Support for TSOA, TSOP and TSOT tags [#2915]

[PaulID]

Here's another vote for adding the standard ID3 tags for "Sort Title", "Sort Album" and "Sort Artist" (and the itunes extensions, Is Compilation, Sort Album Artist and Sort Composer).

In fact - could MM add support for arbitrary ID3 fields? (Even if only as set and get?)
That would be a neat extension IMHO.

It would be nice to enable users to to add a tag name and description.
eg TSOT, Sort Title, STRING,
or TIME, Recording Time, 4DIGITS

If this needed to be done without DB changes maybe an optional ID3 frame name string could be associated with Custom1-5? (Support for string format frames only would be enough for most people I think.)
Eg CustomX <tag specifier> <string value>

So if I set Custom1 to be used for frame name of TRSN (Internet radio station name) then the value for custom1 would be written to that name (as well or instead of the default tag.) Similarly for TSOT, TSOP etc.

My reasons for wanting Sort order support are due to the fact that I an converting from MM & itunes to pure MM to manage my music and my audiobooks.

I have four Harry Potter tomes, but in iTunes I can set sort titles of "Harry Potter 1", "Harry Potter 2" etc.
This means that the books appear in the right chronological order, and with the right title.

I can get the same effect in MM only if I name them like "Harry Potter 1 - HP and the Philosopher's Stone".

Another example for wanting it is for "Sort Artist" - say I have Layla by Derek and The Dominos, I want it to be found and displayed under Eric Clapton.

[nohitter151]

In fact - could MM add support for arbitrary ID3 fields? (Even if only as set and get?)]

It's being planned for 4.0.

[jomaweb]

It's being planned for 4.0.

Great!
When this new version will be available?

[jautor]

Sorry for the old thread bump, but I'm wondering if 'Sort Order' tag support made it into the v4 Alpha? I looked though the feature list but didn't see it mentioned. Since iTunes 9.x started supporting these, I'd really like to use them for all the reasons the original poster suggested. Especially for large collections, having artists/composers show up in correct alphabetical order (instead of under "John" or "Richard") would be a big usability improvement. ID3 defined many of these, iTunes added their own additions (which are consistently named TSO2 - Album Artist Sort Order and TSOC - Composer Sort Order). Microsoft defined WMA tags to mirror the ID3-defined TSO* tags as well (although I'm not aware of any application that utilizes them).

Note that the sort order tags are also useful for proper positioning of artists with accent characters, numbers in their name, etc. It also removes the need for workarounds for leading participles (A, The, etc.). But in general, having a 'sort order string' as a separate field from the 'display string' has a lot of value.

Regards,

Jeff

[nohitter151]

No, it hasn't been added. I think this is the only relevant entry on this:
http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=2915