Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?! (Read 5865 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Can anyone tell me how to arrange files by artist (a-z), then date, then album, then track (track no.)..?!

This seems such a painfully obvious format to me that I'm sure there must be something significant that I'm missing.

... such as a User Guide, for example ... since I'm sure you guys have better things to be doing ...

I have no playlists, everything's in one big list under the tab 'All music' in Foobar, and yet I can't even get them to arrange in alphabetical order of artist, let alone the above format.

Can anyone help?

... (by the way, I forgot entirely about the title of the last track I'd listened to when I took the screenshot & only noticed when I added it here, I hope it doesn't cause offense to anyone  :-[

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #1
This seems such a painfully obvious format to me that I'm sure there must be something significant that I'm missing
Maybe Edit → Sort → Sort by fields...
a User Guide, for example
http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Titleformat_Reference#Remapped_metadata_fields

HTH.

Alessandro

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #2
In my setup, it works by clicking the column headings in reverse order. First, of course, make sure I have the Artist column (well, in fact: the Album Artist column). Then I click tracknumber, and then album, and then year, and then album artist.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #3
Thanks Mobyduck, I'll have a look at that when I have more time. At first glance it looks quite complicated, perhaps more than I need, or can cope with  :(, but I'll dig in.

In my setup, it works by clicking the column headings in reverse order. First, of course, make sure I have the Artist column (well, in fact: the Album Artist column). Then I click tracknumber, and then album, and then year, and then album artist.
Thanks Porcus - I've noticed effects of this oddly reversed thing in the past, but I'm v. grateful to you for spelling it out - I've no doubt there's a logical programming or legacy reason for it but to me it seems bizarrely counter-intuitive, to select things in reverse order of priority - anyway I followed your advice & it did what I needed perfectly, thanks.

Finding a way to organise things sensibly has brought into sharp focus that I appear to have 5 copies in Foobar of every single track on my drive, which has probably come about because I'm yet to work out how to import individual album folders, so I daresay I'll be asking another basic question soon, but many thanks all.
M

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #4
to me it seems bizarrely counter-intuitive, to select things in reverse order of priority

How to remember:
- when you click a column, you are making a decision on how to sort - and of course you want your most recent choice to decide!
- you second-to-last choice is then relegated to "tiebreaker".

That is actually what happens. fb2k keeps the order among those which are tied according to the new sorting criterion.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #5
Thanks again Porcus,

Yes, I can see the logic in programming terms, certainly, & (from your advice) I have now managed to put tracks in a 'sensible' order (although I'm not at all clear on your 'tiebreaker' scenario I'm afraid, but maybe that's beyond what I need at this point, I'm not sure... ).

Can you, or anyone, shed any light on why I suddenly seem to have multiple copies of most tracks..?

I've struggled to find a way of adding a single folder (ie, a new album). In my previous version of fb2k I would simply paste a new folder into my 'root' audio folder (probably the wrong terminology), then in fb2k select 'Album list' from the Library menu & the new folder would appear in the tracklist, as simply as that. ... Now, I think fb2k is adding everything again when I do that..., I think...?

Any ideas? Or by all means a pointer to another thread if this has all been discussed before.

Many thanks again.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #6
Here's another way to look at sorting. (By the way, I sort the same way Porcus does.)

The first sort puts all the tracks in order by track number. All the first tracks, then all the second tracks, etc, until you get to the highest-numbered track(s) at the bottom.

Of course, you can't leave it at that, so you sort next by album name. Sorting methods may work in different ways but, essentially, all of the first tracks are put in order by album name, then all the second tracks, and so on, until all have been processed, and then the album names are sorted top-to-bottom without changing the relative positions of the track sort result. (The "tiebreaking" that Porcus refers to has already been done by the track sort.)

The next step is to sort by year. (You could leave this step out if you prefer the albums to be sorted alphabetically.) The list is sorted from oldest to newest, maintaining the relative order of the combined results of the first two sorts, so that all albums from, say, 1997 are listed in alphabetical order with their tracks in proper order as well, followed by the albums from 1998, etc.

Finally, sort by album artist. I'm sure you've guessed that the relative order of the first three sorts won't change, so you finally have the list you wanted. And I hope it's clearer now why it's done "backwards."

You can sort and re-sort playlists at any time, so it's easy to see how the sorting works by clicking a playlist's column headers. Try making a hash of it by clicking the track name header, then sort in track/album name/year/album artist order to watch the list being built.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #7
If you don't want to spend time thinking about the order in which you click columns, you can use the "Sort by fields..." command which mobyduck mentioned. However this is not a built-in command. You will need to install foo_utils.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #8
this is not a built-in command. You will need to install foo_utils.
Apologies: I've been using it for so long that I totally forgot it's not part of the core. Actually I use the "Sort by" option (also part of foo_utils?) activated by a keyboard shortcut; I mentioned "Sort by fields..." cause it seems more user-friendly for those not fluent in titleformatting syntax.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #9
The OP's screenshot puzzles me, unless there is some serious mistagging around.
First shot: Rescan your library?

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #10
mobyduck: The "Sort by..." command where you enter a title formatting string is part of the foobar2000 core.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #11
The OP's screenshot puzzles me, unless there is some serious mistagging around.
First shot: Rescan your library?

How is that done? Would 'Library', 'Configure' & then 'Reset all' do that?
These are, for the most part at least, all files which displayed & played perfectly in my old version of fb2k (I changed over to a new(er) PC a few weeks ago, that's where all this trouble started!).

