C'mon iTunes, learn to alphabetize

[Boyo Jim]

I guess Steve Jobs was rich enough to have rules all his own. In Job's iTunes world, "I'll" comes before "I". And if a song title starts with the words "A" or "The" it gets sorted by the next word in the title, which might be ok if the sort field got correctly populated every time you add such a song -- but it doesn't always populate correctly, So if you add a bunch of titles at once you may find yourself having to go in any manually do the work that it was supposed to do.

And don't get me started on shit like parentheses, commas and the like.

You know what I want? I want a conspiracy between Microsoft and Apple, so Excel and iTunes will sort using identical rules. I want a switch that tells them to ignore non-alphanumeric characters when I flip it, and another switch to turn the "A" and "The" first word thing on and off.

And I want world peace! And get off my lawn!

[silenus]

Bah. At least iTunes has a native way of fixing the problem. Try dealing with Amazon and the Kindle for "alphabatizing" that will drive you wacky. For those problems you have to hunt down and install an outside program.

[Boyo Jim]

When I get a Kindle, I'll be sure to create a Pit thread to bitch about it.

[silenus]

If you'd just accept that the way Jobs and Apple want you to do things is the Right Way and that any other way is Deviationism, Life would be a lot less stressful.

[Boyo Jim]

But that would be offensive to MS God.

[beowulff]

I comes before "i'll" in my iTunes.

Maybe you're just crazy.

[Boyo Jim]

Mac or IBM -- I have an IBM. Maybe this is the way Jobs decided to screw with us IBM users.

Or maybe your list is sorted in descending rather than ascending order, and you haven't noticed yet.

[digs]

Originally, artists like "The Beatles" were listed under "T". Can you imagine how many artists were in the T section?

I wonder if the change to "ignore the The" mode caused the "ignore the The" in song titles as well...

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by digs

Originally, artists like "The Beatles" were listed under "T". Can you imagine how many artists were in the T section?

I wonder if the change to "ignore the The" mode caused the "ignore the The" in song titles as well...

Well, kinda. There are fields called "sort fields" for the names of the song, album and artist, and iTunes sorts playlists by what's in these fields if they have a different name in them than the "regular" field.

If you add the song "Cat People" by "David Bowie", the sort fields stay empty and the playlists a sorted by those names.

If you add "The Night Before" by "The Beatles" to iTunes, what's supposed to happen is that the two sort fields will auto-filled with "Night Before" and "Beatles". The list will display "The" or "A" as the first word, but will ignore them as far as sorting is concerned. But for some reason it doesn't always work, which is why, if you sort by artist after adding new tunes, you might find some Beatles songs listed under "B" and some under "T".

A song that begins with either "I" or "I'm" or any number of other contracted variation doesn't result in the sort field getting any data, so it sorts by whatever's in the regular fields. For the life of me, I can't figure out why "I'm" comes before "I" in their logic, and why they haven't fixed in in any of the ten million updates they've put out over the years.

[gallows fodder]

Originally Posted by digs

Originally, artists like "The Beatles" were listed under "T". Can you imagine how many artists were in the T section?

I wonder if the change to "ignore the The" mode caused the "ignore the The" in song titles as well...

Where does The The get filed?

Edit for the pedants: This is a joke. It gets filed under The.

[Boyo Jim]

I actually knew that. I have some of their music.

There's also a group named "!!!", which is sorted after all the letter and number titles.

[silenus]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

For the life of me, I can't figure out why "I'm" comes before "I" in their logic, and why they haven't fixed in in any of the ten million updates they've put out over the years.

It doesn't for me. I just checked all the music on my iPhone - "I" then "I'll" them "I'm." I didn't mess with any of them except to properly alphabetize the artist names if they're songs I've ripped.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by silenus

It doesn't for me. I just checked all the music on my iPhone - "I" then "I'll" them "I'm." I didn't mess with any of them except to properly alphabetize the artist names if they're songs I've ripped.

Do you have iTunes on a computer at home? Does it sort any differently there? I've had iTunes on my home computers for maybe 4 or 5 years, and it's always sorted this way for me.

[Boyo Jim]

Since a second person has come along now and said their iTunes sorts differently, I just took a screen shot and stuck it on Flickr so you can see I'm not delusional or bullshitting. You can even see that it's sorting in ascending order from the up arrow in the column heading.

[mnemosyne]

You think iTunes is bad? Here are the first few movies in the New Movies section of my cable provider's On-Demand service (I'm giving you the French ones because they come first in the list, followed by similar fuckedupedness among the English titles):

Alvin et les Chipmunks 3
Alvin et les Chipmunks 3 - HD
Hop
Hop - HD
Larry Crowne
Larry Crowne - HD
Un jour
Gamin au vélo
Gamin au vélo - HD
Un jour - HD
Millénium (SD then HD...I'm getting tired of typing things twice)
Gardien d'enfant (HD then SD)
Taupe HD
Taupe
Carnage - HD
Carnage...



No alphabetical order. Not even consistent on whether HD or SD is listed first. In one case, the HD movie isn't even adjacent to the SD one in the list.

