please do not pre-set targets.  These are for internal use.  thanks.

Alex, just for clarification, when you say:
"* Band (U2 for the U2 album and "Various Artists" for the compilation)"
Did you use Mp3tag to add "BAND=U2" for all the tracks on the U2 album and "BAND=Various Artists" for all the tracks on the compilation album?

Yes that's corrct. Actually I tried first without adding the band to the compilation, and then I added it. Both cases the result was the same

Thanks. Alex

Alex, did you try removing the BAND and COMPILATION tag completely from the files in question? You may want to select "List albums by all artists for the album" and be sure to do a "Clear library and rescan everything" to see the changes.

Thanks for the suggestions. Did as you suggested.

1. I removed the BAND and the COMPILATION tags form all the songs
2. Did a clean dand full rescan

This lead to no changes. Still can see under Browse->Artists->U2 both the solo album and the compilation. The last one is the one I don't want to see since I have selected "Group compilation albums together" and not "List compilation albums under each artist".

Then I tried to change the settings to "List albums by all artists for the album" as you suggested. By the way I don't understand your suggestion becuase, as I expected, now under Browse->Artists I get listed the 100+ artists that appear in the compilation. That's absolutely the opposite of what I want!

So it seems to me that the behaviour of "Group compilation albums together" is in fact broken.

Anyway just to add some more debugging I have tried to add to all the songs in the compilation (all of which are in the same dir) the tag ALBUMARTIST=Various Artists. This lead to even more strange behaviour. Now under Various Artists I get all my album listed (not only the compilations) but none of them contains anything. It appears to have something to do with the name "Various Artists". I changed this to "Mix", done a new "clear and scan" and now everyhting is as it should: only the compilation appears under "Mix" and under U2 it appears only the solo album.

So I could say that I found a work-around. I can just retag all my library (over 1000 CDs and over 15000 songs) but as you understand I don't want to rely on a work-around which might not work anymore in one or two releases of slimserver. It would be much better if the option worked as it should. 

Is there any plan to get it fixed in one of the coming releases? 

Thanks,

Alex 

Allesandro, have you updated to 6.5.4?  Many fixes have been made.

No, I am rebuilding the server at the moment, so I don't know when will I be able to do that. However I did work around the problem by using the Album Artist tag. I started using "Various Artists" as the artist name for the Album Artist tag. Doing this everything seems to work fine, that is:

1. Album, artists and songs, are shown only under "Various Artists" when browsing the library
2. I can still find all the songs and artists by doing a search

Actually I really liked this behaviour so that I use for a couple more specialized "Various Artists" categories, that nis "Christmas/Seasonal" and "Soundtracks".

Hope that the latest improvement didn't break this behaviour. Just joking :-).

I also haven't seen any more complains on this issue, so I would guess it would be OK to close the bug. As soon as I get my server up and running again, I will give 6.5.4 a try.  

Thanks for following up.

P.S. Actually Steven helped me solving the Album Artist problem in bug 4755 (https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4755). So both could be closed.

Thanks again.
 

> You can choose to have compilation albums appear together under "Various
> Artists" or have them appear under each artist in the compilation: 
>  
> * List compilation albums under each artist
> * Group compilation albums together

Seems to me that this option doesn't control what you think it should.  It appears to control which artists appear in the browse arist list and has little or nothing to do with which albums appear in any particular place.  It suppresses 'track' artists that appear only on compilations.  I wonder if the option ever controlled whether compilation albums get listed under artists or whether the meaning has changed.

Now that you mention your expected behavior for this setting, it makes perfect sense to me.  I think you should keep this bug open.

Just like bug 5108, perhaps a new all encompassing compilation and various artist behavior and logic bug should be opened moving forward.

Assigning to unassigned for review.

Once more I just want to stress that I hope that whatever fix to the "group compilation" option is done it will not break the current behaviour of the "AlbumArtist" tag.

Assign a name to the albumartist tag of all the songs in an album will make the album appear only under the artist specified even if songs in the album might be tagged with different artists.

This important for 2 reasons:

1. It makes possible for albums of a main artist but containing several guest artists to appear only under the main artist
2. Using special values for the albumartist like "Various Artists" provides a way to bypass any further SC logic and to get albums grouped as the user prefers.

Thanks

I'd just like to add that this functionality is working as intended.  It's been mentioned several times before; in numerous forum threads and bugs.

