hello, first thanks for the great interface and all the work!!!
i have successfully configured the january05 release of xbmc and spent a considerable time reviewing the online manual and posts. i have already copied my whole itunes pc mp3 library (800 albums) to my xbox hdd and have scanned them into xbmc "my music."
i am acustomed to the ipod interface in which you are able to filter and sort on the following criterea...
artist, album, genre, song
in xbmc, you can switch views from "file" to "artist" to "genre," but within any of those views, your only sorting (filtering) options are "file" and "time"
so lets say i'm not quite sure what i want to listen to but am in the modd for rock music. i want to look at what artists are tagged with the "rock" genre and get a list and then choose an artist out of that list (i.e. u2) and then play either all the u2 albums or just a single u2 album.
i cannot currently do this with xbmc, because if i set the view to "genre" and choose "rock", i get a list of every single mp3 that falls under the "rock" genre. and with xbmc, my only sorting option for all these individual songs is by "name" or by "time."
it would be ideal to view by "artist", "ablum", or "genre" and then to be able to again sort under the chosen view by "artist" "album" "genre" or "song"
thanks again. sorry for the lengthy suggestion but i wanted to be clear as possible on what i am describing.
jc
i'm also rooting for the return of the "matrix trails" screensaver.
i did read about this and understand why it is not yet in the latest release.
jc
the sort routines are based off tag information so thats why they are available when in files view. in database view, the returned dataset from the sql query is sorted based on the view. the sort methods dont work with database views because we're not dealing with files anymore.
it isnt impossible to sort either of the views by some other criteria. for example, go into albums view, and then sort the albums by artist, or by genre, or date. to do this, the query to the database needs to be altered.
i'll take a stab at this.
thanks for the reply and information. so would it be possible to go into genre view and sort by artist. then once an artist is selected, filter to a specific album(s).
i.e. - this is what happens with me most....
at first i'm in the mood for a certain kind of music (rock music as in my example above) so i view by genre and choose rock. then i want to more specifically listen to a particular artist, so i sort by artists within the rock genre and decide on u2 as in my example above.
since u2 has been around for 30 years and their music varies greatly from period to period, i may only want to listen to a specific album or albums from a date range. if i'm understanding you above, i would once i sort by artist within the the genre view, i then couldn't "drill down" further into the albums by that artist or the songs written in a certain date range, instead i would have to back up and view by artist and then sort by album or date range?
the problem with sorting by album under genre view is that i don't necessarily know all the artists by album name.
anyway, the database query thing is a bit over my head which is why i appreciate people like yourself who have the skills and inclination to innovate tools like xbmc.
thanks again - jc
i have so many albums that i do not identify album titles with
multiple levels of sorting will not be possible without a major overhaul to the current code base. before i even go down that path, i need to figure out how much work it'll be to allow the database views to do an extended first level sort.
i need to inspect the code some more and do some investigation of how the current system works. i dont use the database views much, and when i do, its only the album, and occassionally artist view. i never use genre view because most of my files are not tagged with genre information.
when you switch to genre view, whats returned? a list of songs, artists, or albums? (or a combination of the above like when artists view is used and you get the albums, and the "all songs" or the like.)
just to set the expectation level, i wont be able to start the investigation until this weekend.
just to clarify, i have no expectation level and only appreciation that you have decided to give my siggestion consideration. i will, in return, provide you with as many facts as possible to help you.
i will answer the question above tonight when i get home and can look at what specifically is being displayed. if you can think of any other information you may need, pleaser reply with a list and i will get answers tonight.
in general, i am looking for an versatile filtering system similar to that used by the ipod interface. if you have had an opportunity to see an ipod in action, you would have a better idea of what i am talking about but if not, i could send some screenshots of my ipod to help illustrate.
i think by making this adaptation, you are catering to users who have large databases of music and will make many many ipod users very happy.
personally, i just setup my xbox in my car and plan to use it instead of my ipod.
thanks! jc
a second for the ipod type interface. thanks for your consideration
i forgot to mention the other noteable trait of the ipod interface is that it lets you set the "shuffle" to "shuffle song" or "shuffle album" so if you select shuffle song, it will randomly play all tracks from the filtered selection in the tree above. if you select shuffle album, it will rndomly play the track within the current album before moving on to the other songs in the filtered selection.
