even more bonus songs?
- the real recording dates of the tracks?
and so on.

If I have an album and a year in in mind it is the realease year of the analog album in the sixties. But the tracks I rip from the CD in my posession may be the remaster of 2004. Should I sort the album to the sixties or to the release year in 2004. Too many decisions for me.
So a long time ago I gave up.
I know the name of an album and I find it best in alphabetical order. And I know the name much better than the release-year.

SS always had a mix in handling - folders and tags. It's not a great deal for me to change my sorting with mp3tag because i have all my mp3s tagged at least with artist, albumartist, album, track, title, and most of them with year, genre, lyrics and covers, a lot with even more tags.
I would take me just 2 minutes to tell my tag-program to resort the songs to folders a different way. (my PC might work for some hours depending on the amount of songs).

The most universal way for SS to sort would be by tags or folders just like the user wants it and make the user to decide which tags to take, most individually for every music folder seperated. The possibility to sort completely by individual selected tags would make it possible to have a virtual sorting in any possible way without the dependance on folders.
But it's up to Sindre what he can do to make it not too complicated for him.
(Rolling Stones\1969 - Let It Bleed\You Can't Always Get What You Want)
or should it be the year of the remastered release.

But please Sindre:
Don't make a solution that makes it impossible for me to see my albums in alphabetical order and as long as you don't take albumartist instead of artist, please don't take only the artist-tag instead of the name of the artist-folder. That would completely mess my sorting, because in an album of one special albumartist I often have different artists tagged in the tracks (feat. ...,with ..., and... for guest artists).
So everyone has his very special no-go.

[GJ51]

I'm so confused ...

Perhaps I shouldn't say anything, because I don't have these issues (I'm just too simple minded), but I find it odd that Subsonic can't be set up to give everybody what they want. Isn't that the whole point of using a database - the ability to sort, search, and present information in ways that are most useful to the user?

How hard is it to just set up a user definable sort order criteria that SS can use to make everybody happy?

Primary - foldername or Artist tag
Secondary - Album folder name or tag or year tag

and so on.

Better minds than mine I'm sure might be able to suggest better option definitions, but surely it shouldn't be too big a deal to let the user define primary, secondary, tertiary ... sort keys that Subsonic would then use to display the data in the way that each user wants to see it.

Maybe in 4.8

Just one old man's grumblings ...

[pemholder]

Primary - foldername or Artist tag

Albumartist tag please.

[dcuellar]

Primary - foldername or Artist tag

Albumartist tag please.

+1

[BKKKPewsey]

I think that SS should mimic the sorting and searching arrangement that all database driven media players/organisers give their users
e.g. That any field can be used as a primary sort and most will allow a secondary sort.
So if I want to see all songs with genre "Hard Rock" and in year order (either ascending or descending order)
Then so be it.
And yes Album Artist also needs to scanned - the trouble is where do you stop - BPM, Mood, Involved Persons, etc the list is almost endless.
Unfortunately with the apparent slow scan speed of SS4.7 if it also tried to scan all those I could end up adding stuff to my collection faster then SS could keep up

PS that was a +1 for Gary's suggestion

[supra92]

Agreed with Gary -- the whole point of databases is to present any data in any form for its users. It would be, however, incumbent upon Sindre to implement something that would provide that level of flexibility to the rest of us... and his time is indeed limited.

Having used EAC (Exact Audio Copy) for years to rip FLACs from CDs, I think EAC's naming convention method provides the utmost in flexibility, albeit perhaps not in the most entry-level-user-friendly sort of way:



This is pretty much the ultimate because it not only allows you to choose *what* you want to see, but also *how* it is displayed. In the "Naming Scheme" textbox, for example, one types in:

%A\%Y - %C\%N - %A - %T      to get:     Beatles\1969 - Abbey Road\01 - Beatles - Come Together.flac

Not only do you get to pick which ID3 tags to show, it allows you define the spacing and the separator characters as well.

So for Subsonic, for example, there could be an "Album Display Scheme" textbox in Settings, where one could do the following (and we could add %G for Genre):

• %C                             Abbey Road
• %Y - %C                      1969 - Abbey Road
• %Y-%C                        1969-Abbey Road
• %C (%Y)                      Abbey Road (1969)
• %C [%Y]                      Abbey Road [1969]
• %G - %C                      Rock - Abbey Road
• %G ... %C                   Rock ... Abbey Road
• %G -- %Y -- %C            Rock -- 1969 -- Abbey Road
• %Y, %C (%G)                1969, Abbey Road (Rock)

etcetera, etcetera...

The options are unlimited, really, so each of us can custom-tailor the display of albums under an artist to exactly how we want. Then, beneath that Album Display Scheme textbox, there's a simple pair of radio buttons: "Sort Ascending", and "Sort Descending".

This solution, naturally, would require a return to 4.7b1's practice of no longer displaying the foldername (because we're creating our own display from the ID3 tags).

From what I can tell from this thread thus far, it's possible this might address the concern of everyone who's posted. Even for someone like me who has previously wanted foldernames so that SS would display things chronologically, that is now achievable through ID3 tags by simply choosing "%Y - %C" and selecting the "Sort Ascending" radio button.

