Grouping, Album Type, ETC

[DragonQuester]

On the hunt for the perfect library software, have tried a bunch with no luck but bought a gold license to see if MM will fit for what I want. Apologies for the long post!

I've used the subnodes for the music library so that I can view by album artist, which is great because I have tons of compilations and splits, which saves me from scrolling through artists who only have a single track.

What I'm looking for when viewing an artist is this:

To separate albums by type. So Full Albums, EPs, Singles, Live, and so on.
To show the albums they appear on, such as soundtracks, compilations and splits. For example I have a split album with Band 1 and Band 2 and when looking at each bands artist page it will show said split album. Even better if I could have these under an album type of Splits. If the split album also shows under various artists (I've been tagging the splits as Various Artists for the album artist).

So in the end something like this:

Band 1 -
+Albums
+EPs
+Singles
+Splits
-Split with Band 2

Hopefully this makes sense! I can clarify if it doesn't.

Thank you!

[Lowlander]

That's not possible with MediaMonkey. You may be able to achieve something like this with an Addon though (none exists at this moment).

[IanRTaylorUK]

The way I might handle this is with the Playlists. Because they are hierarchical, I have used this to group together stuff.

Example 1 - The Doors
The Doors
>>>Live in New York
>>>Perception
>>>>>>LA Woman
>>>>>>Morrisson Hotel
>>>>>>Strange Days
>>>>>>1966
>>>>>>Soft Parade
>>>>>>Waiting for the Sun
>>>Singles Box

Example 2 - 100 Best Vinyl Albums
100 Best Vinyl
>>>1950s
>>>>>>BB King Live
>>>>>>....
>>>>>>T Bone Walker
>>>1960s
>>>>>>Cream Disraeli Gears
>>>>>>....
>>>>>>The Doors
>>>1970s
>>>>>>....
>>>1980s
>>>>>>....
>>>1990s
>>>>>>....
>>>2000s
>>>>>>....
>>>2010s
>>>>>>....
>>>2020s
>>>>>>Beyonce Renaissance 2022
>>>>>>....
>>>>>>Taylor Swift Lover Live from Paris 2023

Alternatively, you might want to look into using a Custom field for the recording type. Say:
Album
EPs
Live
Singles
Splits (minor collaborator / secondary or supporting artist)
Splits (major collaborator / primary artist)
Vinyl(?)
The Custom field could then be used in a Collection. For example, I use the GROUPING field for BOXED sets like the aforementioned Perception boxed set of The Doors albums. One criterium! Grouping is Known

What I like about this is that the top level display of my Boxed Sets Collection is that it shows the Artists as a block (Chris Rea, CCR, Vangelis, The Police, The Doors) and the Albums as a block (Bayou County....Zenyatta Mondata).

I am also confident the the add-on SQL Editor could be used to display just those artists where the GROUPING field or CUSTOM field is populated! Is that of interest.

[IanRTaylorUK]

SQL EDITOR or CUSTOM NODES Album Query by GroupDesc Field (My Ref: SQL 059)

Purpose:
The primary objective of this script is to isolate and display full Album records that contain tracks assigned to a specific category or "Grouping." This is particularly useful for users who utilize the GroupDesc field to organize their library into sub-genres, moods, or musical movements (e.g., "Baroque," "High Fidelity," or "Workout" or “Boxed Sets”) and wish to view these collections at the album level rather than as a fragmented list of individual tracks.

Clean SQL:

Code: Select all

/* Select all columns from the Albums table
   to ensure the output is grouped by Album record
*/
SELECT * FROM Albums
WHERE ID IN (
    /* Subquery to identify albums containing tracks
       that meet our specific criteria
    */
    SELECT IDAlbum
    FROM Songs
    WHERE TrackType = 0        /* Ensure we are only looking at Music tracks */
      AND GroupDesc IS NOT NULL /* Exclude tracks where the field is empty/null */
      AND GroupDesc <> ''      /* Exclude tracks with an empty string entry */
)
/* Sort the resulting album list alphabetically by the Album title */
ORDER BY Album ASC

Provenance & Compatibility:
This code logic utilizes a relational subquery structure to bridge the Albums and Songs tables within the Media Monkey 2024 database. By starting the query at the Albums table, we ensure the output is compatible with album-view displays. The logic employs a WHERE ID IN clause; this approach scans the Songs table first to find track-level matches for the GroupDesc criteria and then passes those unique IDAlbum references back to the main Albums table. This prevents duplicate album rows from appearing when multiple tracks in the same album share a grouping. Please note that while the Media Monkey API and Wiki refer to this property as GroupDesc whereas other references use Grouping. SQL Editor and Custom Nodes work using the internal database field name GroupDesc.

Whilst SQL Editor displays a text table, Custom Nodes displays a more useful and graphical display of “Album Covers” sorted by Album. Clicking on a “Album Cover” then expands to display the tracks. This SQL script – whilst compatible with both add-ons - is perhaps best used in Custom Nodes.

To run this script, makes sure you have the most recent version of the Custom Nodes add-on and cut and paste the code into a new Album node using the right-click configure option! Similarly, the code can be cut and pasted into the SQL Editor query box then press the Execute button. SQL Editor is useful as it "colour-codes" the script e.g. Blue for SQL commands, Red for field names, White for comments...

https://www.mediamonkey.com/addons/brow ... tom-nodes/

https://www.mediamonkey.com/addons/brow ... ql-editor/

Acknowledgements
Drakinite, Ludek, Rusty for their work on these add-ons.