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Rebel Oz 69:
--- Quote from: vampire on April 09, 2026, 03:38:36 pm ---I've experimented with renaming files using the split5 format and can tidy up the titlestrips somewhat, by sorting by album I can get the 2 sides of a single in the same titlestrip but not listed correctly, if the program had a second sorting parameter it may then work (Album, Track No.) Ideally the titlestrips would be generated and then randomised as done in DWJukebox.
--- End quote ---
Hi Vampire, and thank you for your feedback! :)
Firstly, my apologies for not responding more quickly; it's been quite hectic here recently.
The primary reason the ini option is called 'SongSort', is to preserve a level of backwards file structure compatibility with DWJukebox, but the underlying logic is:
1. If the database is empty or invalid (or the 'UpdateIndex' option is set to true), we read in all the available metadata for each track, and build the database. If ID3 metadata is not sufficient to uniquely identify the track (or is disabled), we apply the selected 'FilenameCrop' option (ie, Split5/Smart, etc.).
2. Apply the selected sorting algorithm, based on each individual track's metadata.
3. Display the title strips.
If I'm visualising this correctly, your file system structure is:
ArtistName
└- Album1
└- Track 'A' Title
└- Album2
└- Track 'B' Title
And your skin.ini file specifies 'SongsPerStrip=Double'.
To 'tie' two tracks together, the album title is used (currently), which (in the example above) would be two similar (but not identical) albums, resulting in a loss of fidelity (assuming we were to rely on the folder name to contain the album name, which we don't do at this point).
If (on the other hand) your track filenames contain ALL the relevant data in Split5 format (ie, album name - disk number - track number - artist - track title; eg: "Singles-01-01-John Denver-Take Me Home, Country Roads.mp3" for the 'A' side, and "Singles-01-02-John Denver-Thank God I'm a Country Boy.mp3" for the 'B' side), regardless of where they're stored in the filesystem, the correct relationship should be in no doubt.
Obviously, my assumption is that, for a single, track number 1 will be the 'A' side, and track number 2 the 'B' side.
So, if (for whatever reason) the track numbers aren't accurately read in during metadata parsing, this relationship will not be stored correctly, and the sorting step will yield inconsistent results, causing the title strips to appear jumbled.
Your suggestion is completely valid, and I'll be reviewing the code for filename-only based metadata creation and sorting methods.
To date, this hasn't been much of a personal priority, as I spent considerable time a few years back running my collection through MusicBrainz Picard to update the ID3 info on every track, and have been focused on ensuring ID3 info works reliably.
I agree completely that it's VITAL to be able to display singles as singles (with A/B side preservation), so I could easily add a 'FileFolder' option to the sorting methods (or maybe just enhance the 'Smart' FilenameCrop method?), to ensure singles are treated as a discreet unit (even when randomly sorted) - the caveat being that the file system would be required to match a highly structured layout and naming convention, which may be fragile and difficult to detect/maintain/enforce.
Also, you're quite right to point out the inaccuracy in the ini documentation regarding Album sorting - that's a holdover from a previous strategy. We always allow Album sorting now, precisely so that singles are grouped together whenever 'SongsPerStrip=Double' is set. :)
From the latest ini file:
; If SongSort is set to:
; Album: title strips will be sorted by the album name.
; Artist: title strips will be sorted by the artist name.
; Popularity: sort by playcount, in descending order.
; Random: title strips will be randomized.
; Title: sort by song title.
; Type: sort Video tracks from Audio-only tracks (Video first).
; Unsorted: Tracks will appear in the order they're stored in the database.
; Note that Album sort no longer only applies to CD-based skins.
; The default is Artist.
SongSort = Artist
Hope this helps. :)
vampire:
Many thanks for that detailed response, it's clear there's more options in the software than I realised, I will experiment further and report back! I'm going to stick with file/folder sorting, I've no faith in ID3 tags, have tried repeatedly in "Fruitbox" and found issues, not least because there is no single tagging protocol and of course older files are tagged according to the whims of the original ripper. It would take a lot of work to standardise all my files, easier, in my case at least, to sort the files into appropriately named folders. Will have a play later today.
Rebel Oz 69:
--- Quote from: vampire on April 15, 2026, 05:25:35 am ---Many thanks for that detailed response, it's clear there's more options in the software than I realised, I will experiment further and report back! I'm going to stick with file/folder sorting, I've no faith in ID3 tags, have tried repeatedly in "Fruitbox" and found issues, not least because there is no single tagging protocol and of course older files are tagged according to the whims of the original ripper. It would take a lot of work to standardise all my files, easier, in my case at least, to sort the files into appropriately named folders. Will have a play later today.
