[Feedback] Request: A way to locally sort artists under same name

[Andrew Ash]

On 6/22/07, Ian Monroe <ian at monroe.nu> wrote:
> On 6/22/07, danielpus at gmail.com <danielpus at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Daniel sent a message using the contact form at
> > http://amarok.kde.org/en/contact.
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > Today The White Stripes, The_White_Stripes and White Stripes are sorted as
> > three different bands. If a user got a lot of albums by, synonymously, the
> > same band it can lead to some annoyance.
> > I am requesting a way to locally (under your own user/installation) sort
> > artist under same band name, instead of having to edit the id-tags of every
> > song and thereby destroying the file's integrity.
> >
> > you guys are doing a great job with amarok! I would have donated some
> > €€€, but unfortunately for you; I am a poor student. :)
> >
> > sincerely
> > Daniel
>
> Why does re-editing destroy the files integrity? Its quite easy to
> edit all those at once, just select them in the collection browser,
> right click, edit their tags.

Editing destroys the file integrity for P2P filesharing programs such
as BitTorrent.  The protocol works on the principle that the local
copies of the files that everyone has are identical.  So if Daniel
edits the tags of those files then they are no longer useful for the
network as a whole.  He would have to make another copy of the file
just to fix the tags for display in Amarok.

Think of the files as read-only, since that's closer to what they are
in this case.

> Having some sort of parallel tag/sorting system on top of the current
> would be a mess to implement and would be confusing.

I agree, it would be a mess and confusing, but it has a use case.
Hopefully, if Amarok devs decide to take a shot at this case, it can
be implemented cleanly.

I'm thinking that Amarok can internally use the tags of the files as a
starting point for its database, and then allow the user to change the
attributes on the internal database but still have that entry
associated with the read-only file.  Maybe an option in the Collection
setup could be 'these files are read-only' (or be detected as such)
and then this behavior could be applied to those files.

Just an idea.

> Ian
Andrew