Help with switching from Windows Media Player to fb2k
Reply #1 – 2012-10-07 13:37:12
Unfortunately, there is not a music player out there that makes cataloging classical music easy. If you want real frustration, try doing it in iTunes. All music players are built around the artist>song paradigm. You need to force composer>work>movement on fb2K. It is easier to to what you want in ColumnsUI than the default UI, but resist the temptation. CUI has been abandoned by the author and could go away any moment with an update to fb2k. Now to your question. the composer tag works fine in fb2k. I have no idea why they are blank in your library other than you may not have used the official composer tag. Did you use a custom tag for composer? You will also have to set up other tags to make things work. I use the <artist> tag only when there is a soloist. If not I force a space into this tag. Force a space into the <album artist> tag also. Put the orchestra in the <band> tag. (When I first set up my library, I did not realize that there was a <band> tag, so i created a custom <orchestra> tag.) You will need to create a <conductor> tag and <work> tag, or else redefine some other tag you won't be using. Put the movement tempo indicator or name in the <title> tag. Note that it generally take me 10-15 minutes to get the tags right on a new rip or download depending on the number of works/movements on a recording. Title formatting is your friend. you will have to become familiar with it. The piping symbol (|) and the square brackets ([]) are not exactly intuitive but are essential. You will have to create new sort/display parameters for the album list. I did two -- one sorted on composer>work and the other on composer>album (I always attach the composer name to the album name).%<genre>%|[%composer%]|%work%||%conductor% -- %orchestra%|%tracknumber% -- %title% %<genre>%|[%album%]|%work%|%tracknumber% -- %title%| You will also need to add a grouping to playlists. This one will work for both classical and pop:$if(%work%,%Composer%/%Work%,%Artist%/%Album%) This is the short course. fb2k has a steep learning curve, but once you get there, it does a lot of things right. Bob