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That being the case, my suggestion would be to double-check the filenames in your collection, to verify they match the Split5 format (regardless of which folder they're in) - that way, everything should work as you'd expect. :)
If you *did* ever decide to take the plunge with ID3-style tagging though, I'd highly recommend giving Musicbrainz Picard (https://picard.musicbrainz.org/) the task.
If you haven't seen it before, you'll be amazed - it does an excellent job, and saves a HUGE amount of time; each track you feed it has it's unique audio 'fingerprint' detected, which is then compared against the Musicbrainz database (38 million recordings and counting), and the tags are auto-populated/updated for you, which you can then write out to disk. It can also move/rename your files into the right folder structure (if you wish). It's not perfect, but any (rare) 'misfires' can be easily manually edited/corrected, and then written to disk. This gives you the best of both worlds - track filenames are consistent and neatly organised, and the metadata is far more extensive (and predictable) than could ever be derived from a simple filename.
The added bonus is that once your tracks are tagged, you can then apply whatever file/folder naming convention you like across your entire collection with minimal effort, and if you change your naming convention down the track, it's trivially simple to apply the new style. One and done! :D
If you've got more than a few hundred tracks to sift through and validate/rename/update, Picard will save you many, many hours.
No, I'm not affiliated in any way with Musicbrainz; I simply love their work. :)
vampire:
Hi, Spent quite a bit of time with this today, I've renamed a small number of songs using the Split5 format and although they will sort into the correct singles the sorting into the "A" and "B" sides doesn't work, there doesn't seem to be any particular logic at play! As for using ID3 tags how would that work in order to sort into singles? You say the tracks would be grouped by album but the 2 songs we need could have come from different albums initially and even if we change the tags manually we would have the change the track no.s too in order for the program to sort correctly, really can't see that being any easier then a filename system. BTW I do like the Split 5 idea, it saves a bit of folder creation although in my case each song has to have it's own folder as I have the single label as artwork that is displayed as the song plays and that has to be in the same folder as the song. (Wouldn't want embedded art from the ID3 as that would be the album cover). All in all I think I better stick with DWJukebox as it does work for me just a pity it doesn't support Flac or Video but I can live with that, thanks for the response.
Rebel Oz 69:
--- Quote from: vampire on April 15, 2026, 02:18:19 pm ---Hi, Spent quite a bit of time with this today, I've renamed a small number of songs using the Split5 format and although they will sort into the correct singles the sorting into the "A" and "B" sides doesn't work, there doesn't seem to be any particular logic at play! As for using ID3 tags how would that work in order to sort into singles? You say the tracks would be grouped by album but the 2 songs we need could have come from different albums initially and even if we change the tags manually we would have the change the track no.s too in order for the program to sort correctly, really can't see that being any easier then a filename system. BTW I do like the Split 5 idea, it saves a bit of folder creation although in my case each song has to have it's own folder as I have the single label as artwork that is displayed as the song plays and that has to be in the same folder as the song. (Wouldn't want embedded art from the ID3 as that would be the album cover). All in all I think I better stick with DWJukebox as it does work for me just a pity it doesn't support Flac or Video but I can live with that, thanks for the response.
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Hi Vampire,
In those situations where your original track metadata determines that two tracks are from different albums, but you wish to sacrifice track naming fidelity in favour of singles groupings, you're correct in thinking you'd need to manually edit the Album name (ie, rename the album to 'Singles', and set the track numbers to 1 and 2), and set the SongSort option to 'Album'.
The 'Random' option is not your friend here; it will (by design) scramble each and every track individually (ie, no album or artist grouping), so there's no way it would display singles with correct A/B information.
The problem has always been that, if a 'B' side doesn't exist (which should probably NEVER happen in a 'real' jukebox), we have no clean way to enforce that.
DWJukebox simply leaves the 'B' side of the title strip card blank. I opted to just add the next available track (possibly from a different artist) instead, and concatenate the two artist names (separated by a slash) to the Artist section of the title strip.
Example:
Not as elegant, perhaps, but my goal was to avoid blank title cards getting scattered throughout the system, to ensure track selection performs consistently (ie, the only time a blank card needs to be displayed is on the last page, and cannot be selected).
You've given me an idea though: I could add a 'RandomSingles' sorting option, which would add an extra check when randomising the title strips (but only if 'SongsPerStrip=Double' was set), and leave 'B' sides empty if no corresponding track is found.
I've added that to the Roadmap. :)
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