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #12
Oh, I've solved my second problem: it was Edit --> Remove Duplicates, as simple as that. I still don't know what caused the duplicates in the first place though, but that's the least of my worries.
Think I'm getting somewhere now, thanks all for the useful responses.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #13
Good to see that it works, let me nevertheless answer the rescan question.
To rescan "parts of" your library: Preferences -> Library, then right-click a folder and Rescan now.
To rescan the entire library, you need to know the Shift trick that opens up a lot of fb2k's options:

Hold down Shift. Mouse-click "Library". There is a rescan option that is not there if you merely click without shift.
It also works "mouseless": Alt-l for Library, vs Shift-Alt-l for all the options.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #14
Good to see that it works, let me nevertheless answer the rescan question.
To rescan "parts of" your library: Preferences -> Library, then right-click a folder and Rescan now.
To rescan the entire library, you need to know the Shift trick that opens up a lot of fb2k's options:

Hold down Shift. Mouse-click "Library". There is a rescan option that is not there if you merely click without shift.
It also works "mouseless": Alt-l for Library, vs Shift-Alt-l for all the options.
Ah, great, thanks. Those are precisely the kind of things which become second nature to some folks so they forget that not everyone knows them, so that's good information, cheers.

I've just tried following the path you described (out of interest) & my version doesn't show quite what you're describing (for some reason I can't include a screenshot here, sorry), I arrive at 'Media Library', 'Album list'... but there are no folders, or anywhere where folders might be a listing option, am I missing something which perhaps ought to be obvious...?
My version is v.1.3.13 (... is that current?)

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #15
You should be in Preferences > Media Library
NOT
Preferences > Media Libaray > Album list

Quote
To rescan "parts of" your library: Preferences -> Library, then right-click a folder and Rescan now.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #16
You should be in Preferences > Media Library
NOT
Preferences > Media Libaray > Album list

Quote
To rescan "parts of" your library: Preferences -> Library, then right-click a folder and Rescan now.

Right, got it, thanks.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #17
Back again, and still struggling with the same question (new computer now) - I've no doubt you'll all get bored with my question here, but for the life of me I just can't replicate, using all your advice above, what I managed to achieve, eventually, before.

I'm afraid I can't insert a screenshot - I can insert a footnote, table or horizontal rule, apparently, along with plenty of other stuff I don't need, but not a simple picture!! Anyone know why that facility is unavailable?

I'm certain I must be missing some fundamental point which those who have replied in this thread assume I already know, some kind of checkbox that switches on sensible commands, but I can find nothing.

... and so I'm back, & again unable to list my audio tracks in an order which means I can listen to Artist A's 1st album followed by their 2nd, then Artist B's 1st, 2nd then 3rd album, then Artist C, etc etc.

I'm quite happy to accept that the model of 'listening to one album then the next' is ancient and ludicrous and no-one listens to music that way anymore, if that's the deal, but I would have thought that an artist's 1st album followed by her 2nd etc was not such a bizarre request - so I'm sure I must have missed something... can anyone help?

Many thanks

 

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #18
Same question? You cannot click columns in reverse order?

I listen to albums and discographies, just like you. 

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #19
Same question? You cannot click columns in reverse order?

I listen to albums and discographies, just like you. 

Yes, afraid so, it's the same question again, & not because I don't know how to click on things (I'm a professional broadcast sound editor, please grant me a little credit, despite my frustrated confusion here), but rather that something does not seem to be working properly, and this was not a problem in the previous version of Foobar2000 that I had (no, I can't remember the version, if I could I'd simply track back & install that one, if it's still available, it did everything I needed first time).

Firstly, I'm aware of the up & down sort-order arrows in the date column, but no combination that I can find (& I have tried tiresomely, & again, I understand permutations etc) will place later albums after earlier ones (ie. Band A's 2001 album followed by their 2002 album, followed by Band B's 1990 album followed by their 1992 album etc...), which is, frankly, bizarre.

Secondly, when I added new files/folders in my old version, they just slotted into their logical position - part of what's causing me all these problems here is that I can't find a way of doing that in this version, all new additions end up at the bottom of the list, so I have to go through the same process every time I add a new file/folder - there must be something else I've missed, because Foobar2000 consistently comes up as the top hit on google for lightweight free audio players (I've been looking for a replacement since this apparent 'no-brainer' of a problem has proved so frustrating) & I don't imagine it would be so popular if every user had to re-sort by columns for every track or album added. Even hotmail remembers your preferred sort settings, & everything about that is otherwise awful...

So, I'm sure I must have missed something... does anyone have any ideas?

I'm grateful for poeple's help, I really am, & I don't want to be a nuisance, but I'm not a moron: I've missed something that others haven't had a problem with, something in the install perhaps, who knows...? all I know is that the software wouldn't be the most popular if everyone had these problems...

Many thanks all, M.

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #20
I realize from your screenshots that you have been tweaking some columns. Do you have any for Artist or for Artist/Album? There is none in your first screenshot, but there is something in the latter two (though, the preferences window covers it).
Consider your last screenshot: Right-click on e.g. Duration and choose Columns and make sure you have those.  (Actually, add both - not because you need it, but once you have fiddled around a little bit, you can remove the one you don't need.)

Then right-click again and choose Groups: what is that pattern?

Re: How to arrange files by artist, then date, then album, then track..?!

Reply #21
A setting that can affect actions like drag & drop is located in Preferences > Shell Integration > Sort incoming files by. I think the default string sorts by path/filename. I prefer to copy/paste in the same sort string that I like most located in the above-mentioned Edit → Sort → Sort by fields...
That's so plausible, I can't believe it.