If "Group compilation albums together" is selected, only artist and album artist roles will be displayed in the Browse Artists list.  But, when you browse to a certain artist, you will  see all albums that the artist has contributed on.

I have several artists that only appear as track artist contributors on compilation albums.  I want to be able to browse to those artists and see all music they have been involved on, but if this functionality were to be changed, I wouldn't see any music for such artists.

A lot of people like how it currently works, some do not.  So, if a change is made, it should be optional.

why isn't this bug listed as a block on 8303, but is listed as depends on 8303?  also where is the keyword?

Steven, i agree with you.  there's needs to be a serious re-examination of VA, comp issues and how they relate to creating lists and the browse exp.

sorry, it is listed as a block on 8303, but it doesn't have the keyword.

Fully agree that it should be made optional. Many people really like as it is today and many people really dislike it.

So I would recommend changing the "group compilation..." checkbox into a three states choice: 

>>How would you like to group compilation albums:
     * appear together under "Various Artists"
     * appear under each artist in the compilation
     * appear under each contributing artist in the compilation

Hopefully some better wording than this can be found.  

Please note that some time back (at least under version 6.5.2) there was a work-around to it - that was to assign an albumartist to the tracks. Unfortunately that work-around does not work anymore (see bug 10639) which makes this bug (or change request) very much needed again.

(In reply to comment #15)
> So I would recommend changing the "group compilation..." checkbox into a three
> states choice: 
> 
> >>How would you like to group compilation albums:
>      * appear together under "Various Artists"
>      * appear under each artist in the compilation
>      * appear under each contributing artist in the compilation

What's the difference between #2 and #3?  What's the difference between an artist in the compilation and a _contributing_ artist in the compilation?

in reply to comment 15, i'd like to add another choice:

"don't do anything with comps."

a user might find it useful, or otherwise not a problem, for SC to classify
something as a comp, BUT might also wish that SC not do anything "special" with
them, (meaning those CDs classified as such).

a comp would simply then be treated in accordance with its tags, whatever
they may be.

(In reply to comment #17)
>
> "don't do anything with comps."
> 
> a user might find it useful, or otherwise not a problem, for SC to classify
> something as a comp, BUT might also wish that SC not do anything "special" with
> them, (meaning those CDs classified as such).
> 
> a comp would simply then be treated in accordance with its tags, whatever
> they may be.

Let's say you view albums sorted by artist.  Where then would the compilation fit into the list?

Compilations are all about "who" the album is attributed to, and very little else.  It creates a pseudo-artist for the album, named "Various Artists".

>Let's say you view albums sorted by artist.  Where then would the compilation
>fit into the list?
>
>Compilations are all about "who" the album is attributed to, and very little
>else.  It creates a pseudo-artist for the album, named "Various Artists".

right...  i understand that.  they should then list under each artist, and that would be the same as one of the existing options...

but here's one scenario i envisioned:

lets say you set it to "do nothing with comps" and lets say i had TPE2 treated as albumartist, and lets also say i used comp tags.

i could then let SC know something was a comp, AND get the comps to sort where i want them to sort, via TPE2.

what i am suggesting is that more flexibility is needed in how SC builds lists, and what it does with certain data.  SC's behavior of simply sticking ALL comps in one area is something i would NEVER want to do.  simply assuming something is or isn't a comp based on whether or not it has albumartist tags is not going to jive with CDDB/Gracenote, etc...

so anyway, the idea is to give back users control, and be able to defeat SC rying to be clever.

(In reply to comment #18)
> (In reply to comment #17)
> >
> > "don't do anything with comps."
> > 
> > a user might find it useful, or otherwise not a problem, for SC to classify
> > something as a comp, BUT might also wish that SC not do anything "special" with
> > them, (meaning those CDs classified as such).
> > 
> > a comp would simply then be treated in accordance with its tags, whatever
> > they may be.
> Let's say you view albums sorted by artist.  Where then would the compilation
> fit into the list?
> Compilations are all about "who" the album is attributed to, and very little
> else.  It creates a pseudo-artist for the album, named "Various Artists".

Agree with Jim. I am not sure if this was what Mike meant but "not doing anything with comp" is the default behaviours if tags are defined (Compilation tag or AlbumArtist tag). As far as I know those tags override the "guess compilation" logic.

With regart to comment #16, as I said better wording would be necessary :-). The difference being:
     * appear under each artist in the compilation (only artists that have at least one full album)
     * appear under each contributing artist in the compilation (any artist, also those who do not have a full album, i.e. that appeare only as contributingartists in the database).

