User

12.12.2010 19:24:25

I'm brand new to Remote Buddy. I love the idea of the alphabet level in the Music Browser, but after reading parts of the manual and some of the posts on this forum it appears there is currently no way in the Music Browser to sort by fields other than Album, Artist and the others that are built in. This is a serious deficiency for me as my iTunes library is organized mainly by Album Artist rather than Artist.

This is for several reasons: (1) I find it counter-intuitive browsing by first name / last name, so I have set up the Album Artist field to be Last Name, First Name; (2) browsing by Artist produces too many entries because the artists in compilations all appear separately and tracks recorded by duets and combinations all appear as separate artists, using Album Artist each of my albums is attributed to one Album Artist or "Various Artists"; (3) I file soundtracks and Broadway shows using the name of the film or the show in Album Artist, which makes it unnecessary to switch to Album sort to find them; and finally (4) I put the name of the composer in Album Artist for most classical albums so I don't have to switch to Composer sort. All of this allows me to browse my iTunes library the way I used to browse my CDs and LPs collections, without having to switch back and forth between Artist, Album and Composer sorts to locate the music I want to play.

Have I missed something? Is there in fact a way to sort by Album Artist? If not, has anyone found a work-around? Or, is this feature planned in a future release of Remote Buddy?

Thank you for any further info on this topic. 

User

12.12.2010 19:29:57

Further to my previous post, I've thought about bypassing Music Browser and having RB call an applescript that would directly launch iTunes. Has anyone else done this, and how were the results? Thanks again. 

User

29.07.2011 13:01:10

I second the request for this feature. Sorting by album is brutal and renders the RB interface somewhat useless. 

User

14.05.2014 10:01:33

4 years after that first 'complaint' and I'm in the same position. Having had a keen interest in music for over 50 years and also spent some of that time as a database developer, it appalls me that so many developers simply get this wrong. Apple is to be applauded for making iTunes as flexible as it is. The only way I'm really interested in accessing my music is by Artist/Album and in iTunes I can display the Artist name as it should be (i.e. First Name, Last Name) but sort in lists by Last Name. I can group compilations to keep those myriad Artists out of the main Artists list where they would be inappropriate and I can assign an Album Artist as opposed to a different Artist on each track. All these things are possible and there's little that iTunes lacks in this respect.

But then Apple let us down with e.g. non iOS iPods totally ignoring Album Artist. So despite iTunes ability to get it right, if you want the same library on your iPod you have to munge the data around to get it to display as required and so not take advantage of all that iTunes has to offer.

What's this to do with Remote Buddy?

I have a need to control iTunes on a Mac from an iPhone, by a web browser as in this instance I cannot use Apple's Remote app. RB's Ajax Remote looks ideal. Apparently a nice interface, but imagine my disappointment when I see the Artist list cluttered up with all the compilation Artists which increases the Artists count from about 500 to over 2000. So as an earlier poster pointed out, this makes RB USELESS.

Why can developers of this sort of app that involves music realise that the fundamental access method needs to be a way to drill down by Artist, to their Albums and then to Tracks if desired. I realise there are many others who like to mess with playlists and ratings and telling the world on Twitter and faceBook what they're playing, but that is just trivia once the basics have been nailed down. and in this case it is obvious that IOSPIRIT have simply missed the point.

Here's what is needed, but they failed to deliver:-

- First of all, direct access to modules via URL so the module selection screen can be avoided.

- Sort Artists by Sort Album Artist, Album Artist, Sort Artist, Artist in that order.

- Sort an Artist's Albums by Sort Album then by Album.

I'm sure there's more, but I couldn't be bothered to look further since currently it is so utterly useless. All those tags I list above are available in iTunes and the 'Sort' versions are there for the specific purpose of allowing users to organise their music how they want. Why when developing an app like this would you ignore them. Really it shouldn't be up to us to point this out.

Disappointed.

Last edited: 14.05.2014 13:33:17 

User

15.05.2014 15:05:02

Thanks for providing such detailed and passionate feedback! I really appreciate it.

Regarding the action plan you provided:

 
It's true that this is currently not possible when used in a browser. Users of the AJAX Remote app (which if I understood you correctly, you don't use), however, have the option to choose a default module that's automatically selected after login.

 
After a quick look at the source, this should be doable. What I still need to check, though, is how much it affects performance. I've one task to finish before I put together the next Remote Buddy release, and I hope to make these changes in that release, too. As much as I'd like to, I can't really *promise* anything at that point, though, since I'll have to actually work on the implementation before I can say more.

 
I'm not ignoring anybody. But there's only so much a single person can do.

That you brought this problem back to my attention is good and very welcome, though.

 
Working on that! ;-)

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz