Artist sort with iTunes 7.3

I am having a similar problem with the word "a" There are four bands in my library starting with it and up until I installed 7.3 they were at the top of my library and now they are scattered throughout. I even tried to unistall 7.3 and reinstall 7.1.0.59 and it is still doing it. Also noticed that space is the play button no so you can no longer type artist names with spaces to scroll through the library you have to use the search function...

I am highly disappointed in how Apple is slowly altering all the functionality of both iTunes and iPod that made me enjoy them previously for no real reason at all...

Previously in iTunes (and everywhere else in life), my artists were sorted by symbols, (i.e. the * in *Nsync), then the numbers (i.e. the group 702), and then sorted by the alphabet A-Z. Since upgrading to iTunes 7.3, the sort changed from A-Z, then symbols, then the numbers...No idea how to switch that back...

I am having a similar problem with the word "a" There
are four bands in my library starting with it and up
until I installed 7.3 they were at the top of my
library and now they are scattered throughout.

You can fix this with the Sort Artist tags. Get Info on a song and go to the Sorting tab, then enter the full band name (including the "A") in the Sort Artist tag. Close the Info window, control-click the song, and use "Apply Sort Fields..." to copy that info to all other songs by the same artist.

(No idea why that isn't working for Le D'Zeppelin in French!)

Previously in iTunes (and everywhere else in life),
my artists were sorted by symbols, (i.e. the * in
*Nsync), then the numbers (i.e. the group 702), and
then sorted by the alphabet A-Z. Since upgrading to
iTunes 7.3, the sort changed from A-Z, then symbols,
then the numbers...No idea how to switch that back...

This was changed to match the sorting on the iPhone. You can still use Sort fields to change it back, but there's no automated way to do it.

I have some songs that begin with numbers, they're now at the bottom of my library when before they were on top

See my response to Rockstar there.

I assume you're using iTunes in French.

Close iTunes, then go in to your Applications folder and right click on iTunes. Select "Show Package Contents", then browse to Contents ... Resources ... French.lproj. In there, you'll find a file called SortPrefixes.plist. Open that (in Property List Editor) and browse through to the list of prefixes. If you delete the ones you don't want it to ignore when sorting, then save, after you restart iTunes, you should be back to normal.

Hope this helps!

PowerBook G4 12" 1.5GHz, Keylime iBook G3 466MHz, Bondi Blue iBook G3 300MHz, iMac DV SE 400MHz, etc Mac OS X (10.4.10)

PowerBook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.4.10)

I dont see the "solution" of changing the sorting settings as legitimate. Especially because you cant do it for a whole cd but individually. It's really annoying because I generally search for things using coverflow and I have a general idea of where the cd is, and now I have to go oh wait no "1997" is all the way at the end instead of right at the top.

I dont see the "solution" of changing the sorting
settings as legitimate. Especially because you cant
do it for a whole cd but individually.

Do it for one track, then control-click it and use "Apply Sort Fields..." from the contextual menu to apply it to all other tracks by that artist (or from that album or what-have-you).

Previously in iTunes (and everywhere else in

life),

my artists were sorted by symbols, (i.e. the *

in

*Nsync), then the numbers (i.e. the group 702),

and

then sorted by the alphabet A-Z. Since upgrading

to

iTunes 7.3, the sort changed from A-Z, then

symbols,

then the numbers...No idea how to switch that

back...

This was changed to match the sorting on the

iPhone.

You can still use Sort fields to change it back,

but

there's no automated way to do it.

No, I can't force the sorting. I did as you mentioned
befor posting here but It doesn't work

It works fine for me. Say you want the band 3 Doors Down to appear at the beginning of your library. Go to the Sorting tab and enter something like "AAAAA 3 Doors Down" in the Artist Sort field. Then control-click the track and use "Apply Sort Fields..." to copy the sort field to all your 3 Doors Down tracks. 3 Doors down should then be sorted with the AAAAA's — i.e., at the beginning of your library. (You might need to do a little more fiddling — this solution puts 3 Doors Down after A-ha, for instance. But in practice you should be able to make it work.) You won't see the unsightly AAAAA anywhere — it's just there in the Sorting pane.

Edit: Oh, sorry — I think I was confusing your problem with Rockstar's, since you quoted his message. But it should still work — I can make The Beatles appear with the T's by putting "The Beatles" in all the Sort Artist fields.

Does the Album Artist show Led Zeppelin? If so, you may need to enter "Led Zeppelin" into the Sort Album Artist field as well — iTunes now sorts by the Album Artist field under certain conditions.

Also, I've found that "Apply Sort Fields..." in the contextual menu doesn't "stick" at first now — the info is copied to the other tracks, but iTunes doesn't register it when sorting until the tracks are manually edited or played. You might try Getting Info on all your Led Zeppelin tracks in a batch, changing the name to "Led Zeppeling" for a moment, then re-opening the window and changing it back. That should make iTunes "see" the new sorting data. (This appears to be a bug; I expect it'll be fixed in the next minor update.)

I've tried selecting a song and Ctrl-Clicking. Nothing shows up as an option to copy sort settings.

I've tried selecting a song and Ctrl-Clicking.
Nothing shows up as an option to copy sort settings.

Does the contextual menu come up? The last option should be "Apply Sort Field..."

I don't have an iPhone, and I won't buy one until at least the second or third generation comes out, like I did with my iPod. So why is my functionality being changed for the convenience of iPhone users?

It works fine for me. Say you want the band 3 Doors
Down to appear at the beginning of your library. Go
to the Sorting tab and enter something like "AAAAA 3
Doors Down" in the Artist Sort field.

Sure that will work, but it's a hassle to have to change these every time I get a new file. It's no longer automatic sorting if you have to double check the sort order yourself, especially with a large library.

Apple should have given us a preference like this if they needed to change the sort order:

"iTunes sort order:
Letters, characters, numbers (abc,#@%,123) (iPhone Default)
Characters, numbers, letters (#@%,123,abc)
Letters, numbers, characters (abc,123,#@%)
Numbers, letters, characters (123,abc,#@%)"

For that matter, give us a field where we can enter the articles we want skipped as well (i.e. "The", "A", "Le" etc).

Mac Pro 8-Core Intel Mac OS X (10.4.9) 5 GB Memory