Handling of "Various Artists" CDs

[amb]

Album mode is a misnomer. In actuality, it is "Artist/Album" mode. When in Album mode, the collection is always sorted by Artist first, then grouped by album.

The Phatbox does not use the folder information at all. It just uses the song's tags. You could organize your collection so that every single song is in it's own directory, and the Phatbox wouldn't care.

OK, if this was the case, and if removing "bad_album_db=on" from phatbox.ini does what it's supposed to do, then that should take care of this problem.  But it doesn't...    

"Removing or commenting out bad_album_db=on will cause the album list to be sorted by album title first intead of artist then album title."

[todd1010]

So even though one of my albums name is called, "Tribute to The Clash." And since there is various artists on that album, when in the car in album mode it won't play that entire album once I find it?

[amb]

So even though one of my albums name is called, "Tribute to The Clash." And since there is various artists on that album, when in the car in album mode it won't play that entire album once I find it?

That's right... try it and see.

[todd1010]

Hum, well I've never really actually browse by the album mode anyway. Well maybe Phat4X will fix all that up? I normally just make a bunch of "playlist" with stuff that I listen to a lot and then all the other music that's on the DMS, will be there just in case I get the need for something out of the ordinary.

[amb]

Well maybe Phat4X will fix all that up?

This is the reason why I ask whether this problem is due to PMM or phatbox.  If the files are tagged correctly (and I believe mine are), then the problem would be in the phatbox.  In such a case using Phat4x instead of PMM wouldn't make a difference, would it?

I normally just make a bunch of "playlist" with stuff that I listen to a lot and then all the other music that's on the DMS, will be there just in case I get the need for something out of the ordinary.

I already have too many playlists, to the point that it becomes a chore to navigate.  

[stealthwagon]

I still don't see a solution to the "Various Artists" Albums here.
the bad_album_db flag doesn't change anything, If I have a SoundTrack album that I want to listen to all at once, I can't!!

So one simple question:
Why can't the PhatBox sort by albums ? It can't be too hard. It's capable of doing it by Artist!

HEEELPPP !

[A543]

I might be missing something here, but can't you just make a playlist?

[amb]

I might be missing something here, but can't you just make a playlist?

Yes I could, but I have a large number of various artists albums.  To make a separate playlist for each one of them would make my number of playlists unmanageably large as well, not to mention a lot of work to do so.

[A543]

a lot of work to do so

I think there's a way in PMM to select multiple folders and have it make a playlist from each folder in one action.

[todd1010]

Would not put the name of the Album in the Album. Use "Various Artists" in the Artist tage, and then for the title of the song put the "Artist & track title"

That way when you use SSA, you would still hear the artists name and the title of the songs.

[amb]

After doing some more searches and experimentation I now understand how things work, and have a solution too!

The sort order of tracks on the phatbox is based on the .idx files on the DMS, which are in turn generated from the .db files, and these are all done by PMM.  So, the solution is to fix the .db files and to regenerate the .idx files from them.

I found a Linux shell script called phatSort (written by "Cowboy" Ben Alman) that did this, but I massaged it further to make it work the way I like it.  Now I have completely solved the "various artists" sort problem.  When browsing by album, all albums are sorted in alphabetical order (and using the alpha seek, a cinch to find), and all tracks are played in the proper order.  Yay!  

My own version of the phatsort script adds more error checking, backs up the original .db and .idx files before proceeding, does some cleanup, and has minor tweaks to the sorting.  Of course, if you want to use it you will need to connect the cradle to a Linux box, and you will need to re-run the script after each PMM sync/save/eject operation by PMM because the .db and .idx files will get mangled again.  One other thing, don't forget to add "album_seek=alpha" in your Profile.ini to enable alpha seeking in album mode.

[admin]

Good work!  Please create a new thread for this with a catchy title - this will help folks when they search for this type of thing.

[judb]

Also, please put up a wiki page on it too if you would!  Good work!

[amb]

OK, I'll work on a wiki entry when I get some time.  Meanwhile I fixed a couple of last minute typos in my script and the new version is -> here <-.

[amb]

Hi all, I've put up yet another new version of my script for download.
It is now at v1.0.2 and is available -> here <-.

There are a couple of minor enhancements.  See the README file for details.

[amb]

Hi all, with thanks to sbinger, this script is now up and available for download here:

http://downloads.phathack.com/amb/

The file name is phatsort.sh-1.0.2.tar.gz which is a tarball format bundle of the script, support files and a README file on how to use it.

I also added "myphat" (myphat-1.0.tar.gz or myphat-1.0.zip) to the same location for downloads.  This is a CGI script providing a web interface to browse your DMS music collection based on its database files.

Fron now on this will be the location for future updates of these scripts, and any other phatnoise-related software that I might whip-up.

Have fun.