Artists catalogue and the way its displayed.

[MP1975]

Hi folks ,

Once again I could use some help. lol And THANKS in advance.

My Ipod currently displays an artists catalogue of albums in alpahbetical order. This is great and probably wouldn't irk most people but I'd much rather it display the catalogue in the order the albums were released by year.

Is this possible? 

[socrates]

MP1975,

I've never heard of anyone asking to do what you're trying to do.  However, to each his own.

I have a possible solution, but haven't been able to test it, so bear with me.

Open up iTunes (on your computer) and go to file --> new smart playlist.

Choose "Artist" "is not" and then type in a bunch of random weird characters, like #)(!*@#)(.

It will then make a playlist with all of your music in it.
Once you have that made, go to "view" and choose "view options."
From there, make sure that "release date" is checked. 

You should then see that column appear and you can sort all of your music by that. 

Try sorting them that way in iTunes, and once it looks like you want it, sync your iPod again.  Hopefully it will retain the sort settings (albeit, a long shot).

Let me know how it turns out, I'm curious to see if it works.

[MP1975]

Socrates ,

Just printed out your response, TYVM , and will try it soon as I get the time.

Not many people care what year something came out lol ,most my friends never even kept their music in alphabetical order lol I on the other hand had them and still do in alphabetical order by date of issue. lol And since my daughter bought me this Ipod it just bugs me to look at Tull and see something I'm not use too. lol

Thanks again.

[socrates]

No problem.

Glad to help.

Let me know how it turns out.

[MP1975]

Socrates ,

No go joe! lol

Brought my laptop to work, believe it or not I have more time here to BS around then home. Tried your theory and, unless I missed a step, it didn't work.

I  will play around with it and thank you much for the insite. Who knows maybe I'll "TRIP" over it myself. lol

[MP1975]

The problem I find is you cannot sort two columns. IE 1. being artist the second being year or release date. I also noticed when you check release date , or anything new for that matter, in view options it just adds an empty column to yoru i-tunes.

[socrates]

That's my understanding as well.  It was worth the shot, but I don't think you're going to be able to do it with this version of iTunes.

[MP1975]

I thank you for your help, time and giving it the old college try.

"IF" Something ever comes out or I Tunes comes out with a version that does the basic's (lol IMHO) by all means send me a message if I stumble on it first ( FAT CHANCE) I'll do the same.

Thanks again.

[socrates]

I don't know if I'd consider what you're trying to do "the basics."  In all of my time supporting macs and pc's, I've never heard of anyone asking to sort their music by album and then by year of release.  It's usually either one way or the other. 

Is there another program you use that can do this?

[MP1975]

Socrates ,

(Scratches head) Excel ? Ever since I was a wee lad and the Beatles played Ed Sullivan and I started buying 45's then records etc etc I have kept my collection in alphabetical / year released order.

Example ;

Artist - Aerosmith

1973 - Aerosmith
1974 - Get your wings
1975 - Toys in the attic
1976 - Rocks
1977 - Draw the Line

You get the picture.

Why would I put Draw the line (1977) right after Aerosmith (1973) ?

When you go to an artists site or a decent record store do they list the catalogue in alphabetical order. Actually this is a good example. You go to a record store the "STORE" or file in this case is in alphabetical order, usually by music type, then you got to an artist and they have a divider listing the artists catalogue by year of release.

I admit its a bit *censored* lol just the way I'm use to viewing things. I look at Floyd and see Atom heart mother before Saucerful of secrets and I scratch my head. lol 

[socrates]

Well of course you can do it in Excel.  Perhaps my question should have said: "is there another music program you can do this in?"

AFAIK, winamp, iTunes, WMP, etc. can't do it.  But correct me if I'm wrong.

I can see why you would want to show them like you are describing. 

[MP1975]

Who's on first? lol

No, before I got this Ipod I never needed to maintain a listing in anything other then excel. And the only software I've tried it in so far is I-Tunes. 

[BC_Programmer]

Windows Media Player- the version included with Vista... (11) can "sort of" do it. I managed to get it sorted by Artist, and then "subsorted" by year. Wether it would transfer to an Ipod like that is another question, though.

[socrates]

The tough part is that even if WMP did interface with the iPod, the best you could do is make a playlist with the albums sorted the way you wanted them. 

What I mean by this is that WMP's interface (with sorting included) wouldn't transfer to the iPod even if you found a way to use WMP with the iPod.

[MP1975]

Does not look like this is going to happen, anytime soon anyway. lol

Thanks much for the help.
MP.

[socrates]

no problem.