Presets for Columns, Tree Nodes, and Sorting

[rubberduck]

Related to my other post I put this here, where it belongs:

I am personally not happy at all with the current solution "Share tree & column settings". It seems an easy and fast solution at first, but it is not easy to maintain and handle in the long run, as it is hard to see and remember which collection shares from which.
(Especially as there seems to be a bug, because after shareing and closing the dialog, the sharing is always "none" after opening the dialog again, although it is still shared.)

Maybe it would be better to solve this with presets. It should be possible to save a layout for tree nodes and assign it to different collections. Also a preset for columns. Making these two separate presets gives more flexibility. At least I would like to have the columns in most collections the same, but not the tree nodes.

And maybe most important, I really would appreciate a preset for sorting, which then can also be applied to one or more collections. This should behave as default and of course can be changed by clicking the column headers. When right-clicking on the collection there should be an option to restore the default sorting. Or even a button besides the search field (right to the layout and column browser button).

[mcow]

I agree with all of this.

I use MM only for music. Everytime I want to adjust the column headers, I right click, and I have a huge menu full of headers that I never want to use. NEVER. But I have to scan thru them by eye, every time, trying to find the one I want. And it's not enough to "drag the column headers way over to the right" -- there are too many ways that the column selection gets reset, and it just makes it unusable. There has to be a way to turn these unused columns off entirely.

[Teknojnky]

+1

[tommycrock]

I particularly agree with the sorting preset option. I often change the sort for some random task I'm doing but then I find myself wondering why the album isn't sorted by track number etc.

[mcow]

The only case I can think of where tracks in one album should appear out of order is if they are explicitly sorted by date or alphabetically.

The worst offender for this seems to be smart playlists; I have a criterion like "comment contains Amazon" and when I view the list, the albums are sorted together but the tracks appear in random order within the album.

[rovingcowboy]

The only case I can think of where tracks in one album should appear out of order is if they are explicitly sorted by date or alphabetically.

The worst offender for this seems to be smart playlists; I have a criterion like "comment contains Amazon" and when I view the list, the albums are sorted together but the tracks appear in random order within the album.

Go in to edit the autoplaylist and in the lower right hand corner of edit panel you will see a bos for setting sort order for the list i believe you will see by double clicking the sort there are options of how to do it you can use more then one sort, i think by album the by track number is how you should get them in track order by album when you view the playlist.

[mcow]

Go in to edit the autoplaylist and in the lower right hand corner of edit panel you will see a bos for setting sort order for the list i believe you will see by double clicking the sort there are options of how to do it you can use more then one sort, i think by album the by track number is how you should get them in track order by album when you view the playlist.

You're right, and I can set that for each autoplaylist individually. But my preferred sort order for groups of music is five-part: Album Artist, Date (oldest first), Album, Disc#, Track#. I'd rather not have to set a five-part sort with every smart playlist; I have quite a few.

I want to specify a default sort order, to be used unless a list specifies otherwise; and even when sorting by any other criteria is used, any of the listed ones not overridden should be used to break ties, in the order cited.

[rovingcowboy]

Oh default sort order script request is needed then.

[mcow]

The problem isn't just with my auto playlists, tho. There's also an issue with the automatic folders in the tree. For instance, I'm looking at Files to Edit, Unknown Artwork, with Art+Details view: None of the visible columns are shown as a sort criterion, there is no discernible order to the albums, and the tracks are all scrambled within each album. (They are, at least, sorted enough that all the albums' tracks are grouped.) And there is no option for me to set the sorting on this.

[rovingcowboy]

Oh i dont know if mine is doing that i'll have to check later.