Clementine: sort playlist by many criteria at the same time

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From keirangtp on December 21, 2010 09:23:30_

"Thank you. Voted both.

mmmm... i can sort right now
by artist
Artist A
Artist B
Artist C

or
by year
Artist A [2005]
Artist B [2005]
Artist C [2006]
Artist A [2007]
Artist B [2008]

id like to sort by year _within_ artists

Artist A - [2005]
Artist A - [2006]
Artist A - [2007]
Artist B - [2002]
Artist B - [2003]
Artist C - [2005]

its basically the same ordering as in collection tree that u pointed out: artist/year-album
ascending or descending :)"

I really don't know how modern list views implement this (talking about the usability here) and whether this is really possible. Just reporting this on behalf of user.

_Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/clementine-player/issues/detail?id=1154_

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From legion1978 on December 21, 2010 01:12:38_

Thank you.
Ive seen its default behavior in more than one player (cant recall which ones, ive tried them all :P), when tracks are added to the playlist, and u sort them by artist, the program automagically sort them albums by year descending _per artist_ :)

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From keirangtp on December 21, 2010 02:29:11_

I didn't mean automagical sorting - this would never work for everybody - but some way of letting Clementine know that you want the playlist to first be sorted by THIS and then be sorted by THAT and then maybe also sorted by THAT.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From legion1978 on December 21, 2010 02:40:40_

hehehe its ok mate... u guys rock :)

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From eric.ackroyd on April 09, 2011 17:24:17_

Hi there, would it be possible to have the same "Group by..." options available for the playlist window as there are for the library pane? The playlist populated in artist,year,album,track order I think (perfect), but now I can only seem to order by one of those options at a time. Thanks for the awesome player. [using mac os x 10.6.7; clementine 0.7.1]

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From davidsansome on April 17, 2011 15:41:43_

Issue 1775 has been merged into this issue.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From Anrock623 on May 07, 2011 12:21:54_

It would be great to have this feature implemented. Currently it's very uncomfortable to listen music like i do - all artists in one pl with shuffle on and rarely switching shuffle off to listen whole album, because pl can be sorted only by one column and others missed up badly.
Best default solution imo would be sorting by artist first, then year-album inside artist block and finally tracks by track number in each album block.
Guys, please, fix that thing as it is the only flaw in your awesome player.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From dracho on May 09, 2011 06:29:34_

I agree, this is a must-have feature. So far switching from Winamp has been an amazing experience... tenfold what I was expecting. Thank you for this great software. But please, please, please... add this multi-sorting scheme. Bands have made music that has evolved over the years... I think people should view their library as such; earlier works on top and later works on the bottom.

Thanks again!

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From schizosfera on October 31, 2011 15:55:56_

what about "sort selection by ..." where "selection" stands for "consecutive, selected tracks in the playlist"?
i suppose that would resolve most of the annoying sorting problems.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From Anrock623 on October 31, 2011 17:21:57_

Hey guys, a little workaround here - you can sort by many criteria at the same time by clicking bars consequentially. I.E. if you click in order
track - album - year - artist
You will get pl just like keiran wanted - artists sorted alphabetically and their albums sorted by years and tracks by track number.
Alternating order of sorting leads to different sorting patterns, obviously.
Hope that helps.
And sorry for google.translate.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From japgolly on April 13, 2012 14:51:19_

This is super important and high priority to me.

I guess this is open source. Someone familiar with the codebase want to give me a hint of where and/or how changes for this feature would ideally be made? If I have time next week I'll see if I can do the work for this myself.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From Abdallah.Saffidine on June 20, 2012 15:08:23_

@Anrock,

While your workaround works with an already opened playlist, it does not work with "smart playlits".

If you create a smart playlist, you can choose one criterion only to sort the tracks. When you open the playlist, the track are sorted according to this criterion only. You can then click bars like you suggest to reorder the opened version of your playlist, but next time you open the playlist, the order will be back to the default single criterion order that you specified at creation time.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From Anrock623 on June 20, 2012 15:12:06_

@Abdallah,

Yeah, i know. That's still a workaround, don't expect too much about it.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From arnaud.bienner on July 31, 2012 06:37:48_

IMHO this is overkill, and Anrock623's proposition is great: if you want to sort playlist by many criteria, just sort it out with each interesting criterion consecutively.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From uzix.ls on July 31, 2012 07:41:44_

@arnaud.bienner
Why we need to click many columns every time when want to create new playlist?

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From japgolly on July 31, 2012 16:08:24_

Problem with the workaround is that it has to be repeated to a) every playlist, and b) every time any new tracks are added.

The solution for this doesn't have to be costly. What if the solution was to just have a new settings which is a sort-string looking like this: "%artist% %year% %album% %tn%"? Then when the use hits ctrl-S the code evals that for each playlist entry then sorts by that? That would be about 30min of work - it doesn't need to have all kinds of complicated gui work.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From ascrane on August 26, 2012 11:41:44_

Automatically-generated playlists without multiple sorting makes them far less useful than they could be.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From jim.oltman on September 27, 2013 09:21:56_

There should be a multiple SORT setting in the (Smart) Playlists. I should be able to sort (Smart) Playlists in any order I want. Specifically, I would want to sort by:

Album Artist
Album
Disc
Track

The way I've seen another player handle this is by holding down CTRL and clicking the columns in the order I want them sorted.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From jim.oltman on November 19, 2013 15:15:52_

The ability to sort by multiple columns is needed. Especially with Smart Playlists. I don't want to re-sort every time I go back to that Smart Playlist/Normal Playlist. Many other players have this feature (Media Monkey on Windows). The proper implementation would be to hold down CTRL and choose the sorting columns (as many as needed) when you have a playlist already open. In a Smart Playlist, the proper implementation would be having Sort Order drop downs starting with the first criteria. Then when you choose the first criteria, a second drop down box appears (underneath the first drop down) so you can choose the second criteria. This process would continue until the user has the music sorted the way they want.

[Clementine-Issue-Importer]

_From japgolly on November 19, 2013 15:24:48_

This feature is implemented very flexibly in Foobar2000.
Foobar2000 is the perfect player in my opinion and it works perfectly under Wine so I switched to that a while back.

Best of luck, Clementine. I got a few months use from it so thank you.

[Kuitsi]

I also have all music in one playlist, just like Anrock623.

+1 for japgolly's suggestion: add new search option with user-defined sort-string

[johannspies]

Please, can we have the option to use multiple sorting criteria especially for dynamic playing lists!