Sort by Artist/Album, then by Date ignores album

[mtf1979]

I just learned about the primary/secondary sorting feature and I love it! i.e., sort by X then by Y (click first column to sort, then hold CTRL and click a second column)... Yet another reason to love MediaMonkey! (I'm a very happy Gold User.)

Unfortunately, however, I discovered a bug in the sorting functionality when you're in "Show Album Art with details" view mode.

If an Album spans multiple years -- sounds weird at first, but this is the case with all of my podcasts, where the Album name is the podcast name -- and you have multiple podcasts by the same artist, then sorting first by Artist/Album and then by Date produces the wrong result. Instead of grouping everything by Artist then Album then Date, it merely sorts by Artist then Date.

As an example, here's how you would logically sort these two podcasts:

Podcast A by Artist X
-Track 1, Date 1/1/2011
-Track 2, Date 2/1/2011

Podcast B by Artist X
-Track 1, Date 1/1/2011
-Track 2, Date 2/1/2011

But if you click Artist/Album to first sort by Artist and Album, and then hold CTRL and click Date to secondarily sort by Date, this is what you end up with:

Podcast A by Artist X
-Track 1, Date 1/1/2011

Podcast B by Artist X
-Track 1, Date 2/1/2011

Podcast A by Artist X
-Track 2, Date 1/1/2011

Podcast B by Artist X
-Track 2, Date 2/1/2011


It might not look so bad with such a small example, but I have a case where I have three separate podcasts by the same artist, and new episodes arrive weekly for each of the podcasts. Instead of grouping those podcasts into 3 neat groups, my library literally shows hundreds of "Album" entries, one for each podcast for each week.


My environment:
Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate
MediaMonkey 3.2.4.1304 Gold License

[Lowlander]

I can reproduce with Genre as secondary sort, although I'm not sure if it's by design or a bug. I'm also not sure if this wasn't already reported.

[Dreadlau]

Why not use Artist > Ctrl > Album > Ctrl > Date ?

[Lowlander]

At least in MM4 the Album column isn't available and Artist sort should probably be Album Artist which is also unavailable in the Art with Details view.

[mtf1979]

Why not use Artist > Ctrl > Album > Ctrl > Date ?

As Lowlander said, in "Show Album Art with details" view mode, Artist/Album is a single column. You can't click Artist and Album separately. It seems like MediaMonkey is sorting merely on Artist when it should be sorting on Artist and Album when that column is clicked.

As far as it being "by design": If that's the case -- at least in "Show Album Art with details" view mode (with Artist/Album as a single column) -- I personally don't think that's a good design decision. I think the example I provided makes a pretty compelling case; under what circumstances would anyone want it to be the other way? No snark intended -- I'm genuinely curious (I'm a software engineer and UX designer myself, so I like these types of debates).

[Lowlander]

Added here: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=7439

Workaround is to sort on Artist/Album > Artwork > Date as Artwork works as Album sort.

[mtf1979]

OK, giving this a little more thought, I'm realizing it's more complicated than I was originally thinking. Sorting by Artist then Album then Date doesn't actually provide the result I was hoping for. Conceptually speaking, I think that the combined "Artist/Album" column requires special sorting rules: something like "Sort by Artist and group by Album but don't sort by Album".

When I sort by Artist/Album then Artwork then Date, I get the "technically correct" results -- which is exactly what sorting by Artist then Album then Date (in a different view mode) would do, as suggested by Dreadlau above -- but I don't think that's how people want the Artist/Album column to work. And I think the MediaMonkey devs already know this. Check it out:

When I sort by Artist/Album then by Date, I get the intended result with most of my non-podcast albums, i.e., my library is sorted by Artist, and then, within Artist, Albums are grouped and sorted chronologically.

For example:

Artist X
-Album G, Date 1977
-Album D, Date 1980
-Album E, Date 1982
-Album A, Date 1985

The point is that with the Artist/Album column, I think most people would want to sort by Artist and group by Album, but then be able to sort by a secondary field like Date. Clearly the MediaMonkey devs understood this, because that's how it works when you click "Artist/Album" and the CTRL-click "Date". Perfect!

But then it breaks down when an album spans multiple years, e.g., a podcast "Album" or a compilation album with different years for each track. It seems like the Albums are no longer grouped in that case.

I realize this is pretty crazy/complicated (and I'll probably never get the solution I'm after), but does that explanation make sense?

[Dreadlau]

Another way to solve this would be to allow users to access the "Album" column in the art+details view.

[Lowlander]

Album I think is actually available for sorting by sorting on Artwork. I'd still like to see Album Artist and Album as available columns though: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =6&t=55963

[Dreadlau]

I'd still like to see Album Artist and Album as available columns though

I totally agree.