Cover Flow Sorting Issue - Workaround

Here is a temporary solution to the Cover Flow view & the Album Art Grouping view.
As many of you know the sorting by 'Album' or 'Album by Artist' or 'Album by Year' in the above mentioned views is not correctly prioritized.
The issue stems from the fact that the sort algorithm prioritized 'Artist' over the expected logic implied by grouping by the sort field name. So if a single album contains tracks all by different artists, you will get a Album Cover for each artist NOT each album.
To get around this (until Apple fixes it) use the 'Album Artist' field (which is usually, but not always, empty) and set this field to a common value for an entire album — such as 'Various Artists.' When doing so, the logic will still sort on the Artist Name first, but will group the entire album together.
If Sorting by "Album by Year" then the only hitch to this method is if you have two or more albums with the same & progressive title (see example below.) Then the album will sort in order of the Artist name of the 1st track of the album. — This probably will affect nearly zero of the the iTunes population though.
e.g. The album sort order will be:
Album: "Music 02" 1st track Artist: "Astro"
Album: "Music 03" 1st track Artist: "Terra"
Album: "Music 01" 1st track Artist: "Viggio"
Once again just set each album with a common "Album Artist" descriptor. I use "Various Artists"
-Alan
Note: Also there is a new field in the info tags for each song called 'Album Artist.'
AlBook, TiBook, iMac, iBook Mac OS X (10.4.5) Corporate / mixed environment / multiple networks.

Hi,
just change the switch Compilation to true for all songs in the album and it works too.

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Cover flow - Sort by Album/Year?

I love the cover flow feature on my iPhone but I am disappointed that it sorts based on Artist name. Is there a setting to make Cover flow - Sort by Album/Year?

Sorry, no such setting.

Send your feedback to Apple if you want Cover Flow sorted by Album

I know this is a hot topic, but I really would prefer to have Cover Flow sorted per Album rather than per Artist. I don't buy the same album for each artist so I think Cover Flow should be per Album, it just makes sense.
As there's no real way around it and if you agree send your feedback to Apple so at least they know it's something people want and maybe they'll work on a way to fix it for us.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html

I would support an option to sort by album or artist but if it were only 1 way, i'd like it to be by artist. Assuming the fix the compilation problem, I want the coverflow to work like going to a 'record' store so that i can easily go artist by artist and each artists albums are sorted together. compilations would either be grouped together at the end or under various artists ( but each album would appear once). I know my collection way better by artist than i do by album name.

Cover Flow sorting is wacky (not a compilations issue).

I just purchased a 120GB Classic with the hope that I'd be able to browse my collection of music by album artist. After all but giving up hope, it looks like Cover Flow is almost doing it (on purpose or not, I don't know).
Here's the issue: I tag my .mp3s so that on tracks with multiple artists, they're separated by a "/" -- so, for example, on my Aesop Rock album, "None Shall Pass", track 6 has an artist field of, "Aesop Rock/Breeze Brewin/Cage". I always include the artist in the artist field before I put any of the guest artists.
When I sync this to my iPod, the Cover Flow only shows this as one album (there are four tracks scattered throughout the album with different artists). If Cover Flow was sorting purely by artist, it would have multiple covers. So I'm thinking that I figured out a way to get what I want.
Except the iPod seems to randomly decide which albums it wants to treat this way -- some, such as the Kid Rock album "Cocky" (the one with "Picture" with Sheryl Crow"), are shown as two separate albums in Cover Flow. This doesn't make any sense to me.
All the "sort" fields are blank for all the files, so that can't be what's doing it. If I go under the Artist menu, it shows all the artists just as they're written in the tags.
So what's the deal here? How does Cover Flow really work?
[EDIT] Nevermind, I figured it out. Apparently when you sort by artist, it will give me all the songs with just the artist, and then give me the songs with that artist and any other artist (the slash comes after all the letters alphabetically). So if the artist has more than one album, it doesn't group them together by album.
I guess the "sort field" is the only way to fix it for now.
Message was edited by: Psyact

Using the sort field to try to force things together doesn't quite work, and certainly not when the album artist has more than one album with guests. I think you'll also find there are some enumeration issues in the album menu which may cause the wrong cover to be displayed as you progress through the library. See my recent post on Grouping Tracks Into Albums for a somewhat long, but hopefully comprehensive, exposition of the issues.
tt2

