Bugzilla – Bug 11166
Playlist sort order
Last modified: 2012-11-15 23:20:54 UTC
In iTunes it is possible to sort playlists using special chracters, example is attached. This bypasses standard alphabetical sort methods. A Customer wanted me to file this enhancement request to have SqueezeCenter be capable of this sort method as well. SqueezeCenter has the ability to scan in files with this naming convention, but obviously ignores the special characters and sorts them alphabetically anyway. There is a PDF document with an example of how iTunes organizes the customer's playlists using the special characters.
Created attachment 4846 [details] Playlist sort example
It seems that playlists should sort with symbols in front as can be done in iTunes and in the iPod, and as folders and file names are sorted in Windows Explorer. For instance, _abc and _def are grouped together before abc and def. This is critical for me because I use symbols in front of playlists to sort common playlists together. For instance, I use the symbol = in front of all of my folk/celtic playlists ( =Simon & Garfunkel-Best of ) or ^ in front of all opera singer album (^Pavarotti--Primo Tenore). All playlist prefixed by a certain symbol will group together regardless of the first alphabetical character. So all of the = playlists sort together (alphabetically within the symbol grouping), then all the ^ playlists sort together, then all the non-symbol playlists follow in alphabetical order. It is so much more difficult to find a playlist with SC because it ignores the symbol. So now my folk/celtic and my opera singer albums are mixed in among everything else. I have over 1,200 playlists, so this method of sorting is important. It appears from time the that Julius Dauz spent with me looking into this that SC simply will not allow it to sort this way, even though iTunes/iPod/Windows Explorer does.
Julius: was this a user request? Or is it a bug?
(In reply to comment #3) > Julius: was this a user request? Or is it a bug? Whether this is a bug or just my request, I'm still hoping it can either be fixed or added. I really miss this sorting ability. (I'm the one who brought the issue up.)
Julius, I was wondering if I could get an update on this. I installed 7.4 hoping this issue had been addressed, but it has not. Thanks, Dave Lowrance
I was wondering if I could get an update on this issue. I installed 7.4 hoping this issue had been addressed, but it has not. It is really frustrating not to have my playlists sort the same way as in iTunes & iPod. Thanks, Dave Lowrance
I would like to re-open this issue. It has been close to 3 years since I first asked about it, and it has never been resolved. The issue has to do with the sorting of playlists. SB ignores filtering symbols (such as _ ^ * # $ %) placed in front of playlists. I use filter symbols to group genres of playlists together. They are filtered by symbol THEN alphabetically. This is important because I have several hundred playlists of all sorts of music. Every windows program I've used honors these filtering symbols except for SB (Windows Explorer, iTunes, photo programs, CAD programs, phone apps -- everything!) It is a common practice to put an underscore, or a dollar sign, or some other symbol to float those file names to the top of a list. WHY doesn't SB honor these? My iTunes playlists are all created this way, buy SB totally ignores them and sorts by the first letter AFTER the symbol. I can't imagine there is valid reason for SB to ignore these symbols when Windows will sort by symbol. I first requested correction of this bug in 2009 under version 7.2. I would be so happy if this were resolved soon. Thanks for considering. Dave Lowrance
This is very similar to the bug that I filed regarding strings that are read from ___SORT fields in tagging data. SBS/LMS strips all punctuation characters from sort strings, which IMO it should not. This treatment should only be used on search strings. https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17577 If someone has tagged a file (or named a playlist) with something like ^Pavarotti Then obviously they're doing so to manipulate the sort order. There's no benefit that I can think of to stripping these characters with respect to sorting.
This is not a schema-dependent buy. It can be fixed within the current schema.
(In reply to comment #8) > This is very similar to the bug that I filed regarding strings that are read > from ___SORT fields in tagging data. SBS/LMS strips all punctuation characters > from sort strings, which IMO it should not. This treatment should only be used > on search strings. > > https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17577 > > If someone has tagged a file (or named a playlist) with something like > > ^Pavarotti > > Then obviously they're doing so to manipulate the sort order. There's no > benefit that I can think of to stripping these characters with respect to > sorting. Yes, yes, yes! This is exactly the issue and the reason.
(In reply to comment #9) > This is not a schema-dependent buy. It can be fixed within the current schema. Any word on whether this will be fixed?
It's been over 3-1/2 years since I first asked for this issue to be addressed. Is it EVER going to be fixed? From the comments that followed my initial post, it seems this should be very do-able. I've never seen any other program not allow sorting by characters. Please . . .