Videotron says they are upgrading the menu software over the next few months, so hopefully by that point someone will have figured out how to program a Sort function.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by mnemosyne

You think iTunes is bad? Here are the first few movies in the New Movies section of my cable provider's On-Demand service (I'm giving you the French ones because they come first in the list, followed by similar fuckedupedness among the English titles):

Alvin et les Chipmunks 3
Alvin et les Chipmunks 3 - HD
Hop
Hop - HD
Larry Crowne
Larry Crowne - HD
Un jour
Gamin au vélo
Gamin au vélo - HD
Un jour - HD
Millénium (SD then HD...I'm getting tired of typing things twice)
Gardien d'enfant (HD then SD)
Taupe HD
Taupe
Carnage - HD
Carnage...



No alphabetical order. Not even consistent on whether HD or SD is listed first. In one case, the HD movie isn't even adjacent to the SD one in the list.

Videotron says they are upgrading the menu software over the next few months, so hopefully by that point someone will have figured out how to program a Sort function.

Start your own Videotron Pit Thread. I haven't even mentioned how fucked up Rhapsody's sort function is, which I'll admit makes iTunes look like the Einstein of music services.

[Munch]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

Since a second person has come along now and said their iTunes sorts differently, I just took a screen shot and stuck it on Flickr so you can see I'm not delusional or bullshitting. You can even see that it's sorting in ascending order from the up arrow in the column heading.

Right-click on the header bar, and select "Sort Name".

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Munch

Right-click on the header bar, and select "Sort Name".

What is your point? If you left-click on any of the column headers, you switch between sorting the list by that column, either ascending or descending. If you right click on the header, you get a list of all the column headings, to either add them to or hide them from, the display. The list as shown in the pic is sorted by (song) Name in ascending order (or iTunes interpretation of ascending order).

[Munch]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

What is your point? If you left-click on any of the column headers, you switch between sorting the list by that column, either ascending or descending. If you right click on the header, you get a list of all the column headings, to either add them to or hide them from, the display. The list as shown in the pic is sorted by (song) Name in ascending order (or iTunes interpretation of ascending order).

My point is that "Name" and "Sort Name" are different things, and hopefully sorting by "Sort Name" will solve your problem, since presumably there's a chance that there's a different algorithm or set of sort rules. I don't currently have access to an iTunes library, so I can't test it out for you - but I apparently incorrectly assumed that you wouldn't need such an excessive amount of handholding.

[Boyo Jim]

Yes, I know all about the sort fields, They are not populated with anything in these instances, and so are not relevant to the issue.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that in the OP.

Having said this, I went in and tried your suggestion, and it makes no difference. I did notice one odd thing, though. Probably 99% of the "Sort Name" fields are blank -- only those with actual names beginning in "A" or "The" get populated. And it turns out the sorting by "Sort Name" doesn't really sort by that field. If it did, all the empty fields would sort to the top or bottom. But in fact, the sort remains identical to sorting by "Name".

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Munch

My point is that "Name" and "Sort Name" are different things, and hopefully sorting by "Sort Name" will solve your problem, since presumably there's a chance that there's a different algorithm or set of sort rules. I don't currently have access to an iTunes library, so I can't test it out for you - but I apparently incorrectly assumed that you wouldn't need such an excessive amount of handholding.

As I noted in the OP, the sort fields work most of the time, so "The Beat of My Heart" is sorted among the Bs and not the Ts.

[thirdname]

They don't have a field for the composer of classical music. The "artist" field might have the name the composer, the conductor, or a soloist.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by thirdname

They don't have a field for the composer of classical music. The "artist" field might have the name the composer, the conductor, or a soloist.

There is a composer field separate from the artist field in iTunes. Though a lot of the songs in the iTunes store list the composer's name in the Artist field.

There is also an Album Artist field separate from the Artist field, for some reason.

[ElvisL1ves]

You're complaining about that, not about alphabetizing artists by their first names? Really?

[Boyo Jim]

No, I'm complaining that iTunes sorts everything incorrectly, whatever field you choose to sort by.

[Arnold Winkelried]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

Since a second person has come along now and said their iTunes sorts differently, I just took a screen shot and stuck it on Flickr so you can see I'm not delusional or bullshitting. You can even see that it's sorting in ascending order from the up arrow in the column heading.

I just checked in iTunes myself. I don't see the same thing you do either. It goes in this order: "I(followed by space)" then "I(hypen)" then "I(period)" then "I(single quote)"

e.g. I see
I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas
I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag
...
I. Andante
...
I'd Love To

I checked, and for all those tracks the "Sort name" field is empty.

I can't explain why you see what you see.

[Arnold Winkelried]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

And if a song title starts with the words "A" or "The" it gets sorted by the next word in the title, which might be ok if the sort field got correctly populated every time you add such a song -- but it doesn't always populate correctly, So if you add a bunch of titles at once you may find yourself having to go in any manually do the work that it was supposed to do.