But the way it should be formulated should make it clear that this setting does not only to various artists but also to albums that contain contributing artitsts on somne tracks and are tagged with a "albumartist" artist.

Here is how it could be formulated (and implemented) in order to make it clear to me:

* How do you want to deal with albums that contains tracks by multiple artists?
    1. Group albums together under "Various Artists" or under the artist specified in the "AlbumArtist" if such tag is defined for all the tracks
    2. Like 1, but also list the album under each artist in the album who has also at least one full album 
    3. Like 1, but also list the album under each artist in the album

It's lot of words but it describes really what expected. 

Alessandro,

maybe u didn't see comment 19 before posting...

but if your goal is to have SC know and classify something as a comp, but NOT sort it under a single category name, and rather use TPE2 or TPE1 or whatever, it can't be done.  my option would allow one to do it.

in a master list, i should be able to sort things where i want, comp or not, using simple standard tags.  but i should also be able to have SC know suc and such is a comp, and SC should be slick enough to show me just comps too, if i want.  flexability is the goal.

Mike, your comments about how SC stores compilations or not has no place on this enhancement request.

This report is about how compilations are to be displayed, and in particular a suggestion for configuring how Browse Artists works.

You are complaining about how the scanner reads tags.  That's a different conversation, done to death in other places.

Phil,

maybe you misunderstood what i said.  he is suggesting new options and behaviors for "group compilations" and i added one option to it.  it has NOTHING to do with how the scanner reads tags, the scanner should read and store all tags obviously.

in short, my suggestion was to have an option that would allow SC to know something was a comp, even if it had an albumartist tag, but not sort it anywhere specific (in master browse lists) b/c of that.  i think this suggestion fits neatly next to his.

The "List compilation albums under each artist/Group compilation albums together" radio button (which needs an overall label), is only defining what artists get displayed in the artists list.  It has no effect on what gets displayed when browsing into an artist.

I think the names for the options don't help matters.

"List under each artist" really means "List all artists in the Browse Artist list".  "Group compilation albums together" really means "List artists that only have regular albums".

I think that could be changed to:

Browse Artist list contains:
  o  All artists 
  o  Only artists that have regular albums

i.e. this is linked to the first set of checkboxes for Composer, Conductor, Band/Orchestra that also define what appears in the Browse Artist list.  The two setting options could be combined for ultra clarity.


What I think is being asked for is a way to control what gets displayed when browsing into an artist.

I wouldn't complicate the "group compilation albums together" option further, to represent what gets displayed when you have browsed to an artist.  I think it would be better as a separate setting.

It's not just compilation albums that people may want to show/hide when browsing to music by an artist.  It's also guest performances on albums by other people (and maybe other contributor roles).

i.e a checkbox for "show compilation/guest performances" (or maybe a checkbox for each contributor role, as people may not want to see composers/conductors/bands too).

All of these considerations is about how to display the content of the database.  No rescan is required, and therefore the settings could be changed once on the server, or better still configurable on the page being viewed.

Rather than add extra options in the settings pages, I think it would be nice to provide this option as an extra control on the Browse Albums WebUI page, similar to the "Show/Hide artwork" option in the Now Playing area, or the sort order choice for album context.  It would need to be configurable somehow for the various player UI's (either once for all players in server settings, or could be a per-player option).

phil,

i think i agree with what you are saying and also agree that differing issues seem to have become conflated.

however, if you browse home > artists or home > albums (sorted by artists) in the webui, all comps get sorted to one spot.  my suggestion was to have an option that allowed a user to still allow SC to know something was a comp, (via whatever means) but NOT let that knowledge impact where it sorts it in a master list.

i think that suggestion fits in this bug, it seems closely related enough.

as far as what should happen or what someone sees when they are in any given specific artist, regardless of how they got there, i personally like the current behavior of seeing all occurences, but i support the notion that you put forth that control over that should be a new, separate option or interface choice, and that users should have the ability to do so.

if there are other issues beyond these, i missed it.

also, i would reword the options differently from you a bit, but that probably is outside the scope of this bug.

in comment #24 Philip Meyer wrote:
> Browse Artist list contains:
>  o  All artists
>  o  Only artists that have regular albums

I think you totally nailed it here, it's just so obvious once you say it, and yet
we've all struggled for years to come up with a better way to describe that
option.

> It's not just compilation albums that people may want to show/hide when
> browsing to music by an artist.  It's also guest performances on albums by
> other people (and maybe other contributor roles).

