Index like subsonic

[geeromsm]

Is it possible to make an index like subsonic? I have hundreds of artists/albums and the way they are presented now is really chaotic. I have to scroll a lot. If there would be some kind of index (the alphabet for example), then I can jump to artists starting with letter 'R' for example.

I also sort my albums like so: artist/artist - album name/

So for instance I have: ACDC/ACDC - Ballbreaker/ ACDC/ACDC - Back in Black/

The problem is, my tags are not always 100% correct. For the album Ballbreaker, the artist is filled in as "AC-DC" and for the album Back in Black I have "AC/DC" and in my artists list, that's two artists. Can't you just take the main artist directory name as the artist ?

[MightyCreak]

I would vote against that (no offense, I'm explaining why just below ;)).

Creating some heuristic to guess what the user really wants based on different sources like the ID3 tags and the directory names is prone to create unexpected behaviors.

Websites like Spotify or Deezer are nice because their databases are relatively clean and well maintained. We should do the same with our music database, especially since it's so simple to change the ID3 tags with EasyTag.

[geeromsm]

Why guess? Why not just let the user chose (somewhere in the settings)?

And what about the index ?

[MightyCreak]

Guess, because at some point the code will have to chose between the directory name or the ID3tag. And it's not because it's simple to do in the code that it's intuitive for the user.

To make a good UI (and that includes the settings panel), you always need to wonder if it is relevant to expose this or that option. Exposing each and every possible options in the settings (mainly because the users couldn't agree on one) is the kind of things that leads to confusing applications with too many obscure options.

To chose between giving the choice or forcing the user to have a nice and clean database, I'd rather force them to have a nice and clean database, especially since it's not very difficult to maintain your database. Of course, if #127 was fixed, it would be way easier to maintain our database.

About the index, I think it could be nice. I don't know subsonic, so I don't know if the solution is good, but I know that the current implementation isn't good since when you want to go to your very last album, it takes ages and it's worst as the database grows. So that definitely needs a better approach.

[geeromsm]

Your solution (educate the user) might work if you have a few hundred files (like plex does with movies). But no way it works when you have tens of thousand of files. Nobody wants to spend a few weeks to edit ID3 tags.

If you don't know subsonic then I suggest you take a look at it and learn. ;-) http://demo.subsonic.org/index.view

"Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal" isn't only true for artists ;-)

Anyway that's just my opinion, it's great that Sonerezh is being made.

[geeromsm]

I just added a few cd's to my collection (Various artist cd's). When I'm in albums and I search for the album, the search result gives me all the artists of the album (so one song at a time each time with a thumbnail, which takes a lot of place) eg
Afro Medusa - Amnesia Ibiza Anthems CD 3 - Pasilda. Axwell - Amnesia Ibiza Anthems CD1 - Heart is King ...

In stead of just the album. I have to scroll a lot just to play the song I want... Just have a look at my previous post (and subsonic) please. ;-)

[MightyCreak]

About the album with various artists. I had the problem also (actually a few music players including VLC and Google Music also have the same problem). You would need to play with the "Album Artist" tag instead of just the "Album" tag. Works for me on Sonerezh for all my album with various artists, and guests, and featuring, etc...

About Subsonic, I'm not very fond of the front end (too much texts and icons), but it seems like a full-featured app indeed. I'm sure the index page is useful, but it's definitely not pretty. But as I said, there is definitely a problem with album scrolling in Sonerezh. It should not take more time to select the last item in the list than than to select the first one. That being said, Deezer also have this problem (you need to reach the end of the page to load the next albums, as a result you often end up by doing a search, which isn't that bad if you ask me).

[geeromsm]

"too much texts and icons"

If you have a lot of music/artists, you have a lot of text... plain and simple. You acknowledge you have a problem, but rather then solving it, you just point out Deezer also has the same problem, so everything is ok? Strange reasoning... Subsonic may not have the perfect layout, but at least they solved the problem (which is way more important than having the perfect layout).

Anyway, for me this is quite a dealbreaker. I'm switching back to Subsonic, but I'll keep an eye on this project.

Thanks for your effort for creating a nice (free!) program.

[lGuillaume124]

Hi @geeromsm,

There have been similar issues to yours about follow the system / directory tree to sort the music in Sonerezh. We decided since the beginning to follow the only true standard: the metadata tags.

Everyone can sort his music directory as he wants, and we cannot handle all the possibilities. Tags are documented, standardized. Sorry but we will not change our opinion about that.

However, I fully agree with you on the fact that there is an issue with scrolling on some pages. I was thinking about something like a left panel on the Artist page which could appears on mouse hover.

Hover:

We could also have a list of bands, like iTunes does. I don't known yet...

[MightyCreak]

@geeromsm Sorry I wasn't clear about that, but I'm not a Sonerezh developer, I was simply giving my feedback on your insights, that's all ;)

In the end, it's the devs that will decide whether or not your suggestion was in line with their project.

[geeromsm]

No problem. Your program, your decision.

I'm back to Subsonic/Emby. Emby gives you the choice: metadata or folders.