I think this was explained before, but this is not a problem with iTunes, this is a problem with the Apple Music store (assuming you bought those songs from there), or from the Gracenote database that is used to populate track info when you import into iTunes.
iTunes sorts song titles starting with "The " or "A " by the next word if someone has taken the trouble to put in something in the "Sort Name" field.

e.g. in my library there is a song called "The Air That I Breathe". But the Sort Name field contains the text "Air That I Breathe", so when I sort by name, it is sorted with "Air", not with "The".
If the Sort Name field was blank, it would be sorted under "The".

[beowulff]

What version of iTunes are you whining about?

Here are the current sort rules: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2642

[Arnold Winkelried]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

Having said this, I went in and tried your suggestion, and it makes no difference. I did notice one odd thing, though. Probably 99% of the "Sort Name" fields are blank -- only those with actual names beginning in "A" or "The" get populated. And it turns out the sorting by "Sort Name" doesn't really sort by that field. If it did, all the empty fields would sort to the top or bottom. But in fact, the sort remains identical to sorting by "Name".

As far as I can tell, here's how iTunes sorts: if you sort by "Name" or "Sort Name" it does the exact same thing. It sorts by this "calculated field":
order with (value from "Sort Name" if it's not blank, otherwise value from "Name")

[Arnold Winkelried]

Originally Posted by beowulff

What version of iTunes are you whining about?

Here are the current sort rules: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2642

And now that I read this, it looks like iTunes, when sorting, might ignore "The " from the beginning even if the corresponding sort field is blank, e.g. it does this automatically? I'll play around with it later.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Arnold Winkelried

I think this was explained before, but this is not a problem with iTunes, this is a problem with the Apple Music store (assuming you bought those songs from there), or from the Gracenote database that is used to populate track info when you import into iTunes.
iTunes sorts song titles starting with "The " or "A " by the next word if someone has taken the trouble to put in something in the "Sort Name" field.

e.g. in my library there is a song called "The Air That I Breathe". But the Sort Name field contains the text "Air That I Breathe", so when I sort by name, it is sorted with "Air", not with "The".
If the Sort Name field was blank, it would be sorted under "The".

This isn't just an iTunes store issue. I get lots of music from other sources, including recording them directly from streaming online sources. In those cases, I personally fill in the meta-data associated with the music files, and when I add them to iTunes, iTunes itself (usually) automatically populates the sort fields if either the artist or title name begins with A or The.

[Acsenray]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

There is also an Album Artist field separate from the Artist field, for some reason.

Because sometimes the artist for an album is different than the artist for a particular track. This most common with compilations or soundtracks, which often have "various artists" as the album artist but it can also be true of some albums as released.

For "Decade" I have Neil Young as the album artist but many of the individual tracks have, say, Buffalo Springfield or CSNY as artists.

[Acsenray]

Originally Posted by Acsenray

Because sometimes the artist for an album is different than the artist for a particular track. This most common with compilations or soundtracks, which often have "various artists" as the album artist but it can also be true of some albums as released.

For "Decade" I have Neil Young as the album artist but many of the individual tracks have, say, Buffalo Springfield or CSNY as artists.

For a Broadway show soundtrack or an opera I might have, say, Original Cast of This Great Show or Cleveland Symphony/Joe Smith (cond.) as the album artist but the soloists or feature performers as the individual track artists.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by beowulff

What version of iTunes are you whining about?

Here are the current sort rules: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2642

Version 10, and every earlier version that I've ever had in the last 5 years.

And though I appreciate that you found that article, it doesn't even mention what I'm griping about -- titles starting with contractions, and putting "I'm" before "I".

[beowulff]

Can you post a screenshot?

[Smapti]

The music system where I used to work was set up so that if the artist's name had a comma in it, e.g. "McCartney, Paul", the system would remove the comma and reverse the word order, so that the display on the box would read "Paul McCartney".

This worked fine until it played a CSNY song one day and billed the artist as "Stills, Nash, and Young Crosby."

[Arnold Winkelried]

Originally Posted by beowulff

Can you post a screenshot?

pssst - see post 14

[digs]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

... what I'm griping about -- titles starting with contractions, and putting "I'm" before "I".

I've been frustrated with this, too. But I have a theory: when minor shit's bugging me, I stop and realize that if I have time to get my undies in a bundle about little things, there must be some huge things that aren't going wrong.

So: Pissed about alphabetizing = Not pissed because zombies are burning your dog.

[silenus]

Just confirmed the OP. My iTunes on the computer alphs just the way he says. But on my phone, it sorts songs correctly.

Weird.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by silenus

Just confirmed the OP. My iTunes on the computer alphs just the way he says. But on my phone, it sorts songs correctly.

Weird.

I don't have an iPhone, but my iPod sorts just like my iTunes.

[Nava]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

There's also a group named "!!!", which is sorted after all the letter and number titles.

How do you pronounce that, "three exclamation marks" or "sure sign of insanity"?

[Acsenray]

I'll note that my use of the "sort album artist" field fails to work in "cover flow" mode, in Itunes, on the Ipod, and on the Iphone.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Nava

How do you pronounce that, "three exclamation marks" or "sure sign of insanity"?

No idea.

[gallows fodder]

Originally Posted by Nava

How do you pronounce that, "three exclamation marks" or "sure sign of insanity"?

It's pronounced "chk chk chk"