Personally I'd prefer to just see the artist's main albums, and to have a link to
the compilation/guest performances.  Ideally I'd like to be able to have a second
link to the artist's bootleg live shows if I have any.  I wonder if CustomBrowse
can do that, will have to check it out one of these days..

> Rather than add extra options in the settings pages, I think it would be nice
> to provide this option as an extra control on the Browse Albums WebUI page,

Please no more hidden state I keep having to set in every browser.  I don't mind
having a control on that page, so long as I can set the default in the settings.

(In reply to comment #24)
> I think that could be changed to:
> Browse Artist list contains:
>   o  All artists 
>   o  Only artists that have regular albums

Yes. Phil really nailed it. Changing the wording as above and adding a Filtering option that allows to filter what you see ("Only full albums" being one of the options) would accomodate most of the needs. 

If implementing a completely new filtering setting pushes this too far in the future I could easily leave (for now) with a third option in the already existing setting:

>   o  All artists 
>   o  Only artists that have regular albums
>   o  Only artists that have regular albums (but show only full albums)

Also please remember that this is not just for the web-ui. This is even more important when browsing from the squeezebox/transporter/duet where due to display constrain it is important (for some people at least) to keep the noise at a minimum in order to be able to find the albums quickly. Many users still buy these devices with one purpose, have their CD collection on line and "easily" accessible. Maybe later on they grow more sophisticated and want to see everything in every possible way, but to start with, they just want to browse by artist->full albums.

>Please no more hidden state I keep having to set in every browser.  I don't
>mind having a control on that page, so long as I can set the default in the
>settings.

That was what I was suggesting, as there would need to be a way to configure the option on SBC and classic Player UI, it can't just be an option on the WebUI.  However, it would be really useful to change/override the setting directly in the WebUI Browse Albums page.  I could see times when I'd want to toggle show/hide the display of extra albums.

>   o  All artists 
>   o  Only artists that have regular albums
>   o  Only artists that have regular albums (but show only full albums)

I don't think that would be the correct thing to do.  The Browse Artist list doesn't show albums.  This extra option belongs somewhere else.  i.e. once you have picked an artist, genre, year, and see a list of albums, you would then choose whether you want to see only regular albums or any matching music.

(In reply to comment #28)
> >   o  All artists 
> >   o  Only artists that have regular albums
> >   o  Only artists that have regular albums (but show only full albums)
> I don't think that would be the correct thing to do.  The Browse Artist list
> doesn't show albums.  This extra option belongs somewhere else.  i.e. once you
> have picked an artist, genre, year, and see a list of albums, you would then
> choose whether you want to see only regular albums or any matching music.

Fully agree that it would not be the perfect solution. I am just saying that I could live with that until the perfect solution is implemented. This bug has been around for one year and in other forms for much longer. Now for the first time you succeeded formulating correctly and I hope Brandon will pick it up asap.

However I can be afraid that figuring out a complete new set of filtering options, where and what should be shown it will take long time, but I would be happy to be proven wrong.

In any case would you guys mind voting for this bug so it is raised to the attention of th devs. Thanks 

Also to consider is another solution mentioned in the forum. That is to do the rewording Phil recommends so that it is clear what this option does and then leave the logic as it is today but when browsing under an artist beside the full albums also show a folder (link) called "Also appears on..." or "Also contributed to..." or "Non complete albums..." and collect under the non-full albums.

This would actually be my preferred solution to start with and then also add the filter option Phil mentioned. 

Yes, I agree with comment #30.  My first idea, and prefered option for browsing to an artist is to continue to see the full set of music, but grouped into sections:

-Regular albums
-Also appears on

"Also appears on" would contain compilation albums and guest appearances on albums by another artist.

I don't think "non-complete albums" is desirable or easily achievable.  If you have not ripped a track that you never liked for example, the album is still a regular album.

(i had already voted for the bug :)

what is a "regular album"?

is any track that SC does NOT think is part of a comp then by default part of a "regular" album?

i just want a clear definition.  does setting an albumartist make it a regular album?  what if it has an albumartist set and a comp=1 tag?

i def like the idea of two sections when browsing into the albums of a given specific artist, however, i wouldn't even name the first section, it would be understood these were their albums.  but "Also appears on" is a good idea.

>what is a "regular album"?
An album where all track artists are equal, or has an album artist.

>does setting an albumartist make it a regular album?
It does if you browse the album artist, but not if you browse one of the track artists.

