Getting started with cmus

Post by Marco
I am sorry if I post to the wrong list, but I haven't found a user
list, just this dev. I'm not sure if I am right here. Feel free to
forward to the user list, if existent.

This is the only mailing list for cmus, so it is all OK!

Post by Marco
1) The left column (artist/album) of the tree view is very narrow
compared to the sorted view columns. How can I configure the
width? The sorted view and the playlist obey the setting
`format_playlist`, but I haven't found a setting
`format_tree_view`.
2) The tree view displays artist/album by default. How can I swap
this to album/artist?

Tree view is not configurable by a large degree — you can't change
column width, or swap it to album/artist etc. By the way, what is your
usecase for album/artist swap?

Post by Marco
3) How can I display a list of all genres? I have no idea where to
start. The tree view gives me a list of all artists, but I cannot
find an option to display all genres at the left and say, artists
and title on the right. I'm not even sure if the tree view is the
right place for that.

Flat library view (2) can be configured to list track's genre. That is
the closest you can get to the list of all genres AFAIK.

Post by Marco
4) Filters and live filters are awesome, but unfortunately they
don't auto-complete. The filter `classical` is set up by default.
When I write :fi<Tab> it completes to :filter, but when I write
:filter class<Tab> it does not complete to :filter classical. Is
that a missing feature or do I have to activate the completion
somehow?

:factivate will auto-complete the *named* filters; :filter, on the
other hand, expects filter expression, not filter name, so it does not
auto-complete.

Post by Marco
I'm sorry to bother you with so many questions. And thanks for
donating cmus to the public domain.

Feel free to ask anything! And cmus was always open source (not public
domain) :-)

Gregory

Marco

2012-10-03 09:42:13 UTC

2012-10-03 Gregory Petrosyan <***@gmail.com>:

Hi Gregory

Tree view is not configurable by a large degree — you can't change
column width, or swap it to album/artist etc. By the way, what is your
usecase for album/artist swap?

I have plenty of samplers which results in zillions of artists,
which all have just one album (the sampler) when I click space on
them.

Current view:

Artist a
This is the sampler foobar
Artist b
This is the sampler foobar
Artist c
This is the sampler foobar
Artist d
This is the sampler foobar
Artist e
This is the sampler another sampler
Artist f
This is the sampler yet another

Actually, since the column is too narrow, it looks more like this:

Artist a
This is the
Artist b
This is the
Artist c
This is the
Artist d
This is the
Artist e
This is the
Artist f
This is the

Often I cannot even distinguish the samplers, since they all start
with the same string.
View after (non-present) artist/album swap:

This is the sampler foobar
Artist a
Artist b
Artist c
Artist d
This is the sampler another sampler
Artist e
This is the sampler yet another
Artist f

Flat library view (2) can be configured to list track's genre. That is
the closest you can get to the list of all genres AFAIK.

This still lists all genres multiple times and I end up with a huge
list.

It's okay if that's not possible. I just want to ask experienced
users before I assume that it's not possible. It wouldn't be the
first time that I start with a new program in the belief that a
feature is missing and months later I read some blog or mailing
list which tells me how easy it is.

:factivate will auto-complete the *named* filters; :filter, on the
other hand, expects filter expression, not filter name, so it does not
auto-complete.

Brilliant, that was what I was looking for. Thanks

Marco

Gregory Petrosyan

2012-10-03 10:41:54 UTC

Post by Marco
I have plenty of samplers which results in zillions of artists,
which all have just one album (the sampler) when I click space on
them.
Artist a
This is the sampler foobar
Artist b
This is the sampler foobar
Artist c
This is the sampler foobar
Artist d
This is the sampler foobar
Artist e
This is the sampler another sampler
Artist f
This is the sampler yet another

Can you please try using albumartist tags (which AFAIK exist for this
exact kind of music), and/or marking the samplers as compilations?
Cmus has pretty good support for it — and will group everything
properly.

Gregory

Marco

2012-10-03 11:18:56 UTC

2012-10-03 Gregory Petrosyan <***@gmail.com>:

Hi Gregory

Post by Marco
Artist a
This is the sampler foobar
Artist b
This is the sampler foobar
Artist c
This is the sampler foobar
Artist d
This is the sampler foobar
Artist e
This is the sampler another sampler
Artist f
This is the sampler yet another

Can you please try using albumartist tags (which AFAIK exist for this
exact kind of music),

I just checked and noticed that not a single sampler has the
albumartist set. Actually I didn't know about this tag before. The
man page mentioned it somehow, but I guess I simply ignored it. I
will retag my compilations and check if the mess vanishes.

The compilation name goes into the albumartist tag and the album
will be empty, right?

Post by Gregory Petrosyan
and/or marking the samplers as compilations?

I also didn't know such a thing exists. How can I add it? I use
easytag 2.1.7, the files have a flac vorbis tag.

Post by Gregory Petrosyan
Cmus has pretty good support for it — and will group everything
properly.

Hopefully :)

BTW: Every time I post a message I get a bounce email:

From: ***@oldehansa.ee
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

***@sms.emt.ee

I get this mail only when on this list.

Marco

Siim Salonen

2012-10-03 11:29:40 UTC

Post by Marco
Delivery to the following recipients failed.
I get this mail only when on this list.

sorry, my bad. fixed now.

Gregory Petrosyan

2012-10-03 11:39:39 UTC

Post by Gregory Petrosyan
Can you please try using albumartist tags (which AFAIK exist for this
exact kind of music),

I just checked and noticed that not a single sampler has the
albumartist set. Actually I didn't know about this tag before. The
man page mentioned it somehow, but I guess I simply ignored it. I
will retag my compilations and check if the mess vanishes.
The compilation name goes into the albumartist tag and the album
will be empty, right?

No — the album name (and artist name) stays the same; you simply add
"albumartist" which is either e.g. "Various Artists" (which cmus
treats a bit special), or the primary artist for the album (if one
exists).

Post by Gregory Petrosyan
and/or marking the samplers as compilations?

I also didn't know such a thing exists. How can I add it? I use
easytag 2.1.7, the files have a flac vorbis tag.

AFAIK vorbis has free-form string tags, so you simply set
"compilation" to "true"/"yes" or "1" (ID3, on the other hand, has
special TCMP/TCP tags for this).

Gregory

Marco

2012-10-03 12:58:35 UTC

Post by Gregory Petrosyan
Can you please try using albumartist tags (which AFAIK exist for this
exact kind of music),

I just checked and noticed that not a single sampler has the
albumartist set. Actually I didn't know about this tag before. The
man page mentioned it somehow, but I guess I simply ignored it. I
will retag my compilations and check if the mess vanishes.
The compilation name goes into the albumartist tag and the album
will be empty, right?

Post by Gregory Petrosyan
and/or marking the samplers as compilations?

And there we go! I set both for a few compilations, and the mess
vanished. That's a nice representation, brilliant! That makes it
usable. I just have to throw together a small script that sets these
values for each compilation.

Thanks a lot for the quick and competent help.

Small tip for a future release: it would be nice to be able to
configure the column width of the tree view.

Marco

Gregory Petrosyan

2012-10-03 13:06:06 UTC

Post by Gregory Petrosyan
Can you please try using albumartist tags (which AFAIK exist for this
exact kind of music),

I just checked and noticed that not a single sampler has the
albumartist set. Actually I didn't know about this tag before. The
man page mentioned it somehow, but I guess I simply ignored it. I
will retag my compilations and check if the mess vanishes.
The compilation name goes into the albumartist tag and the album
will be empty, right?