[Req] Sort by Original Date in Grid View [rejected]

[ArnoldSnarb49]

Can we please have an option to sort by the original date, or as many people use it, release date, in a grid view? The only options now, alphabetically by album, chronologcally by date (not original date), and by rating, don't allow for actual chronological listings of any collection with reissues or special editions.

These limited choices we have now are already cut way back from the 6 we had in previous versions. And I've seen the reasoning that original date isn't album-wide, potentially causing multiple instances of the same album with different track years like from a Greatest Hits or something.

But neither is rating, something that can vary wildly between tracks in an album. Out of the few people who actually bother to use the rating fields, I can't imagine all of them are rating the album as a whole. And when you sort a grid by rating, it ignores any variation within an album and sorts by the first track, making it a useless sorting field.

So why not allow us this same option for original date? It could look messy, or at the very least make only use the first track's data within an album, but at least then we'd have the option to sort things this way. I know this is an issue that's been brought up before, it's a desired function. Is this possible to implement sometime in the future?

[ArnoldSnarb49]

Can we please have an option to sort by the original date, or as many people use it, release date, in a grid view? The only options now, alphabetically by album, chronologcally by date (not original date), and by rating, don't allow for actual chronological listings of any collection with reissues or special editions.

These limited choices we have now are already cut way back from the 6 we had in previous versions. And I've seen the reasoning that original date isn't album-wide, potentially causing multiple instances of the same album with different track years like from a Greatest Hits or something.

But neither is rating, something that can vary wildly between tracks in an album. Out of the few people who actually bother to use the rating fields, I can't imagine all of them are rating the album as a whole. And when you sort a grid by rating, it ignores any variation within an album and sorts by the first track, making it a useless sorting field.

So why not allow us this same option for original date? It could look messy, or at the very least make only use the first track's data within an album, but at least then we'd have the option to sort things this way. I know this is an issue that's been brought up before, it's a desired function. Is this possible to implement sometime in the future?

[Lowlander]

But neither is rating, something that can vary wildly between tracks in an album.

This is using the calculated Album Rating, not the individual files Rating values. Thus Rating is sorting on an Album value instead of a file value.

[rusty]

To elaborate: in 'Grid (by album)' views it's possible to sort by any album attribute: Album title, Album Date, Album Artist, Album rating (= average rating).

Adding the ability to sort by track-specific attributes would result in non-nonsensical duplicate album images which is why this functionality isn't provided. On the other hand, in views in which tracks are displayed (e.g. List by Album) you can sort by any attribute as even though it causes Albums to be 'split up' it's perfectly clear why they're split up (as each instance of the album has different tracks).

Hope this clarifies.

-Rusty

[MattTown]

...
Adding the ability to sort by track-specific attributes would result in non-nonsensical duplicate album images which is why this functionality isn't provided.
...

I have also (previously) requested this feature to be implemented. Yes Rusty's point is valid, but he seems to assume that all users would not be capable of figuring this out. I understand that the "Original Date" could vary within an album, but for most of the albums I would want to view via album art sorted in original date order, the original dates for those albums have been deliberately set by me to be all the same original date, as in the original date of release of the album.

So, yes, inexperienced users might be confused, but MM is a powerful tool and is packed with features that confuse inexperienced users (eg Mask for Organise Files, or debugging sync to MMA), so denying the development of this feature for this reason is not particularly rational.

Cheers

Matt