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

["Wade Menard" <wade ezri org>]

I hate to give a short reply to such a long message, but Banshee already
supports TIT1, called "Grouping" as it is in iTunes and iPods. You'll
find it under the Extra tab of the Track Editor.

I think I like your UI enhancement ideas though.

-Wade


On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:58 +0100, "David Meier" <droebbel melta gmx de>
wrote:
> 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
> 
> _______________________________________________
> banshee-list mailing list
> banshee-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/banshee-list