Bugzilla – Bug 4341
Browse Artist lists VA albums for artist even when 'Group Compilation Albums together' is set
Last modified: 2013-03-15 20:42:33 UTC
This applies to both Web and Player UIs It's been commented on / moaned about on various threads, but AFAIK has never had a bug filed. With 'Group Compilation Albums together' set, VA albums are listed seperately in Browse Artists. However, when Browsing into Artists with their own Albums, any compilations they appear on are also shown. People with large numbers of VA albums tend to find this distracting, because it's more difficult to navigate to the album they're looking for. Desired behaviour would be that VA albums are not listed under each Artist who appears on them, whether or not that Artist also has an Album of their own.
is this a bug, or a change request? personally, if I pick an artist, I'd better see every album that includes track on which they are listed as "artist"
In that case you shouldn't have the flag set to not include VA artists in the Browse Artists list ;-) The logic is inconsistent: you'll see the album if the artist HAPPENS to also have his/her own album too - but not if they only appear on VA albums. Where you have maybe 200+ VA albums, you may see 8 or 10 VA albums listed under an artist, getting in the way of the one or two that you're actually looking for. At present, the only way to overcome this (and this is what several people do), is to tag all VA albums with a 'Various Artists' artist tag, and then use some other tag (comment field) or the file name to retain the artist name for each track - but this is far from ideal, since you do want to find these artist's tracks using the search function.
I like this as an enhancement request, but it would need an additional preference to control the behavior. I'd continue to use the current behavior, but a lot of people have commented that they'd like the VA albums suppressed when browsing the artists. It would require a pref because I wouldn't want the current 'group compilations' setting to also control this. Another possibility, instead of not listing them at all, would be to present an additional link under the artist that would lead to a page displaying the VA albums on which the artist appears.
I suggest to raise this to a P1 and Major as the functionality as described on the slimserver is seriously broken. This is not an enhancement. Seems to me that the the option description is pretty clear "You can choose to have compilation albums appear together under "Various Artists" or have them appear under each artist in the compilation.". It say "OR" not both. If I choose the first option the compilation albums should not appear also under each artist. This is what happens today but only if the artist has also other albums. For artists only appearing in a compilation the behaviour is correct (i.e. the artist is not listed under browse by artist). The description of the option is consistent with my understanding of the functionalities. I see the Browse functionality as browsing the albums either by cover or artist or genre. But still it should show the complete albums. If I am interested in finding all the songs of a specific artist I can use the search functionality or I can tweak the browse experience choosing to "not group the compilations under various artists". The mixed behaviour I am seeing now is, in my humble opinion, confusing and not user friendly. Eventually it could be possible to have one more option for selecting the current behaviour, but it should still be possible also to choose the standard behaviour. The three options should then be: "Group compilation albums together" "List compilation albums under each artist" "List compilation albums under each (not empty) artist" Another perhaps better possibility (as suggested in a previous comments) would be - when choosing to not group the compilations - to have something like artist -> "also appears in..." -> compilation albums -> songs.
One other thing to note. This also applies to non-compilation albums on which the artist appears. You can have a non-compilation with "guest" (or "featuring...") artists where the guest artist is listed in the tags. That album will appear under the guest artist's listing. So if anyone ever implements this, it's important to realize that it doesn't apply only to albums recognized as compilations.
The converse is also true: when the switch is set to "List compilation albums under each artist", the tracks also show up under "Various Artists". Even when the track in question is from a compilation of a single band (a greatest hits album). I don't personally use the compilation tag -- but I do have a track purchased from iTunes flagged as a compilation, from a greatest hits album. I was surprised to see it show up under Various Artists.
I think this would be useful and would add a further option to comment 4. List compilation album under an artist in an 'other tracks' sub-menu Further debate may be needed on excatly what to include in 'other tracks', in line with comment 5, but as a starter I'd include: * tracks from compilations * tracks where artist matches but albumartist is different * tracks where artist is included in Band see http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=69335 for reopened debate on this issue.
I vote for this enhancement. I prefer not to see compilation albums listed under artists other than Various Artists. I thought the 'Group compilation albums together' option would achieve this, but apparently not.
I think that it is a little frustrating that this a lots of other bugs on the same issue (4754,5108, 10845 and more) are being pushed out to version 8 and waiting for a new schema! This not depending on a new schema but just to add a new option in the settings and a little coding for the logic. Of course a new and better schema is always a good thing, but keep pushing bugs from 2006 is not really doing any good to customers and/or slimdevices/logitech reputation!!!
Patches are always welcome and even encouraged in a situation like this :) Provide us with a patch, we will evaluate and incorporate as time allows.
I would definitely like to see this implemented as described, suppressing the VA albums when browsing a specific artist's albums when the appropriate option is set. BUT I also think that the alternate behavior, the current behavior of showing the VA albums, should be cleaned up to put the VA albums at the end of the proper artist albums and not sorted within them. FOr the Web UI it would also be nice to have a horizontal separator between the artist's proper albums and those they simply appear on.
i think there is general consensus that everyone wants what bruno just described. 1. ability to suppress VA stuff, singles, etc... from showing. but it should be OPTIONAL and probably NOT the default since folks are used to the current way. 2. in the webui, a visual separator to help distinguish "proper" albums from the other types. i think those two things would satisfy all related concerns to this bug.
Suggestion: Could this be resolved to everyone's satisfaction by sorting differently? i.e. the albums first, then compilations last. That way we don't add yet another option, the compilations are still shown, but they are prioritized such that it's easier to ignore them if you don't want to see them. This may incidentally be much easier to code.
Could this be the divided display that Bruno, Mike and Keith are asking for? https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12676 Bug report #12676
I think Keith and vagskal have a neat solution. Putting the 'less like "true" artist' at the end means they can be easily ignored. The only downside as a quicker fix, is that for artists with large repertoire you can't scroll backwards to get to the most recent album. Small price to move this forwards.
See https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=112#c77 for a method to sort compilations last using the Custom Browse plugin.
I'd still like to be able to browse to albums (compilations or guest appearances) that an artist also appears on. But, perhaps instead listed under a sub-item, eg "Also Appears On...". eg. Browse Artists > [artist name] [album 1] [album 2] Also Appears On... [compilation album 1] [compilation album 2] [album 3 by album artist XXX]
i agree, basically what i said in comment 12
Agree with 4, 7, 12 and 17. Any of those solutions is better than nothing. This bug is entering its 5th anniversary :-). Anything that can give me the option to not navigate through lots of VA albums is welcome but I definitely like 12 and 17 the best. Thanks
I think comment 17 nails this. Avoiding options and settings is probably wise for consistency for with tinySBS. What can be done to get traction on this? remove the new_schema tag? as I don't think that is relevant.
bug 7515
Alan, i thought this might be inside the scope of onebrowser
Unassigned bugs cannot have a priority.
See https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=112#c94 for a method to sort compilations last in the 7.8 nightlies using a minor (but non-configurable) change to Queries.pm.