I'm proposing that if you were to browse to an artist that appears as a track artist on someone else's album (albumartist doesn't equal the artist being browsed), then it would appear in "Also appears on".  If you browse to an artist that is the album artist for an album, that album appears as a "regular album" for that artist.

>what if it has an albumartist set and a comp=1 tag?
In that scenario, albumartist overrules the compilation; it's just defining another name instead of the default "Various Artists" being the album artist name.

All tracks will have the album artist, so it's a regular album for the album artist, and "also appears on" when browsing any of the track artists.  Album artist overrules track artist (i.e. if albumartist=track artist).

If you browse "Various Artists", you'd see a list of regular albums where albumartist="Various Artists".

>i def like the idea of two sections when browsing into the albums of a given
>specific artist, however, i wouldn't even name the first section
Yes, that's not a bad suggestion.

So we are all set and agreeing :-) Brandon/Chris when can we get this?

Some other questions to answer before we have put forward a complete change request...

How would this display on a classic Player UI?

Does this apply to other album context views.  eg. "Browse Years > [year] >", should it should all regular albums released in that year (where all songs have the same year), and "Also appears on..." would contain albums where there are some songs with that year, but not all songs on the album have that year.

Similarly "Browse Genres > [genre] >" would show "Also appears on..." where some but not all songs on the album have that genre.

I think it is equally appropriate for Browse Years, but not sure about Browse Genres, or Browse New Music (which using the same logic, could show "New Albums", and "Changed Albums" where some songs are new/changed, but not all songs.

(In reply to comment #35)
> Some other questions to answer before we have put forward a complete change request...
> How would this display on a classic Player UI?

On the Squeezebox and boom I would expect to browse something like: 
  Browse->
       Artists->
           U2->
and then see the following:
       play all
       All That You Can Leave Behind
       The Joshua Tree
       ... Also appears on ->
               A Very Special Christmas
               Absolute Hits of the 90's

> Does this apply to other album context views.  eg. "Browse Years > [year] >",
> should it should all regular albums released in that year (where all songs have
> the same year), and "Also appears on..." would contain albums where there are
> some songs with that year, but not all songs on the album have that year.
> Similarly "Browse Genres > [genre] >" would show "Also appears on..." where
> some but not all songs on the album have that genre.
> I think it is equally appropriate for Browse Years, but not sure about Browse
> Genres, or Browse New Music (which using the same logic, could show "New
> Albums", and "Changed Albums" where some songs are new/changed, but not all
> songs.

I would live Browse Genre as it is today. Make sense when browsing given genre to see that artists that have albums that includes songs of the given genre. I would expect the same behaviour from Browse Year (choose an year and see all the artists that have albums that includes songs form that year), but that's not ata all how browse year works today. Also the difference between album year (does it exist a tag for that?) track date and original date would need to be. 

But perhaps we should open a separate bug for Browse Year (and browse genre if we want to discuss that too). First, I am afraid that if we go for the total solution we will not get anything before 2015. Second, I wouldn't clutter the discussion here and miss the focus on th browse->artist issue.

By the way this bug (https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5211) deals with Browse by year behaviour.

I know this enhancement request is specifically about Browse Albums for a chosen artist, but I think the way the app is written at the moment, the "Album Context" view is used in different places (anywhere that results in a display of a list of albums).  i.e. Browse Albums, Browse Years > [year], Browse Genres > [genre].

All of those browse paths show albums, and have the same display properties, but filtered according to the selection used to get there.  Hence, to suggest adding something here may affect other areas of functionality unless more code is written to stop that from happening.  "...Also Apears on..." is not valid for Browse Albums, so would need to be prevented in that context, for example.

Can someone from slim just make the change to the wording of the "Group
compilations" option which  Philip suggests in comment #24 already?  There's
no good reason for that to wait for the new schema.

Then maybe create a separate bug for the enhancements to the Browse Albums
by an artist page which have been requested?

I split the string correction off to bug 10845, thanks for the reminder

Thanks Chris!

Would the sort order for a contributor's albums proposed here https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12676 be a more generic alternative to the "Also appears on..." link discussed? The proposed sort order would work for any contributor and, arguably, always list the albums by order of importance in relation to that contributor and indicate by divider bars the contributor's (most important) relation (Album artist, supportive artist on someone else's album, track artist on a VA album or composer) to the albums in each divder section.

Alan, i thought this might be inside the scope of onebrowser

bug 5211 might be a onebrowser bug too, but i can't access it