Web app to show all albuns for a given artist

[Happy2Play 9780]

To me music is more useable as if just reads what I have.  So break it for one fix it for two.  LOL

Someone will always have issues with everything.

[Carlo 4561]

33 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Someone will always have issues with everything.

Ain't that the truth.  But at least now with the new music release you can almost be 99% certain that it's a tagging issue when tracks/albums don't show correctly.

[pwhodges 2012]

I use folder view (it's impossible to tag my music in a way that works, at least within my remaining lifetime), and at present there is no way to play the music in a folder in track or filename order.  It'll be fixed, sure, but the delay is very frustrating.

Paul

[Carlo 4561]

The playback order is something that needs fixing so there should be relief for that soon.

Just curious what's special about your music that that it can't work by album and artist? Not saying there is anything wrong with folder view, just wondering.
Is your library mostly "mix tapes"  or VA compilations or something like that?

I had a few VA album that were a mess until I tagged them to work properly.

Edited January 24, 2021 by cayars

[pwhodges 2012]

Well, you asked!

My music is 5% pop & jazz, and even some that I classify in there is not recognised by Musicbrainz (some of Moondog's albums, for instance).  15% is my own recordings of classical concerts.  80% is just classical music, organised in various ways; Largely by composer (sometimes with single works, in some cases with their entire output subdivided, e.g. into orchestral, chamber, stage, instrumental, vocal (or some other arrangement, depending on what they wrote), with further subdivisions (e.g. chamber -> string quartets -> complete recordings -> group -> music files), but some by instrument, or player (e.g. pianists, organists, organs - sometimes the instrument is more interesting than the player).  A separate section for my son's recordings (over 50, of which 7 are known to Musicbrainz).  Often I split the works on an album rather than keeping the album together (some classical albums are thrown together with filler which is better kept elsewhere).  Sometimes I have a box set of up to 60 CDs (e.g. all of Bach's 200-odd cantatas).  In one case (Bartók's opera Bluebeard's Castle) I have over 40 recordings of the same work.  I keep the 300+ CDs from the BBC Music Magazine (a complete collection over 30 years) as a separate grouping.  Disks of humour (Anna Russell, Peter Sellars, Victor Borge, etc probably fit the performer/album straitjacket well enough though.  Thousands of these rips have not yet got any tags, either.  Oh, and I forgot the box sets of selected miscellaneous performances from festivals.

The folder structure I have is fine, when I can play the files embedded in it correctly!  It was nicer before the new arrangement, because (if I ensured that I never had both audio files and folders in a directory, which was an acceptable discipline) I actually ended up with an album-like view of a directory - now I just get a load of files (with a pointless place-holder image for each), and don't get to see any metadata they may have until I start playing them.  But hopefully that will improve as well.

Maybe I could gain a little by having separate libraries instead of my first level of directories - but not much, and since in this same beta cycle the display of a large number of libraries has been made so much worse, that's really not looking a good move (I used to be able to see all my 20 libraries on the home screen of my Android or iOS devices - now only four are visible, requiring lots of scrolling).

Paul

Edited January 24, 2021 by pwhodges
spelling

[PenkethBoy 2068]

4 hours ago, cayars said:

@Spaceboyyou would need to ask Luke, not me.  I was just answering a question where we get feedback when it's not from the forums.

@PenkethBoy I don't agree with much of what you said. People here seem to think a user must request something for it to be added to the system or justified.  That's just nonsense as Emby can do whatever it wants for what ever reason it sees fit with justification. The team is always trying to improve things. Some things don't always work out as planned and sometimes get reverted or changed based on feedback and that too is listening to users.

The fact you say things go unheard is just a ludicrous thing to say as nearly 1.5 years of Emby Server releases have been literally nothing but taking care of user feedback.

I don't agree on the half baked features comment at all and surely would not include this continue/next up in that as this IS NOT RELEASED. To me Emby is pretty full featured as a whole and I find very few things that really need major improvement due to being half baked.  Closest thing I can think about is conversions/syncing UI which Luke has said will be addressed.

Again personal opinion but Music is already released in Beta and isn't causing major problems but has improved a lot and makes diagnosing music issues much easier for us and users. Continue/Next up is not released so the jury is out on that but can understand frustration with it as is right now.  I disagree with your comment on the new collections build as that solves a lot of problems people have with collections especially getting rid of them being file based and most of all permissions and control so users can't change them without permission. The collection release as you are aware is still in private testing.

