Cover Flow Order Wrong

[Zheepeez]

I'm using a 80GB iPod "Classic", syncing with itunes a library of Apple Lossless.

After having synced the first 60 or 70 albums I imported into iTunes before connecting the ipod, new albums that I add and then sync (I'm using the "sync entire library' option) aren't appearing in Cover Flow in album or artist order, they're just appearing at the end.

Example:

The Velvet Underground albums > The White Stripes albums > The Who albums > a Smokie album > and Elton John album (there are two other Elton John albums which appear in their correct place) > and so on

I've tried restoring the ipod and resyncing from scratch but exactly the same albums are appearing in the same place. What may be making the difference (God knows how) is that the metadata and album art for the first ones were entered manually (before I had an internet connection) whilst the others were done automatically by iTunes.

Is there any way to fix this? Are all my new albums goign to appear in the order I added them to my library?

[iPr0n]

Originally Posted by Zheepeez

Is there any way to fix this? Are all my new albums goign to appear in the order I added them to my library?

Albums are not shown in the order you entered them.

After a week of sorting and experimenting with my CDs, I have found that the Cover Flow is less flaky than I first thought. If used correctly it can naturally maintain two separate sorted lists. Here is the way it displays albums

(1) By artist and grouped under that by album name. Ensure that the Compilation flag is OFF - even for multi-CD boxed sets or "best of" type releases... I have never in my life touched that option but I have discovered it to be arbitrarily set to "ON" by iTunes importing. It guesses wrong.

I also place the 2-digit year at the front of the title so that albums are shown in the chronological order...
Bowie, David
69 Space Oddity
71 Hunky Dory
72 The Man Who Sold The World

What happens for the year 2000 and beyond? I have found that 4-digit year will work correctly. Strange. My guess is that internally the iPod sorts by entire number and not by digits as letters.

2002 Heathen (2 CDs)

... is correctly ordered after the other albums.

Remember, even for multi-CD boxed sets, the Compilation flag is OFF. But in iTunes make sure Disc Number 1 of 2 and 2 of 2 are correctly filled in.


(2) By Album title if the Compilation flag is ON. The Artist field is displayed beneath the title... for example
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Lalo Schifrin


I use this mode to place soundtrack CDs and compilation CDs at the end of the Cover Flow list.
Soundtrack Album names are the name of the movie and year of release, as in "Sound of Music (1965)" That's just my convention.

To further separate compilation albums I add "0" to the Album titles ... so that "0 Miramar Collection 1 '94" comes after the last soundtrack CD - "Zed and Two Noughts (1985)"

A setback to compilation albums is that the Artist shown will be picked from the first song in that album. As opposed to "various" or blank... it had to pick something.

[fryke]

Even if CoverFlow doesn't sort things correctly, then, it's just *WRONG* to use a two-digit date forgetting about the century. Sure, you probably won't live 'til 2100 or 2110, but by dating things "73" you actively (since you obviously know about this) support the terrorists. (Yes, that's sarcasm, mean etc.)

[iPr0n]

Well, maybe it just shows my age but a 2-digit year is adequate for the majority of my collection. As I stated, putting in 4-digits for the full year for anything above 2000 works just great too - the mixture sorts correctly oddly enough. Why have two more digits when they aren't necessary pre 2000?

[iDoubtiT]

So ...

Thank you very much iPr0n for taking the trouble to explain how the classic coverflow sort order works ... I really wish the user could have a choice for this on the iPod ... (do Apple developers listen?)

But ... from what you've said, I understand that:

1. the COMPILATION flag is the major sort field.

a. If OFF the covers are at the left of the coverflow display.
b. If ON the covers are at the right of the coverflow display.

2a. Next a non-compilation group (the compilation flag is OFF for every song in the group) is sorted by:

a. the artist - alphabetical ignoring the word "The" if it is present in the artist's name
b. the album title - alphabetical

2b. Next a compilation group (all songs in this group have th compilation flag ON) is sorted by:

a. the album title - alphabetical

[Zheepeez]

"Compilation" flag off. All albums in correct order. Thank you, assorted Mac/iPod veterans. I bow to your skill and experience