[zag]

So here is an interesting question, basically I would like to list all my music by artist ONLY and then their tracks.

Ideally all the tracks would be sorted by plays.

I'd like to ignore albums completely (in the view at least).

Has anyone done this? Its pretty much how Spotify works I think.

[jjd-uk]

I guess it maybe be possible, you perhaps just need to know the correct sql db query then use that to formulate a path for a custom node.

[jbinkley60]

So here is an interesting question, basically I would like to list all my music by artist ONLY and then their tracks.

Ideally all the tracks would be sorted by plays.

I'd like to ignore albums completely.

Has anyone done this? Its pretty much how Spotify works I think.

I've done it with Mezzmo and Kodi using a Mezzmo active playlist.  Mezzmo comes with an artist active playlist already created that does exactly this.   I've never done it with Kodi alone.

Here's a couple of pictures in Kodi:

The artist list:




The tracks, in this case sorted by album and then track:



With a couple of other button clicks I sorted by playcount descending and using Display Titles had Mezzmo insert the playcount, instead of the album track into the title which is displayed.




Thanks,

Jeff

[black_eagle]

So here is an interesting question, basically I would like to list all my music by artist ONLY and then their tracks.

Ideally all the tracks would be sorted by plays.

I'd like to ignore albums completely (in the view at least).

Has anyone done this? Its pretty much how Spotify works I think.

This is actually really simple to implement.....So I did!!!

There are test builds available for both Android and Windows.  The filename contains "artist_stuff".  To enable navigation from artist directly to songs you need to use AS.xml and have the following setting.

xml:
<advancedsettings>

    <musiclibrary>

        <artistnavigatestosongs>true</artistnavigatestosongs>

    </musiclibrary>

</advancedsettings>

Navigating Music -> artist -> will lead to all the songs of that artist if the AS setting is true.  Otherwise if it is false or missing then albums will be navigated to instead.  The song view can be sorted anyway you wish (year, playcount, album, rating etc etc)

I could PR this and get it into V21 if there is enough interest, but we will be going to RC soon and then only fixes will be allowed, so no feature stuff.

@zag - if you would like to test and comment.

[zag]

Seems to work as expected



Some thoughts
- GUI setting?
- Album thumb in the list view (skin thing)
- Test build had Estuary mod, does it need that?
- Artist list view probably doesn't need the artist name (skin thing)
- Playcount doesn't auto update when song finishes (need to go back and reload list view)

[black_eagle]

@zag

- GUI Setting - I thought about it but we likely have enough already and it's probably a bit niche, certainly for now.
- Album thumb will be a skin thing.
- Estuary Mod ?  Not saying you're wrong but are you sure??  The PR is here and it doesn't include any skin stuff.

- Playcount doesn't auto update when song finishes (need to go back and reload list view) - Might be a skin thing, refresh is only maybe triggered for some views. I'm not sure on that one, the change just makes kodi skip the album / disc level. Everything else is exactly the same.

[zag]

I really think a GUI setting is needed, I certainly have no wish to use Advanced Settings on my home android devices.

Sorted the skin, it was an old install

Otherwise I think this is great, brings much easier song browsing to the music UI flow.

[black_eagle]

I really think a GUI setting is needed, I certainly have no wish to use Advanced Settings on my home android devices.

The filemanager in Kodi would help facilitate copying any as.xml file.

I feel it's too much of a niche requirement to warrant a GUI setting, although I'm open to persuasion if you have a good enough argument.  That said, I do feel the music context menu needs addressing at some point and that things that are duplicated (play or browse into) should be removed if the default select action is the same.  That would allow for the context menu to navigate directly to songs if the default was to navigate to albums... or vice versa .....  V22 for definite though.

[zag]

I really think a GUI setting is needed, I certainly have no wish to use Advanced Settings on my home android devices.

The filemanager in Kodi would help facilitate copying any as.xml file.

I feel it's too much of a niche requirement to warrant a GUI setting, although I'm open to persuasion if you have a good enough argument.  That said, I do feel the music context menu needs addressing at some point and that things that are duplicated (play or browse into) should be removed if the default select action is the same.  That would allow for the context menu to navigate directly to songs if the default was to navigate to albums... or vice versa .....  V22 for definite though.

Well 99% of people will never use an advanced text file setting on their main setups
But more importantly we have a setting system that has different filter levels including "expert". It was changed exactly so that we didn't need to use advancedsettings again. Its a HTPC system, not a linux command line software hehe

I've been playing with the feature and really think its a good one. Much more like spotify now and a modern way to browse music.

[black_eagle]

I've been playing with the feature and really think its a good one. Much more like spotify now and a modern way to browse music.

Grr, OK - So, how would you phrase the setting so that it's reasonably self explanatory as to what it does, bearing in mind there is a limited amount of space so five or six words?

Artists navigate directly to songs maybe ?

[HomerJau]

Can’t this be down with a Library node?

[black_eagle]

Can’t this be down with a Library node?

Not the way I've implemented it now, no.  To do that would require a lot more changes to core rather than just what is effectively a simple switch.

~~~EDIT~~~
Further discussion will have to aim for V22 as this is now merged into V21  PR