Various Artists in Amarok 2.0

[Stuart Neill]

On Monday 15 December 2008 22:49:19 Jud Craft wrote:

> Alright, I'll concede that your collection must be kinda crazy.  But I
> think what I have identified is fairly sane behavior.

Oh sneaky. I like your literary juxtaposition (you crazy - me sane) :-) Of 
course, ahem, it might be that your collection is narrowly focused and small 
where as what I have in mind is expansive and complex ;-)

They are just "use cases". Whether my collection is as eccentric as your 
appear to believe, and therefore should not be taken into account, I don't 
know.
>
> What if Amarok waited until there were a certain number of
> compilations before grouping them under a second heading?  You did
> admit yourself that the main reason you prefer it is merely to save
> browsing space; I argue that this is the only reason, and that it
> cannot possibly yield any positive organizational sense, aside from
> the pre-existing familiarity with the scheme that an Amarok user would
> have.
>
Certainly in Amarok 2 my main motivation for going through the tedious process 
of identifying "Various Artist" albums was to reduce the length of the 
collection browser list.

> At the very least, the problem with Amarok 1.4 should be fixed:  for
> albums which are not marked as compilations (whether intentionally or
> by accident), Amarok should still group those songs on the album when
> the artists are separate (as opposed to failing to do so).  It should
> stop making a distinction between "Albums by Artist X" and "Albums
> that have Artist X", and merely use "Albums with Artist X".

If the distinction to be stopped only applies to albums not marked as "Various 
Artists" (it is not clear to me that this is all you mean in the second part 
of the paragraph) then I should make no comment as this is not how I use 
Amarok. Good luck with persuading the developers to work on this.

On balance, I still prefer Amarok 1, and at least until replay gain is 
supported I will only be using Amarok 2 in order to compare it with Amarok 1.

In Amarok 1 I particularly like the separate grouping of compilation albums on 
which an artist appears and indeed would like to see other groups such as 
Single Artist Compilations (Greatest Hits, Collection, Essential etc) and 
Collaboration Albums (Artist X & Artist Y).

So unfortunately, we also disagree on this point. No doubt those ace 
developers will come to the rescue and allow us both to have our way (but 
possibly not just yet).
>
> That would make me quite happy, as I could organize and browse my
> albums successfully with complete ignorance of the compilation flag,
> while others would appreciate it's convenience as they wish.  :)

I would also like you to be quite happy in your complete ignorance.

(Sorry Jud, I don't mean this but just could not resist typing it. I'm a bad 
person but don't call me CRAZY).

-- 
Stuart Neill