I do agree with your posts on release note and some other things that could most certainly be improved.  I too get frustrated with delays on things like Tone Mapping and Live TV and I want both of them yesterday myself.  But at the same time I appreciate the time and effort being put into these to get them correct from the start so they will work well for us after release and solve long time issues people have had that these releases should resolve.

You are a customer and tester of course but when you buy a new car do you get feedback on how it's built?  How about the way your groceries are made or packaged? Of course not but you can always choose a different product that is better or closer to what you want.  Emby on the other hand does use a lot of feedback from users but also get's to innovate on it's own as well.  They must be doing something right as it's a powerful platform that just keeps getting better and better all the time.

@sooty234 We just look at a lot of things differently.  "Glass half empty vs glass half full" comes to mind to describe the same things seen.  Neither is right or wrong, just different personal views that don't have to alway be used as a put down or made personal because you/I don't agree. 

Wow -you have no idea how far off the mark you are

most of your comments are incorrect and replying to things i did not say or dont fit reality

as you have been assimilated to the collective now - you cant see how it looks from the outside looking in

none of the five things i listed have been release to STABLE yet - but two are in beta, collections waiting on tone mapping (tested in alpha) and LIVETV (also in alpha) promoted by you on several occasions when its still a (long?) ways off.

There are features that are half baked and done in a rush that Luke has not touched in a long time - e.g. Audiobooks which is a music clone with a tweak or two - when people have asked for extra feature to make it more useable. People photos being missing has not been fixed although it gets raised quite often and now a user has just published a new plugin to fix the problem - indicative of inaction by the devs that he felt it necessary to write one. Music videos are another example of just about "ok" being generous. OSD/SFN and Dashboard info never appears to agree and confuses users on a regular basis. The inability to get seasonal themes to work, download files in original quality and a whole album at a time etc etc. Its a long list of things that have been around for a long time.

Books and photos are areas of minimal to no functionality that have not been touched in years - people dont ask very often for updates/features - primarily because there is nothing to work with and they use something else.

People just give up and move on to either their own work arounds or other packages due to the lack of progress/interaction/stupid canned responses.

 

[Carlo 4561]

First of all thank you for that great response, which is full of detail and wonderfully articulated.
When I read that, it reminds me of the movie "Perfect Storm", as that's how your music collection appears to me personally with the new changes, only turned up a couple of notches.

I have no doubt the recent changes to Emby will cause you grief (a lot of it).  You have an outlyer music collection that is far different than a typical music collection that 99.9% (yes I'm guessing) of typical users will have using commercial rips.

If you were able to tag every track, things would work really well but with your collection of music that's the "rub", as it's not easy, and not going to be easy to use typical tools to accomplish this. But if you did tag your tracks you'd have great control using tagging.  Sure, in time you could do this (tagging) but it would be beneficial to try and help you as well in some fashion if possible.

Putting aside the playback order bug that will get fixed and knowing the direction Emby is moving with full tagging what can we do to help? Honestly I don't know if we can make changes but this is the TIME to make suggestions while this is in beta.  You won't be the only one with a setup like this even if rare.

Are there any things you can suggest that would make your system better (based on the new music beta)? 
No clue if possible, but if you could remove albums and artist tabs or only show folder view (admin controlled) for music, is that a step in the right direction to help?

What constructive things can you suggest that could help you and other similar to you? I honestly don't know if we can make the needed change to make you happy but we can listen and see if something is possible to help you.

 

 

 

[Carlo 4561]

2 minutes ago, PenkethBoy said:

none of the five things i listed have been release to STABLE yet - but two are in beta, collections waiting on tone mapping (tested in alpha) and LIVETV (also in alpha) promoted by you on several occasions when its still a (long?) ways off.

Correct and my point. If it's not released yet it's not a finished product and NOT half baked. If it's not released it's not anything yet. It's not great, it's not poor, it's just in testing ESPECIALLY if it's only been in one beta release (1 sprint).  I surely don't alway agree with the way the development is done or the way things are rolled out but I do like the overall results we have or I wouldn't be here supporting the products. So when in doubt I'll give benefit to Luke, ebr and company because I think they deserve it base on what they've delivered in the past (and what I personally know is in the pipeline).  You're privy to a few things done in private testing and know the potential and frustration involved. 