Ipod nano - cover flow sort order nano 5th gen

hi community,
i'm using different ipods (3rd gen, 4th gen, 5th gen, nano) and i love tagging my mp3s (artist, album, _but not_ album artist)
the sorting in cover flow for my ipod (3rd, 4th gen, touch, _but not 5th gen_) is fine for me: first regular albums then compilations.
with the nano 5th generation sorting is as follows: regular album + compilations mixed - base is artist name ( not fine for me ).
what i want is: first regular albums, than compilations (analogue ipod nano 4th). workaround for this should be: setting of album artist.
my question: do i have to setup my album artist for the desired sort order in nano 5th, and how will be the sort order in cover flow for the future? (e.g. nano 6th gen., + followers (because i don't want to reset my tags weeks later once again ....)
thanks for your reply.
best regards
itunes_gef

Hi Damon et al:
I agree with you that you shouldn't have to screw around with the file names. The iPod should allow you to sort in a variety of ways (e.g. any of the fields in the MP3 metadata, and in forward or reverse order). I'm going to keep checking back on this thread to see if more information comes out of it, but it looks to me like a flaw in the iPod OS, not a user-education issue.
Cheers,
bkengland
P.S. One would hope that the Apple program managers look at these threads for RFE ideas!
iPod Nano Other OS

Cover Flow - visual issues

I decided to rearrange my Bookmarks today and didn't even know Safari 4 had all these clever new additions! Cover Flow in Safari??? I use iTunes all the time as a visual guide and to have it here was a great idea.
My niggling problem is that around 90 percent of the visual images are just a black image with the grey Safari logo...
Are we supposed to create an image (as sometimes a 'cover' image has to be added in iTunes) for every new webite bookmarked?
Nuts to that!
Any helpful people know why images aren't appearing? Is there an easy way to amend them? Am I just being thick... again?
A side issue using this for the first time - I noticed when I was re-arranging my bookmarks (dragging up or down) the process became slower and slower...

all sorted!

Is there a way of making my iPod's "cover flow" sort in the same way the software can . Artist -- Album by Year . It only seems to do Artist -- by Alphabetical Album . I want it look like it does on the PC .

Is there a way to make the "cover flow" on the iPod match the sort style that I use on the software . I go with Artist -- Album by Release Year . But the ipod seems to only do Artist -- Alphabetical by Album , and then there are a handful of albums oddly out of place . Can it be done ?

Ottonomy, here's what to do.
Connect your iPhone to your computer and open the iPhone's playlist in an iTunes window. Copy/Paste the entire playlist into a new(!) playlist in iTunes, not on your iPhone. Then resort the playlist. After you sort it, Copy/Paste it to a new(!) playlist on your iPhone. Now delete the old playlist on your iPhone and rename the new playlist the name you want it to be (probably the same name as the old playlist).
The downside to this method is that you have to do it every time you add a song to the playlist. Unfortunately, I don't think there's another way.

Help! Cover art sorting issue!! Please help!!!!

Thanks in advance!
I have tried, and tried. And for the life of me, I cannot get coverflow to display the Artist, then the albums of that artist in the order they came out in.
I searched the forums, and web, and one solution I found said to label each according album sequentially manually. = ( This would take days! LOL...
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Again, I would like cover flow to sort by the Artist first alphabetically of course, but the albums displayed by the artist I would like in the order they were released. I have tried sorting by artist, album artist, year, grouping, etc.. every option to no avail! It seems it is one choice or the other. = (
It is indeed a pain in the neck. I just installed V.8.0, the new "standard" view lists artists in this fashion, why can't cover flow? Am I missing something? Again, any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

As far as I know, what you are asking for can not be done in the iTunes library window.
I've gotten around this by creating Smart Playlists for the few artists this matters most for me. The Smart Playlist finds all tracks by a certain artist then I simply drag the albums into the order they were released.
The only way I can think of to do this for your entire library would be to rename each album with it's year of release preceding it's name. That's a project I'd avoid like the plague since I have over 10,000 tracks in iTunes.

Need help please: cover flow sort order logic

hi community,
is there a official document / specification from apple where the sort order and the settings of the corresponding tags (album, album artist, compilation on/off) of the cover flow is described?
AA)
i use diffent ipods. earlier versions diplayed in coverflow:
1) sorted by artist for compilation = off, following
2) sorted by album for compilation = on
this was fine for me.
BB)
now on my nano 5g order is as following:
- only 1 list: sorted by artist with all compilations listed in
does anybody know how i can set up the nano to display the cover flow like AA)?
best regards
gef_audio

s there a official document / specification from apple
If there is, it would be in Apple's Knowledge Base or iPod nano (5th generation) - User Guide.

