[split] Browse by Composer

[guermantes]

Thanks for your great work, Tim (and other devs, if there are any)!
Might this update also include something to make it possible to browse by composer tag for classical music? I looked through some old posts and saw mentions of composer alternative in "Artists +" being deprecated in view of an upcoming composer addition to the library browsing. But I find no setting in the GUI in 7.4.1 so I gather it is still in the pipeline?

I have a huge classical music collection that I use with foobar, rhythmbox and a tweaked version of runeaudio. I never search, I browse, get inspired and select; just like in the good old days when you were flipping through your vinyl collection. I typically drill down my music library in one of two ways: either the typical genre>artist>album or the more custom manner composer>artist>album. I don't know what kind of solution you have in mind for enabling composer browsing, but speaking from my own point of view, I would welcome a new entry in the Library dropdown that works just like Tag but the panels that load have a composer panel substituted for the genre panel. That's more or less the way I have Runeaudio set up.

Best regards!

[Tim Curtis]

Theres are some items on the TODO list to investigate doing something with composer for example (1) adding composers to the Artists list or (2) providing a multi-selection dropdown to determine what appears in the Artists list. Something like that.

The challenge is that these feature items compete with other items on the TODO list for dev time and for time to do support and troubleshooting and to fix bugs.

Maybe a dev who also has a Classical collection will volunteer their time to work on this.

[guermantes]

Theres are some items on the TODO list to investigate doing something with composer for example (1) adding composers to the Artists list or (2) providing a multi-selection dropdown to determine what appears in the Artists list. Something like that.

The challenge is that these feature items compete with other items on the TODO list for dev time and for time to do support and troubleshooting and to fix bugs.

Maybe a dev who also has a Classical collection will volunteer their time to work on this.

I perfectly understand the constraints. I'd be happy to volunteer to do end-user testing. However, I probably don't have the skills to contribute code. Several weekends during the last couple of years I've banged my head against the code of both Runeaudio and Volumio to enable composer browsing, but since it's written in something newer than vanilla javascript I have not succeeded. (I somewhat managed to populate views of what I wanted, but the interaction with MPD and actually starting playback always ran afoul).

[TheOldPresbyope]

Tagging and selecting classical music has been discussed over the years (I, for one, have strong opinions about it) and I think should a topic in Feature Requests [1] separate from Tim's announcements of what will be in 7.5.0. 

Regards,
Kent

[1] Looking just now, I see at least two such threads already exist.

[guermantes]

Tagging and selecting classical music has been discussed over the years (I, for one, have strong opinions about it) and I think should a topic in Feature Requests [1] separate from Tim's announcements of what will be in 7.5.0. 

Regards,
Kent

[1] Looking just now, I see at least two such threads already exist.

I agree, I have been going back and forth since four years I think between different solutions for the RaspberryPi with a huge classical music collection. I've been involved in many threads over at different "competitors's" forums. Everyone of course have their pet peeves and projects, but based on all the discussions I see in the fora I for one really think there is a "market opportunity" for a player that offers composer browsing.

It is true that there is no common standard for tagging classical music, but it seems to me that one common denominator for most classical collections is the use of the composer tag. It's use strikes me as much more frequent than for instance classical "style" (chamber/opera/symphonic), instrument or conductor. Everyone who uses the latter also uses the former, but the opposite is not true. Therefore composer could be a minimal common ground to begin with.

I certainly am no programmer, but I humbly still fail to see what makes the genre tag so different from the composer tag. Why can't one just re-use the same code for the current Tag Browser, but instead of populating the first panel with genres, fetch the composer tag that MPD is already indexing for each track, and populate the first panel with them.

One suggestion I proposed to the Volu.... devs and that I thought was very nifty but never got any feedback on, was a three panel solution that is not hard-coded with respect to what tags to use for the panels. Instead they are customizable by use of variables $1, $2 and $3 in the code. Those variables are set in the GUI by the user. One would also be able to define several such panel triptychs, essentially using the same code but a different namespace for each triptych.

[GStevens]

Tagging and selecting classical music has been discussed over the years (I, for one, have strong opinions about it) and I think should a topic in Feature Requests [1] separate from Tim's announcements of what will be in 7.5.0. 

Regards,
Kent

[1] Looking just now, I see at least two such threads already exist.

I agree, I have been going back and forth since four years I think between different solutions for the RaspberryPi with a huge classical music collection. I've been involved in many threads over at different "competitors's" forums. Everyone of course have their pet peeves and projects, but based on all the discussions I see in the fora I for one really think there is a "market opportunity" for a player that offers composer browsing.

It is true that there is no common standard for tagging classical music, but it seems to me that one common denominator for most classical collections is the use of the composer tag. It's use strikes me as much more frequent than for instance classical "style" (chamber/opera/symphonic), instrument or conductor. Everyone who uses the latter also uses the former, but the opposite is not true. Therefore composer could be a minimal common ground to begin with.

I certainly am no programmer, but I humbly still fail to see what makes the genre tag so different from the composer tag. Why can't one just re-use the same code for the current Tag Browser, but instead of populating the first panel with genres, fetch the composer tag that MPD is already indexing for each track, and populate the first panel with them.

One suggestion I proposed to the Volu.... devs and that I thought was very nifty but never got any feedback on, was a three panel solution that is not hard-coded with respect to what tags to use for the panels. Instead they are customizable by use of variables $1, $2 and $3 in the code. Those variables are set in the GUI by the user. One would also be able to define several such panel triptychs, essentially using the same code but a different namespace for each triptych.

I would like to add my 'weight' behind the inclusion of composer (as per genre).  I realise that 7.5 will not include this, but for those whose main listening is classical, I think that this addition would be welcomed.  The final paragraph from guermantes above seems like good option.

Regards,
Geoff

[Tim Curtis]

I took the liberty of splitting out these posts into a separate thread for discussion.

[the_bertrum]

I don't listen to a great deal of classical music, but when I do I always browse by Composer, so I understand the desire for this. In my own collection, I'm happy to achieve this by simply putting the composer name in the Album Artist tag. Obviously, for those with a proper interest in the subject, that isn't acceptable.
I also almost never use Genres for browsing because I find it impossible to categorise that way (are The Beatles pop? Eric Clapton might be Blues, but what about I Shot the Sheriff?).
But, simply replacing the Genre column with a Composer column could lead to issues in collections where composer is populated in non-classical recordings as well. Some users maybe happy to have Lennon/McCartney alongside Liszt, but some will want the non-classical filtered out, probably by Genre...

Would a simple genre/compose swap in the UI be acceptable along with using the search facility to include only classical genres?

[Tim Curtis]

An option to set which tag is used to populate the first Tag view column could be doable but which tags are on the table and which one's make sense?

So far its only Genre or Composer.

[GStevens]

An option to set which tag is used to populate the first Tag view column could be doable but which tags are on the table and which one's make sense?

So far its only Genre or Composer.

It would be good to be able to flex the first two columns (changeable in configuration).  The first two columns could then be:
Genre, Album Artist (as is now)
Genre, Composer
Composer, Genre
Composer, Album Artist
etc.

I don't know whether this is feasible, but it would introduce a good level of flexibilty.

Thanks,
Geoff