[Banshee-List] [Feature suggestion] Make real use of "part" tag for classical music

[David Meier <droebbel melta gmx de>]

Hi all,

first of all, thanks for your great work. I like banshee especially for
its smart playlists and the clear and simple interface.

As I listen to classical music however, banshee like many other players
has one important limitation.

Classic works usually consist of several parts (movements etc).
In Vorbis comments, usually the title of the work is put into the
standard "title" comment, while the movement goes to tne rather unusual
"part". In ID3v2, the standard title tag (TIT2) should contain the
movement, while the title of the work should go to the rather unusual
TIT1:

TIT1
   The 'Content group description' frame is used if the sound belongs to
   a larger category of sounds/music. For example, classical music is
   often sorted in different musical sections (e.g. "Piano Concerto",
   "Weather - Hurricane").

  TIT2
   The 'Title/Songname/Content description' frame is the actual name of
   the piece (e.g. "Adagio", "Hurricane Donna").

I suggest making use of that tags in a way that could make banshee the
first choice of players for classical music.

*What for?*

Simply splitting a piece of information into two seems like a rather
unnecessary thing, if it does not significantly simplify handling the
music collection.

So what could the benefits be?

1. group tracks in the browser view
The title of a work plus the title of a movement is usually to long to
be displayed entirely. So some important parts will not be visible
unless there is some tooltip workaround. But as all the movements share
the work title, why not group them in the view? Simply display the title
of the work once, and below in the same column list all the parts. This
would make the track list much more clear and easy to use.

2. title browser
for classical music, browsing for a work title makes much more sense
than searching for an album. So make it possible to replace the album
list by a work list for those who want it (I read somewhere that you
want to make the browser more configurable anyway). It might make the
list even more usable if it was possible to exclude works that do not
contain several parts. The latter should be done with an easy accessible
checkbox, not a configuration option, while choosing between album and
work  browser might be done in the general settings to keep the
interface clean.

*But most music is not tagged that way*

That is only partially correct. OK, tags downloaded from musicbrains &
co do not use "part". And most ripping tools do not use the part tag.
But many fans of classical music, especially those with large
collections, prefer tagging their collection with a seperate tag editor
using "part" / TIT1. And if setting tags that way provided the benefits
above *and* was made easier (see below), that would be a real benefit
and improvement, no matter how bad the situation currently is.

*Make tagging easier*

Banshee could even help setting tags that way.

1. For tags obtained from the web: give a simple way to split title tags
into title and part. This might be done by
- setting the cursor and pressing a shortcut or a button. If one or more
of the following track titles begin with the same string that has just
been split into the new title tag, the user might be offered to "split
the following n tags the same way".
- splitting at a special character, usually "-" or ":". That might make
it easier to split all track titles at once, but it may not work in some
cases.
- For the ripping component, it might be nice if one could choose "try
to split title tags into title and part". The algorithm than ought to
look at the beginning of the title. If more than one word is the same
for several tracks, the tag can be split. Only one identical word might
e.g. be "Sonata", which would lead to less desirable result with
scarlattis one-movement-sonatas (title: Sonata. part: in e-minor. part:
in c-major... ;) ). Also, words like "in" should not count. Maybe three
identical words would be better. I am not sure if it might be a problem
to even set this behavior as default - if it works reliably, that would
be really great.

2. For setting tags manually: Add button near title tag input to set it
to "same as previous track". Set cursor to part tag then. Some shortcut
would be great.

Mind that for Vorbis comments, the first part should remain as "title"
while the second part ist moved to "part". For ID3v2 OTOH, the first
part should go to TIT1 while the second part remains in TIT2.


What do you think of this, usability-wise? Would the extra options for
the tag-editor be confusing for "normal" users? Is it hard to implement?

I look forward to your comments, and I hope banshee will one day develop
into the first media player for linux that *really* works well for
classical music (or did I miss one? I think I tried most...).
If you agree, I will of course file bugs for each of the proposed
enhancements.

David