Bugzilla – Bug 6076
Enhanced album page layout
Last modified: 2009-09-08 09:25:19 UTC
I think it would be nice to have a similar page layout for album pages (the page that shows cover art and the list of tracks on an album) as is now used on the Default skin's song info page. Artwork on the top left, with album name, album artist, genre and year on the right. Additionally, if not too much work (should be a single database query) the album duration would also be nice to see. Then in the track listings below, suppress the album name, which is always identical for all tracks in an album. If possible, it might also be nice to suppress each track's artist list when it's the same as the album artist shown above. I think this layout would work in both the new Default skin, and the EN/Classic skins where the page is displayed in an overlay. Some attention to artwork sizing may have to be done so that there's room for the info to the right of the image.
One thing I forgot: Add 'Play this album' and 'Add this album' buttons to the enhanced album page, in the same position as on the song info page. Then get rid of the line for 'All Songs'.
I think that this is a good idea. Michael: How hard would it be to reuse that layout?
It should be feasible using the same styles, though not the same template. But the styles are there, and we know the level. Will give it a try.
change 15836 - please test, especially with VA albums (don't have any VA on my test machine...)
change 15863 fix VA behaviour - use the album's year/artist information - display additional information such as compilation flag, album gain etc.
Very nice. No, VA albums aren't displaying the artist correctly. At the top it's showing one (or more) of the artists from one track in the album (I think maybe always the first track). Below that, on the track lines, no artists are displayed: Artist: George Jones Album: Classic Country Genre: Country Year: 1997 1-1. Race Is On 1-2. Please Help Me, I'm Falling Should be something like (ideally, for compilations the artists would be displayed with all tracks): Artist: Various Artists Album: Classic Country Genre: Country Year: 1997 1-1. Race Is On by George Jones 1-2. Please Help Me, I'm Falling by Hank Locklin I also have one album on which a "TRACKARTIST" role appears. The Princess Bride soundtrack, marked a non-compilation, with an ALBUMARTIST (Mark Knopfler) and each track has as its ARTIST "Mark Knopfler", except for one track with ARTIST "Willie Deville". The album info page looks (too) much like one of the track info pages: Album Artist: Mark Knopfler Track Artist: Mark Knopfler Album: The Princess Bride Genre: Soundtrack Year: 1987 No 'Track Artist' should be shown at the top of the album page and the 'Album Artist' should probably just be labeled 'Artist'. Ideally (this may be tricky) any artists would would be shown on the track lines whenever they differ from the album artist, same as they should be displayed on a compilation album. Similarly, a non-compilation, with guest artists, is showing: Album Artist: Frank Sinatra Artist: Frank Sinatra, Luther Vandross Album: Duet Genre: Jazz, Vocal Year: 1993 1. The Lady Is A Tramp 2. What Now My Love would ideally be displayed: Artist: Frank Sinatra Album: Duets Genre: Jazz, Vocal Year: 1993 1. The Lady Is A Tramp by Frank Sinatra, Luther Vandross 2. What Now My Love by Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin
Whoops, mid-air collision. I'll check out your latest update for VA albums.
Here's what's happening after change 15863: I'm seeing artists displayed for every song, both compilation and non-compilation albums. VA albums are displaying all artists for the album in the top info. Artist: George Jones, Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Hank Locklin, Roger Miller, Flloyd Cramer, Ferkin Husky, Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Jim Reeves, Bill Anderson, Ned Miller, Leroy Van Dyke, Lefty Frizzell, Claude King, Faron Young, Don Gibson, George Hamilton IV, Bobby Bare, Dave Dudley, Buck Owens, Roy Drusky, Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, Carl Butler, Marty Robbins, Everly Brothers Album: Classic Country 1960-1964 Please don't display "Compilation: Yes" for VA albums. It should be obvious most of the tiem when 'Various Artists' is displayed as the Artist.
Thanks for the feedback. I was wondering about the Artists list: would you rather remove it for VA albums? I've added the artists per track back in that case, thus the full list of artists is probably a bit redundant and taking up too much space, too. Why don't you want the Compilation info? While it's often obvious, it might help finding out in cases where people are complaining about wrong VA behaviour.
For VA albums, I think the artist should just be the VA string, or the ALBUMARTIST if there is one. If it's tricky, though, showing the ALBUMARTIST for VA's probably isn't that important. Artists for tracks would should always be shown on all tracks of a compilation albums. For non-compilations, it would be great to suppress the artist for the common case of the artist being the same as the album artist, but display them otherwise. I know that could get tricky, so maybe we're just stuck with always display the 'by ...'. As for displaying stuff like compilation status, replay gain, and etc: Um, *CLUTTER* ;-) That level of detail is fine for track info pages - people don't descend to the track info level in the normal course of playing tracks or building playlists. But album pages get used a _lot_. I don't think people want to see that detail and it then affects usability. You might consider a hidden div with something like a 'more...' link. I have two small layout requests: 1. Can the "All Songs" line be removed? It's redundant when you have the controls above, and the text links right back to the same album page. 2. Could the Play and Add controls be simplified to just the icons and placed on a single line _below_ the other album info? Placing the artist, then the album name at the top would be much cleaner.
change 15867, change 15866, change 15868: - remove the artist list for compilations - remove "All songs" list item - display play/add buttons horizontally together with mixer button (if available) - added playtime Left the compilation line in there. As the artist list is gone for compilations this doesn't take up too much space anyway. Genre is per track, thus can't be displayed in the header.
This bug is being closed since it was resolved for a version which is now released! Please download the new version of SqueezeCenter (formerly SlimServer) at http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html If you are still seeing this bug, please re-open it and we will consider it for a future release.