Live TV isn't that far off hitting beta in the overall scheme of things. It's coming together well but when the key devs are pulled for other things there will be a delays.  We can't have every feature known to man in our media server without some give and take. Tone mapping has not hit private testing yet but a few of us our playing with it. Things can move quick then seem to stall as fixes to the core or other highly requested feature need to get done.  It's the nature of development on this type of product.

It's a double edge sword.  Would you prefer nothing is ever said in the forum about upcoming releases being worked on?  Would you prefer things like the merging of continue/next up to not hit Beta but get handled in private testing with zero feedback until it's how the devs want it to be?  Those are valid choices.

People have asked us in the forums to share more info about what's being worked on and to allow people to participate but if these types of things cause people grief or create arguments in the forums is it worth it?  Emby can easily put together private teams to help test things, say nothing in the forums and no one would know anything until Emby does some type of release.  Is that the direction you guys want?

Arguing about a feature that has one release to get feedback isn't productive when you're told it's not a finished product and options will be made available.

3 minutes ago, PenkethBoy said:

 e.g. Audiobooks which is a music clone with a tweak or two - when people have asked for extra feature to make it more useable. People photos being missing has not been fixed although it gets raised quite often and now a user has just published a new plugin to fix the problem - indicative of inaction by the devs that he felt it necessary to write one. Music videos are another example of just about "ok" being generous. OSD/SFN and Dashboard info never appears to agree and confuses users on a regular basis

I don't disagree with those things I quoted above (nor with books and home video/photos).  But if you look at the changes being made the last 1.5 years you'll see there has been a systematic reworking of each sub system, one by one. The way meta-data is pulled and used for TV and Moves has been revamped and they work really well (main 2 libraries used by everyone). Live TV is it's own project so that sub system is being addressed.  Music is a work in progress in the current betas but mostly done..  That's your top 4 library types that have/are getting reworked and substantially improved.

Luke has already commented recently on many of the things I quoted as going to get a revamp and improvement as well.  I don't think Emby staff will consider them "half baked", but we know they need work and Luke has already commented they will get reworked in some fashion.  What else can you ask for? 

Again there has been a very systematic reworking of many library/types in Emby and this will continue to make the product better and better.  But to do this smarly you start with subsections that get the most use and work your way down the line.

Plugins like SmartPlaylists and Automated tagging will surely fill a void for some users but aren't what most users will need.  Emby has an API so that people can extend Emby to do things it won't do out of the box.

Personally I'd love to see playlists revamped right after collections in the same way, as I think there could be major improvements made to make them more useful from both a functional and UI standpoint.

Emby is always going to be a work in process where things are always improved but sometimes you do need to take a step back first to fix things to have a better framework to build on.

[EduardoSantos 40]

The idea was just to have a means of getting Emby to show a page containing all albums an artist has contributed to regardless being album_artist or track_artist and thus providing a whole career view.

 

[Luke 42078]

On 1/30/2021 at 2:14 PM, EduardoSantos said:

The idea was just to have a means of getting Emby to show a page containing all albums an artist has contributed to regardless being album_artist or track_artist and thus providing a whole career view.

 

The artist screen already does this, right? It's just that it's split into two sections of albums and appears on.

[EduardoSantos 40]

On 2/4/2021 at 4:23 PM, Luke said:

The artist screen already does this, right? It's just that it's split into two sections of albums and appears on.

Following this logic there would be no additional link to screens on the artist screen.
Though, indeed, this screen has a link to show all albums... but only if the artist is AlbumArtist.

It just does not make sense.

The idea is to be able to see all contributions from that artist. Sorting by time and you coud see that after disbanding from that group he went to work on that other group.

The two strips just don't cut it.

Edited February 6, 2021 by EduardoSantos

[Luke 42078]

You can click the See All link for the Appears On list.

[EduardoSantos 40]

21 hours ago, Luke said:

You can click the See All link for the Appears On list.

And that would show only albums where the given artist is a TrackArtist excluding all albums where the artist is the AlbumArtist.

Just as stated on this thread's initial message: Emby has currently no means to view all albums a given artist has contributed to.

This is indeed this thread's very title.

Feel we are on walking on circles. 

Edited February 11, 2021 by EduardoSantos