QotD: Alphabet
Posted February 17th, 2005 @ 11:53pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Question: What do you think of Khoi's idea?
My Answer: I like it. I've definitely scrolled way past the intended song or album. I also find it annoying that when I look at one artist's songs, they're not alphabetized, but are listed by album. R.E.M. has a few hundred songs - I'd like to find the right one quickly, not try to remember what year the album it's on came out relative to the others.
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Posted 18 Feb 2005 at 12:29am #
I like it, but I'd prefer the iPod to recognise the "Compilations" setting like iTunes does. It's incredibly annoying when you have several hundred artists in the lists, 90% of them with only 1 or 2 songs, when you really want the album they're on.
Posted 20 Feb 2005 at 1:17pm #
In the case of compilations on your iPod, search your playlist by Album rather than artist, to get the album.
I don't know if I would like or not the extra navigation tier of Khoi's idea just to keep from scrolling through oodles, people forget how flexible the scroll is in going through a long list depending on the thumb speed.
Seems to me Erik's idea of removing a navigation tier (Albums) might have a workaround similar to the offered compilation solution, -go into the song list via another route ( I haven't thought this through, it just immediately strikes me as possible)
Although I am not totally unsympathetic to the frustrations vented here, I don't find them to be a real problem, although it might explain some of the anal overkill I see some people go about in creating playlists that duplicate
already existing sorting functions (such as creating playlist by artists. Why? Unless they are wanting to do what Erik wants by the route playlist>song, and getting only one artist songs sorted alphabetically.
More often than not, I do see playlists created for non-existant problems - the user merely hasn't found the route to go about searching in iTunes or on the iPod that already is there.