If it makes you feel any better, there's at least on other person who uses Lastname, Firstname. It just kills me to see Dylan filed under "B". I've also run into problems using scripts based on social networking sites like Last.FM

wow - now don't I feel dopey ... :oops: I seem to have been the only one to use the "alternate" naming method lol. I still want to use it, but will have to wait until MM implements the means.

I use "Firstname Lastname" syntax and I put the "featuring", "presents" and "versus" artist in the artist field after the "real" artist. But I shorten them to ft. pres. and vs.

I always have the artist as "Firstname Lastname" and put other artists in the title field as "Title (feat. Firstname Lastname)" - I wrote this script as a request but have never used it myself. :)

Thanks Trix - I'm using that change already :)

The only problems are:

[b]1.[/b] Album Artist doesn't STAY changed (so have to edit one album-artist at a time in properties window);
[b]2.[/b] It doesn't help with multiple artists (of which I have [i]far[/i] too many);
[b]3.[/b] I currently have all my featured artists within the Title field (to prevent MM from fracturing the artist list too much); and
[b]4.[/b] I need to change a number of secondary fields such as [i]Involved People, Original Artist, Composer (non-classical)[/i]

Still, the ability to reverse this script has helped no end so far.

PS: Trix - out of curiosity, which way to you currently have your files organised?

Dim mode
mode = 0 'Firstname Lastname -> Lastname, Firstname
'mode = 1 'Lastname, Firstname -> Firstname Lastname

Dim mode
'mode = 0 'Firstname Lastname -> Lastname, Firstname
mode = 1 'Lastname, Firstname -> Firstname Lastname

@Nebbin - don't do it by hand!! Use my "Advanced Rename" script! If you open the script file in a text editor, near the top you'll find...[code]Dim mode
mode = 0 'Firstname Lastname -> Lastname, Firstname
'mode = 1 'Lastname, Firstname -> Firstname Lastname[/code]
Simply change this to mode 1 like this...[code]Dim mode
'mode = 0 'Firstname Lastname -> Lastname, Firstname
mode = 1 'Lastname, Firstname -> Firstname Lastname[/code]
And the script will reverse all the changes! :)

On this same note, what does everyone do with Classical composers? Do you store them as eg.

[b]Lastname, Firstname:[/b]
[i] Bach, Johann Sebastian
Khachaturian, Aram
Rossini, Gioacchino
Vivaldi, Antonio[/i]

or

[b]Firstname Lastname:[/b]
[i]Antonio Vivaldi
Aram Khachaturian
Gioacchino Rossini
Johann Sebastian Bach [/i]

This, especially, is an area where I FAR prefer the [i]Lastname, Firstname[/i] style. I'd find a large collection not organised this way would be more difficult to browse / use - which hamstrings the whole point of using MM. I can understand the desire to keep names in a perfect [i]Firstname Lastname[/i] format, but I can't see MM changing the display behaviour any time soon... (please, please prove me wrong). In fact, for this to work properly, the display style would probably need to affect all NAME fields, such as artist, album artist, composer, involved people, original artist etc...

It's also sad to see that even many of my local CD stores are starting to display their stock by first names now. Probably due to the influence of the more popular online stores which do the same. Ha, I wouldn't be surpised to eventually see Libraries and Uni's dragged kicking and screaming into adopting this practice, as soon most people won't know any other way :P

Anyway, I've started changing the names back to "normal" ... (sooooo time consuming lol), but I think for the moment I'll keep Classical Composers the way they are.

*sigh*

Although I never share tracks, I guess I'll undo it all ... see you all in a few weeks :( lol

Hopefully ID3 tags (or at least software DBs) will eventually allow for the separation &/or custom display of artist names. I just really find it annoying to have tracks ordered by an artist's first name - it simply feels [i]wrong[/i]. Obviously I'm not the only one, otherwise Trix would never have written his script, but it certainly seems to be a minority group.

General rule in computing afaik: when no separate first name, middle name and last name fields are present, you should put them in this order in one name field.
So here, there's only Artist Name --> [i]Firstname Lastname[/i]
In cases where "Lastname, Firstname" is used, it's merely for organisational purposes, but this is quite irrelevant when we have music management tools like MediaMonkey and the-likes.

If there are separate first name and last name fields, then the application should be able to show these in a familiar way (so you can choose if you want "Firstname Lastname" or "Lastname, Firstname").
Windows' "address book" (used in Outlook Express) is a good example of this.

Of course this is a general rule. There are always people that don't follow it, and that's fine by me as far as they keep it for themselves. If they start spreading wrongly tagged files, well then they give problems. (yeah I know you can 'easily' change from one to another.... but you really should read (or work with something) about [i]standards[/i]... they are used anywhere: in engineering, programming, calculus, economics, ... and they're here for an obvious reason (even if we theoretically speaking 'can' do without them).)

>> Conclusion: ID3 artist tags should be tagged as "Firstname Lastname".

[quote]Sometimes I really have to reign in my anal-retentive behaviour[/quote]me too! :wink:

For added info - strict adherence to most uni style guides (eg MLA, Chicago styles etc for bibliographies) requires a [i]Last name, First name[/i] approach - although multiple artists are a strange beast where all but the first auther are [i]First name Last name[/i]. This would be impractical for a music database where internal searches would be unable to cope with the two formats - well, at least currently with MM v2.5 (I have yet to try MM3, and so I'm unsure of changes to the employed search mechanism).

Hmmm... probably no one even cares lol! Sometimes I really have to reign in my anal-retentive behaviour :P

How many people use Trix's [b]Advanced Rename[/b] script? (ie. how many organise their music collection by [i]Lastname, Firstname[/i]?)

I'm just wondering since most web sites and tools seem to only ever use [i]Firstname Lastname[/i], making scripted searches (such as the "similar artists" feature of MonkeyRok) rather useless (as it's based on a Last.fm). Is there a way of scripting around this maybe?

Am I only one of a few who deign to use this seemingly outmoded form of organisation? Almost everywhere I look on-line I find it sorted in a [i]Firstname Lastname[/i] order. I've always sorted names by Lastname as it felt natural - but it could well be too much "brainwashing" from Uni. Maybe the less "advanced" method is better after all... although after converting over 30k tracks, I'd hate to discover that it was a futile exercise. :( I'm guessing there are a number of other scripts which also rely on a [i]Firstname Lastname[/i] catalogue order, so I'm very interested in who uses which system.

PS: I guess what I'd love to see is a structure similar to Outlook where once you enter the name, you can then separately select how that name is displayed / searched for each record. (MM3.5? :P) I think [b]Music Collector[/b] from collectorz.com uses something along this line, but heck, it also seems to have separate fields for each band member... sheesh, now THAT'S too much work :)

PPS: I wasn't sure which forum to post this in - please feel free to move it if another is more appropriate.