Bugzilla – Bug 4584
SlimServer should support ALBUMARTISTSORT
Last modified: 2009-10-05 14:28:34 UTC
Although SlimServer currently uses ARTISTSORT tags for sorting ALBUMARTIST tags when a matching ARTIST tag is found, there are some cases where an album may be tagged with an ALBUMARTIST where no corresponding ARTIST tag exists in the database. Under those circumstances, we need the ability to use the ALBUMARTISTSORT tag to correctly sort the data. If an ALBUMARTISTSORT tag exists, it should always be the favored way to determine sort order. bug#4509 provides an example of using ALBUMARTIST tags to create canonical artist names, and adding this feature would effectively close that bug too.
I'm interested is this for FLAC where comments are free-form and no standard applies. For MP3, perhaps ID3v2.4 TXXX frames could be used (as suggested here - http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=90009&postcount=38).
Given that SlimServer has a contributor role of 'Band' that is distinct from AlbumArtist, we'll then also need support for a BANDSORT tag. There's a call for supporting a PERFORMER tag, so we'd need PERFORMERSORT. And already SlimServer recognizes COMPOSER and CONDUCTOR, so naturally COMPOSERSORT and CONDUCTORSORT. You can see where all this is going... In reply to Nigel: It appears that SlimServer already supports TXXX frames in id3v2 tags which can be set to the freeform string that might be expected in a flac or ape tag. I suppose you could conceivably even tag mp3 files using only TXXX frames using the flac tag names. Which is actually rather nice, since it means that the limitations of the id3v2.3 and id3v2.4 native frame definitions needn't be worried about.
MP3s - that sound useful (thanks). I only mentioned it for completeness. Luckily, I have just FLAC now (and MP3s converted from these for use with an iPod) so it's all much easier.
Absolutely agree that all text tags where sorting is relevant should have a *SORT variant for better user control. However, I'm wondering if it might be better to file those as a separate bug. i.e. if ALBUMARTISTSORT gets implemented, this bug gets closed, and Jim's comment is lost. We could also re-scope this bug to cover all sortable text tags, but I think ALBUMARTISTSORT is unique in that it is part of what's needed to implement canonical artist names, and the others are not related to that. And lack of canonical artist name support is a pet peeve of mine ;)
Potential fix for free-form tags: https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5177
If implemented be sure to include 'MusicBrainz Album Artist Sortname' metadata.
Fixing the bug described in comment #5 of bug 6490 (i.e. that when there is an ALBUMARTIST, the ARTIST role is transformed to TRACKARTIST but any ARTISTSORT tag that goes along with that ARTIST tag is lost) should somewhat reduce the need for an ALBUMARTISTSORT tag. With that fixed, I have only one artist for which I need an ALBUMARTISTSORT tag. I'm going to toy with creating a bogus mp3 file with only ARTIST and ARTISTSORT tags to create the right mapping as a temporary measure.
Creating a silent, minimum length mp3 file with only ARTIST and ARTISTSORT tags to populate the sort mapping I was missing in my database did work. I can live with that until this bug is resolved.
This particular request really doesn't depend on the database schema, as the ability to set a contributor sort string already exists. It's just a matter of which tags are supported (or invented :). It could be done just as easily now as it could two major releases from now.
Re comment #6: "MusicBrainz Album Artist Sortname" has gone in the meantime. As of Picard 0.11, MusicBrainz use: ID3v2: "TXXX:ALBUMARTISTSORT" Vorbis Comment: "ALBUMARTISTSORT" APEv2: "ALBUMARTISTSORT" iTunes MP4: "soaa" Windows Media: "WM/AlbumArtistSortOrder" If using Mp3tag, you can modify my Mp3tag "action" for "Album Artist" to achieve the tag changes needed: http://www.anytag.de/forums/index.php?showtopic=8837&hl=
Created attachment 5230 [details] one line patch for 7.3 I can't believe this bug's been open so long when all that is needed is a one-line patch. This is against 7.3 but looks like it should apply without issue in 7.4. I updated a comment that made no sense to me, so that did push it to 3 lines..
Thanks, patch applied in 7.4 change 26659.
thanks Andy! any chance it can also go in 7.3?
Steven: want to weigh in on doing this for 7.3.3?
It's such a minor change I see no harm in including it in 7.3.3. I am curious if this change works with all the Album Artist Sort tags mentioned in comment #10 and if not should this really be closed.
> It's such a minor change I see no harm in including it in 7.3.3. thanks! > I am curious if this change works with all the Album Artist Sort tags mentioned > in comment #10 and if not should this really be closed. I can't say for certain.. > ID3v2: "TXXX:ALBUMARTISTSORT" yes, this is what I tested > Vorbis Comment: "ALBUMARTISTSORT" > APEv2: "ALBUMARTISTSORT" should probably work. > iTunes MP4: "soaa" > Windows Media: "WM/AlbumArtistSortOrder" dunno, depends on whether the low-level tag reader translates these to the slim internal value "ALBUMARTISTSORT", which based on grepping the source it probably does not.
Still have to test the patch. If it works well, I might go and set up a test case for the other file formats. (Might take a few days, though.) Should be trivial to include MP4 and WMA support if not already in the formats... so ALBUMARTISTSORT could be supported uniformly throughout all file formats.
Great, thank you Moonbase.. I was going to offer that if someone can attach a sample file of each type I can test but sounds like you've got this covered. Yes, adding support for MP4 and WMA should be trivial if not already working.
Moonbase, Steven, any update on testing and getting this into 7.3? thanks..
still wondering if there's any update on putting this in 7.3..
7.3.3 is done, sorry.
Thanks Andy.. I presume there will not be a 7.3.4? Could this get checked in on that branch anyway so a friend who uses windows could run a nightly and get it? Otherwise how hard is it to build a windows package from source? Probably easier to run out of an svn checkout with the active perl thing?
Hi Andy, I don't want to take much time away from the great things you're doing on incremental scanning but can you answer whether there will be a 7.3.4 and whether this can go into that, or if not just into the nightlies? Thanks!
Sure, backported.
thank you Andy!
This bug has been marked as fixed in the 7.4.0 release version of SqueezeBox Server! * SqueezeCenter: 28672 * Squeezebox 2 and 3: 130 * Transporter: 80 * Receiver: 65 * Boom: 50 * Controller: 7790 * Radio: 7790 Please see the Release Notes for all the details: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Release_Notes If you haven't already, please download and install the new version from http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/support/download-squeezebox-server.html If you are still experiencing this problem, feel free to reopen the bug with your new comments and we'll have another look.