Cover Flow display issue

Can anyone explain the distortion I'm seeing in the album images in Cover Flow? I don't have very up-to-date video card, but it doesn't /look/ that complicate to render.
Screenshot: http://www.aengblom.com/ars/distortion.JPG
Windows XP Pro

Tonnes of folks having issues with cover flow.
Post your problem and specs in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=637228&tstart=0
and hopefully we can get some answers!

Cover Flow sorting question

I have several seasons of different shows in my iTunes TV library. Even though each season has it's own artwork (Season 1, Season 2, etc.) the entire show's episodes show up in Cover Flow as 1 image - usually from the last season I imported.
Example: I have seasons 1 through 3 of West Wing in my library. But in cover flow view, when sorted by show, all three seasons show up as 1 image and it's the Season 3 cover art.
How do I get each season to show up as separate images with their own respective artwork in Cover Flow? I've filled in all the correct metadata and each episode and season are labeled correctly.

I would also like to know about this. I have an entire series of one show and I would like them sorted together as one whole show, rather than separated by each season.

Cover Flow Sorting

Is there any way to change the cover flow from sorting by artist to sorting by album? Sorting by artist, in my opinion, is pointless in cover flow.

Frisbey wrote:
Is there any way to change the cover flow from sorting by artist to sorting by album? Sorting by artist, in my opinion, is pointless in cover flow.
Really? That's how my CDs & vinyl are ordered. The iPod Cover Flow order is Album by Artist - there are no options to change this. If you want a pure alphabetical album order just use the album menu.
tt2

Cover Flow sorting options

Currently it appears that Cover Flow is sorting by Album Artist, this is a problem because I have lots of compilations. I want it to sort by Album, does anyone know how to change this?

windows itunes:
- select all songs from compilation
- right click, then select 'get info'
- click 'sorting' tab
- select 'Sort Artist' and put e.g. 'Various', or whatever you want

Cover Flow Sort Problem To Do With Compilations?

Hi,
I just had a thought. Do you think the problem we're having with Cover Flow on the iPod Nano is to do with "Part of a compilation" not being ticked in iTunes?
If you bought one movie soundtrack Album that has a different Artist for each track, should "Part of a compilation" be ticked in iTunes, even if you've set the Album Artist to "Various Artists"?

No. does not help. The Compilations-Checkmark brings the files in a folder and not one level up. So the iTunes folder is a little cleaned up.
mk

Cover flow and album sort issues

I just got a 80GB iPod classic for Christmas and I have noticed some annoying differences between iTunes cover flow and iPod cover flow:
1. In iTunes cover flow, when you have songs with "Unknown Album", they clutter up the cover flow for each artist. In iPod cover flow, they are sent to the back of the cover flow in a nice little "Various Artists" cover. I like how this works on the iPod better.
2. iTunes cover flow sorts by album artist, so you don't see a separate album for each non-album artist song.
For example: If I set my album artist for the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack to "Saturday Night Fever" (don't ask why, this is how i like it sorted) then I will only see one "Saturday Night Fever" rather than one for Bee Gees, one for Kool & the Gang, etc.
iPod cover flow sorts by artist, so you see a separate album for each non-album artist song. I like the way this works in iTunes better.
3. When sorting by "Album by Year" in iTunes, syncing the iPod doesn't seem to follow the same sorting. Albums are still sorted on the iPod alphabetically. I want them to sort by year on my iPod.
So I would appreciate it if someone could help me with all 3 of these issues. As you can see, sometimes iTunes is better for me, sometimes iPod is better for me.

3. Playlists should be sorted in the same way as they are in iTunes. The Cover Flow order is fixed.
This is not the case, at least not with iTunes 7.5.0.20 and my 80GB Classic running 1.0.3 on it (current version as of this writing). In iTunes, under LIBRARY, I select Music, and I have my music sorted via *Album by Year*. This works perfectly in iTunes. I'll use my Soundgarden library as an example, as it shows the problem nicely.
*_iTunes order_:*
Ultramega OK
Louder Than Love
Screaming Life/Fopp
Badmotorfinger
Superunknown
Songs From The Superunknown
Down on the Upside
A-Sides
That's ordered by date and is perfect. +Ultramega OK+ was released way back in 1988, while A-Sides was released nearly 10 years later in 1997. In Cover Flow View it works great. However, in the iPod it's sorted alphabetically, which is completely wrong:
*_iPod Classic_:*
A-Sides
Badmotorfinger
Down on the Upside
Louder Than Love
Screaming Life/Fopp
Songs From The Superunknown
Superunknown
Ultramega OK
This is totally wrong. And I haven't yet found a way to force it.
Apple, please, this shouldn't be that difficult.

Cover Flow Sorting Issue - Workaround

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