I don't know if that would be an overly-complicated solution for the average SS user, but.... who IS the average SS user? I'd suggest that most people using SS know music and know computers... and if a person can figure out SS's transcoding mechanism, one would think the Album Display Scheme should be a piece of cake.

I don't know how easy or difficult this would be for Sindre to implement, but it sure seems like it would do the trick.

Cheers,
Supra92

[Alsaya]

I think, the whole discussion started, when Sindre changed the database.
I'd like more flexibility but I'd be glad if the view remains, if you wish, the same like in 4.6 - and there my albums displayed year - artist - track.

[sindre_mehus]

So for Subsonic, for example, there could be an "Album Display Scheme" textbox in Settings, where one could do the following (and we could add %G for Genre):

• %C                             Abbey Road
• %Y - %C                      1969 - Abbey Road
• %Y-%C                        1969-Abbey Road
• %C (%Y)                      Abbey Road (1969)
• %C [%Y]                      Abbey Road [1969]
• %G - %C                      Rock - Abbey Road
• %G ... %C                   Rock ... Abbey Road
• %G -- %Y -- %C            Rock -- 1969 -- Abbey Road
• %Y, %C (%G)                1969, Abbey Road (Rock)

etcetera, etcetera...

The options are unlimited, really, so each of us can custom-tailor the display of albums under an artist to exactly how we want. Then, beneath that Album Display Scheme textbox, there's a simple pair of radio buttons: "Sort Ascending", and "Sort Descending".

Yeah, that's a splendid idea. I guess one could also add %F, for instance, to mean the directory name.

It won't happen in 4.7 anyway. In the meantime I have implemented an option "Settings > General > Sort albums by year". If turned on, albums are ordered chronologically and the album year is displayed. If turned off, it basically works like in 4.6.

Thanks,
Sindre

[BKKKPewsey]

BKKK now getting very excited
However with 4.7 not even being released yet we will now start getting posts for "Do you know when 4.8 is coming out"

If turned on, albums are ordered chronologically and the album year is displayed. If turned off, it basically works like in 4.6.

Excellent News - I made sure my whole folder structure is compatible with both SS (pre 4.7) and explorer
<Album Artist>\<Year> - <Album>\tracks
Eg They display the same which 4.7 beta sort of broke
i.e. Displayed in descending sort except where it was a double or multiple cd album where the directory structure is:-
<Album Artist>\<Year> - <Album>\CD#\tracks
as 4.7 couldn't find the year data (didn't scan deep enough)
This resulted in those albums appearing at the bottom with an ascending sort
So you ended up with :-

2011 - AlbumXXX 2011
2008 - Albumyyyy 2008
2009 - AlbumZZZ (2CD)
2012 - Albumvvvv (2CD)

As Gary would say a "Mell of a Hess"

[Foyaxe]

In order to get ogg for Android to work i have to use the ffmpeg from ver 4.4 of SS.

Ogg playback doesnt work on android when encoded with ffmpeg-0.10.3, so I downgraded to 0.10.2 and it worked again.

[KaiO]

In the meantime I have implemented an option "Settings > General > Sort albums by year". If turned on, albums are ordered chronologically and the album year is displayed. If turned off, it basically works like in 4.6.

Not in my beta 4.7 ?
Is there a new version with this feature?
Files on SourceForge are not updated since I downloaded last?

[bushman4]

Probably in his dev environment... Remember that the point of a beta is to find issues and fix them before the final release. He may choose to release another beta, or it may just be included in the final release.

That is why my primary site is still at 4.6. I have played with 4.7 on a second server, but don't want to roll out the new version until it is ready.

Glenn

[GJ51]

In the meantime I have implemented an option "Settings > General > Sort albums by year". If turned on, albums are ordered chronologically and the album year is displayed. If turned off, it basically works like in 4.6.

Not in my beta 4.7 ?
Is there a new version with this feature?
Files on SourceForge are not updated since I downloaded last?

DONE IN 4.7
-------------
Don't display "null" as artist in now playing.
Fixed crash on Java 7 caused by wrong sorting implementation.
Added Settings > General > Sort albums by year
Try with different encodings when importing playlists.
Admins should be able to manage all playlists (that is visible to them)
Use "album artist" tag if present.

TODO IN 4.7
-----------------
Make it possible to refresh left frame?
Go thru bug reports.
Retest playlist import (different encodings)
Review resolution of albumartist.
Auto-import playlists
Video has playlist features (PLay all, Add all..)
Show all playlist metadata. (Shared with all users, Shared with 4 users, 12 songs, 45:34)
Something wrong with matching players/users in Now Playing


Still a dew more things to be done before the next release ...

[phazzard]

I love Supra's idea of a way to give users complete control of display options for a future release - Also once again wanted to thank Sindre, great addition to give the option to revert to using folder settings like 4.6.
Thanks again

[pemholder]

Unfortunately

Show Lyrics in tags

is still on the the Todo-List.
I hope it will make it in version 4.7, because I'm waiting for this for a long time now. Every few months the lyrics-feature over the internet is broken again.
As I have the tag "Unsyncedlyrics" now filled in about 70 % of my songs, it would be great if this feature makes in finally in version 4.7.