(This is my first post. In the very beginning, I have to say that gmusicbrowser is the most configurable program I have ever seen. Thanks!)
I think using artistsort/albumaltistsort/albumsort is a good idea, and handling these tags does not look too complicated. Let us consider artist/artistsort:
An artist (or a band) may have few slightly different names, like (sorry, I know this is not the best example): "Sir James Paul McCartney", "James Paul McCartney", "Paul McCartney". Artist tag should be set to the name printed on the media.
However, artistsort is the unique name of the specific artist. For all the examples above, artistsort should be the same, "McCartney, Paul". (To me MusicBrainz style guidelines for artistsort looks very reasonable.)
artistsort should be used in list of artists and for filtering. For example, if user clicks on "McCartney, Paul" in the lists of artists, only albums of this artist should be listed regardless of exact spelling of his name.
artist should be used only for display purposes: in list of songs, in the queue, in title-album-artist of the currently playing song, etc.
artistsort MUST be unique by definition. User should maintain her/his music library to follow the rule.
I personally think that setting artistsort is a responsibility of user, not player software.
In list of artist -- artistsort, definitely.
I think using artistsort/albumaltistsort/albumsort is a good idea, and handling these tags does not look too complicated. Let us consider artist/artistsort:
An artist (or a band) may have few slightly different names, like (sorry, I know this is not the best example): "Sir James Paul McCartney", "James Paul McCartney", "Paul McCartney". Artist tag should be set to the name printed on the media.
However, artistsort is the unique name of the specific artist. For all the examples above, artistsort should be the same, "McCartney, Paul". (To me MusicBrainz style guidelines for artistsort looks very reasonable.)
artistsort should be used in list of artists and for filtering. For example, if user clicks on "McCartney, Paul" in the lists of artists, only albums of this artist should be listed regardless of exact spelling of his name.
artist should be used only for display purposes: in list of songs, in the queue, in title-album-artist of the currently playing song, etc.
Quote from: Quentin Sculo on August 05, 2012, 15:51:10
I want to support that, but there are 2 questions :
1) what to do if there are more than one ARTISTSORT for the same artist
The way I see it currently is making artistsort an artist property,
If it finds an artistsort tag and the property is not set, it sets it to this artistsort
And maybe, optionally, if the user edit the artistsort property, this artistsort is written in all songs from artist, potentially hundreds of files :(
Also I could add an option that automatically set artistsort if it begins by user-settable words (the...).
If artist is named "The A", should it set it to "A" or "A (The)", something else ?
artistsort MUST be unique by definition. User should maintain her/his music library to follow the rule.
I personally think that setting artistsort is a responsibility of user, not player software.
Quote from: Quentin Sculo on August 05, 2012, 15:51:10
2) what should be displayed in the list of artists ? the artist name of the artistsort ? (personally I dislike both, that's why I won't use that feature)
(I used artist/artistsort as an example, but the questions are the same for albums)
I don't know how other players handle this, but I'd be interested to know.
In list of artist -- artistsort, definitely.