jc
thanks. the ipod navigation schema diagram is the perfect way to illustrate what you're looking for.
i think the best way would be to build a new "view" to provide this filtering. this way i can leave the other views as they are.
when activating this view, in the left pane you'll start off with the following folders:
artists
albums
songs
genres
then upon selecting each item i'll follow thru the ipod schema as best i can. for example:
selecting genres will return "all genres" as the first item, and the list of genres beneath it.
then selecting "all genres" will return "all artists" and the list of artists beneath it. etc.
i dont understand the shuffle album option. please elaborate.
i personally have no problems if you redo the genre view, kraqh3d, it sounds like a better way to navigate (having genres as the main category, then artists, albums, songs.)
will require a little work, but shouldn't be too bad - you'll just have to keep control of the "virtual directory" that you're in. model it on the artist view which i think is currently as the ipod works.
you'll need to add some routines to musicdatabase.cpp to get artistsbygenre and then albumsbyartistbygenre and albumsbygenre.
cheers,
jonathan
i'm going to leave the other views as is because if this works out, i think we'd be able to remove all the other views (with the possible exception of the albums view which has the cool special list control.)
plus, if i tackle this as a completely new window, then my dependance on the current cvs is smaller.
thanks for the tip, i'll be sure to take a look at musicartists.
here's a rough draft of what im planning (but i havent done any research yet.) first, i'm going to work on the queries required for each of the boxes above. then i'll translate them into functions for musicdatabase.cpp.
for the new window, im guessing my "onclick" method will have a bunch of case statements which check where i am in the hierarchy so that i can determine what the next query will be in order to populate the next list.
wow, i am grateful to see my suggestion receiving such serious consideration. i'm glad the diagrams helped.
kraqh3d asked me to clarify the shuffle album feature.
assume (using the ipod interface) you navigate to genre and select "rock music" then pick the artist "u2" and then pick "all albums." at this point your playing selection should include every album and song by u2 that is tagged with the "rock music" genre.
if no shuffle is enabled the songs will play in track number order from the first album through the last album.
if "shuffle album" is enabled, all of the songs within the first album will be randomly played before moving on to randomly play all the songs in the second album and so forth. so i will hear all of the songs from achtung baby in random order before i hear any songs from rattle and hum.
if "shuffle song" is enabled, all off the songs from all u2 albums will be randomly played. so i may hear a song from achtung baby, then a song from rattle and hum, so forth.
thanks again for the effort.
(jcage89 @ jan. 13 2005,06:13 Wrote:kraqh3d asked me to clarify the shuffle album feature.
assume (using the ipod interface) you navigate to genre and select "rock music" then pick the artist "u2" and then pick "all albums." at this point your playing selection should include every album and song by u2 that is tagged with the "rock music" genre.
if no shuffle is enabled the songs will play in track number order from the first album through the last album.
if "shuffle album" is enabled, all of the songs within the first album will be randomly played before moving on to randomly play all the songs in the second album and so forth. so i will hear all of the songs from achtung baby in random order before i hear any songs from rattle and hum.
if "shuffle song" is enabled, all off the songs from all u2 albums will be randomly played. so i may hear a song from achtung baby, then a song from rattle and hum, so forth.
thanks again for the effort.
finally someone is tackling on my music database! i personally don't care that much for the genre-based things (though i think lots of end-users do), but i would love to finally see shuffle in the database-based views!
the fact that i can't shuffle in album view has bugged me for ages (made a few feature suggestions about it, but got no answers)! but finally it seems that a dev is willing to add this... awesome :bowdown: :bowdown:
-munde
in regards to shuffle, the one thing i hate about my ipod (3g) is that shuffle has to be altered from the settings menu, while it should (and is with 4g i believe) be able to be modified from within, such as on the context menu or left hand nav. all in all, sounds great and i'm looking forward to it.
oh, btw, is there a way to set an icon for an artist? i have it done at the folder level in my setup, which uses file view, but i never figured out how to make that appear in artist view. i'm asking here, because i'd have the same request for 'ipod view'. thanks.
--jaga
