Various Artists in Amarok 2.0

[Jan Holthuis]

On Dienstag 16 Dezember 2008 16:24:58 Jud Craft wrote:
> Your logic is a little flawed:  if there were two albums, both called
> Greatest Hits, and both flagged as compilations/Various Artists,
> Amarok would _still_ group them both together.  It would group them
> together no matter what you do.
> 
> It would group them together whether you flagged it as Various Artists
> or not.  While annoying, that's not a good reason to defend Amarok's
> inability to recognize a compilation automatically.

Sorry, but I think you misunderstood me:
You have these two albums:

The Beatles - Greatest Hits
Frank Zappa - Greatest Hits

At the moment, Amarak doest recognize compilations automatically, so
everything will be just fine:

- Local Collection
  - The Beatles
    + Greatest Hits
  - Frank Zappa
    + Greatest Hits

If you try to recognize compilations by looking for the same ALBUM-tag,
Amarok might think it's a compilation, because both »Greatest Hits«-albums
have the same album-tag:

- Local Collection
  - Various Artists
    + Greatest Hits

> When you flag an album as a compilation/Various Artists, you're just
> adding a separate "compilation=1" ID3 tag to it -- you're not giving
> it any extra data.  So if Amarok couldn't distinguish the two albums
> before, it can't do it now either.

Well, I believe Amarok doesn't set that flag to the album itself, but for every
single track on that album (that's at least how iTunes does it). It's not the
nicest yet easiest way to avoid what I described above.

> Besides, I would consider a redundant album name to be an easily
> fixable tag problem -- just fix the tag yourself, and set it to
> something slightly different, just for the sanity of your collection.

So you say I'll have to mistag one of the albums to avoid that grouping?
 
> And now, I say again my main point:
> 
> > I have to agree
> > with Stuart: My collection browser is way to full as long as collections
> > are not grouped under »Various Artists«. Just to remind you: If you do
> > not like that grouping, you can still select »Do not show under Various
> > Artists«. In that case, the compilation will be split up and shown under
> > every single artist.
> 
> Recheck my #2 from my previous post -- my problem is that when you do
> _exactly_ this, Amarok fails to recognize the other tracks on the
> album.  Amarok essentially says "Either you're a compilation album or
> you're not an album at all, because I'm not grouping different artists
> on the same album unless you tell me to put it Under Various Artists."
> 
> Which means that if you don't select Show under Various Artists, these
> tracks show up under List by Artist just fine, but then when you
> switch to List by Album, Amarok refuses to group them under the same
> album.
> 
> This is my point:  Amarok thinks that if you refuse to flag a
> compilation album as such, it's not really an album.  And I think
> that's a problem:  it means that clicking "Show under Various Artists"
> actually does two things.
> 
> 1.  Allows Amarok to group the tracks as an album
> 2.  Shows the album under Various Artists.
> 
> I'm arguing that #2 is definitely handy for people who have large
> collections, no doubt.  But Amarok should ALWAYS do #1 -- I shouldn't
> have to click "Show Under Various Artists" just to get Amarok to
> realize those tracks are on the same album.
> 
> My point is that A) Amarok should ALWAYS recognize compilations, and
> B) Sorting these compilations under Various Artists is good, but I'd
> prefer it to be an option, rather than mandatory, and even if you
> don't want to do that, Amarok should still recognize the compilations
> as albums under Album view, no matter what.

OK, so you think of something like »Order by Artist → Album« and »Order by Artist (+VA) → Album«?
That would be definitely good for both kinds of collection-owners...
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