SonicStage XML Fix for Groups/Album Display

[Free4]

This fix is for the A608, dunno about others since I only have a A608.

Close SonicStage CP 4.0

Place these xml files here

C:\Program Files\Sony\SonicStage\Data\XML\PD\

or the relative installation path for your version of sonic stage 4.0

now start sonic stage

attach your A608 go to transfer and the drop down list should show "groups"

Select "groups"

Now you should be able to see via album A DAMN SITE MORE USEFUL eh!

More tech nical

they missed these lines from these files (please make a perm fix SONY and remove the crappy album by artist)

&STRING_PD_AAD_DISPMODE_GROUP;

C:\Program Files\Sony\SonicStage\Data\XML\PD\ATRACHDD.xml

line 78ish

C:\Program Files\Sony\SonicStage\Data\XML\PD\AADGroup.xml

line 93ish

hope this helps people

-free4

Edited September 19, 2006 by Ishiyoshi

[f1rick]

THat's great! I can confirm it works on my HD5H!!

Well Done

Edited June 11, 2006 by f1rick

[sonyslave]

Just tried it with my NW-A3000...

...and it works a treat!!!

Now why couldn't Sony do that?

Congratulations!!!

Edited June 11, 2006 by sonyslave

[Guest Stuge]

Hey ,`i`m unable to download the .XML files ..

I get error

XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=602
Line Number 19, Column 3:        <ColumnData name="Artist"            title="&STRING_ARBUMLISTVIEW_COLUMNHEADER_ARTIST;"            width="120" resize="1" click="0" inlineedittable="1"/>
----------------^

[Free4]

right click "save Target as" tell it where to save them.

one of the easiest things to do?

works for me however I've added it as a .zip to this post if this helps.

-free4

Edited June 11, 2006 by Free4

[f1rick]

Only one problem, if you copy albums over in the group view they are just added to the end of the list and not kept in alphabetical order by artist. Probably not such a problem with flash players, but could be with a long list on the HDD players. So when copying albums over, might be best to stay using the album, by artist view.

Try right clicking and save target as, it will probably say index.php or something. Just rename what it saves to the xml file name. The error is the web browser trying to load the xml file.

edit: You beat me to it!!

Edited June 11, 2006 by f1rick

[Free4]

"Only one problem, if you copy albums over in the group view they are just added to the end of the list and not kept in alphabetical order by artist. Probably not such a problem with flash players, but could be with a long list on the HDD players. So when copying albums over, might be best to stay using the album, by artist view."

I tend to listen to alot of electronic mix albums, so without the "group" view which I'd personally prefer to be an "album" view and not and "album by artist" alot of these display as per the first image I posted. This is a pain when I want to remove a specific album, i don't use playlists(guess I'm lazy and rely on the actual mp3 tags to do the work.

Agreed I do only have a flash player A608

I tend to add one album at a time rather than selecting a long list of albums and hit transfer. I'm not too fused about having to search a long list of albums by name.

Still as ever use at your discreation and back up your original files in case you ever want to remove this change, although this only adds functionality rather than buggerin anything that already exists.

-free4

I'm gonna continue to hack about with the xml files to see what i can break or improve. Mind I am only limited with my .xml skills so

[Guest Stuge]

right click "save Target as" tell it where to save them.

one of the easiest things to do?

works for me however I've added it as a .zip to this post if this helps.

-free4

thanks

[SimKill]

Bravo dude...cool

Seriously WHY couldn't sony do that?

Keep up the good work man

[Guest Stuge]

Seriously WHY couldn't sony do that?

They could have done that but they like to disable things rather then enabling them..No offence hehe

[peterjf]

I have just copied the XML files to my work PC, which has SS4.0 installed. This is not the PC that has my music collection on it - my music is at home.

The issue I have had is that my NW-A608 is only showing one group (called 'Untitled').

Having said that, the tracks within this single group are listed in a logical order - ie tracks in sequence order within albums in alphabetical order, which means that it is much easier to delete unwanted tracks from the player.

Has anyone else seen this and, if so, is there a way round it?

[SimKill]

yes i have found a similar flaw.

in the curtain call album, it lists all of curtain call, demon days, and green day.

but the other albums are fine

[peterjf]

Me again.

Only one problem, if you copy albums over in the group view they are just added to the end of the list and not kept in alphabetical order by artist.

Agreed, this is an issue - but this is how the comtents of my NW-HD1 have always been displayed on the PC screen. While a minor inconvenience, it is still infinitely preferable to the artist view.

[twosides]

Hi Folks,

While the 'group' function is helpful I do find it annoying that SonicStage CP can not just simply display all the artists in alphabetical order. I have never played about with XML so I have not got a clue.

What I dont understand is that SS 3.4 was able to with no probs. Anyone out there know any ideas to try and sort the alphabetical issue??

Any help would go down tip top.

Cheers

[kevinf]

I have an NW-HD5 and am running SSCP 4.0. The file ATRACHDD.xml was already identical to the suggested replacement, but I have slotted in the replacement AADGroup.xml file. It works very well, but I was curious as to why most of the albums were alphabetically arranged by artist, until the ones near the end.

The answer would appear to be that they are displayed in order of transfer to the HD5. I had done an initialisation of my HD5 not so long ago, so the subsequent mass transfer would have preserved the order of albums as set in "My Library" - that is alphabetical on artist's inital letter. Further albums transfers since then are just tacked onto the end.

It would be nice if we could get SSCP to sort the list by Artist, even without using the artist's initial letter. But this Group view of albums by artist is certainly a useful advancement.

[marftarf]

another bonus of using groups view: because the recently transferred stuff appears at the end, it is easier to locate and delete podcasts etc. which are only on the player for a short time, rather than having to guess what the "artist" tag was and find it in a long alphabetical list.

yet another bonus: with my hd5, i am often frustrated that after deleting a track from the player in SS the whole list disappears and then i have to wait while "loading xx%" displays for 10 seconds or so. Using group view this does not seem to happen.

.xml question: i have a NWHD5 and like being able to choose between "albums (by artist" and "group view" - each is useful in different situations. My girlfriend has an NWHD3, though and it seems only to give her the option to have "group" view, not "albums by artist". Is there an equivalent .xml hack to give her the ability to browse her NWHD3 by "albums by artist" view?

great work on this. a real pity we have to hack all this stuff into shape ourselves rather than sony just doing its job properly.

[map]

Hi

Thanks for the fix you seem up to speed with sonicstage4.

Query ? My son and I both have a608's but use the same computer.

Is there any way to have two seperate liberaries?

Also anyone know how you can get a silver body as in UK 608's are only blue?

Thanks in anticipation

Michael

[Guest Stuge]

Also anyone know how you can get a silver body as in UK 608's are only blue?

Thanks in anticipation

Michael

Welcome to AtacLife !

DId you see ebay??

[map]

Thanks for the EBay suggestion

Except the blue 608 was £100 new so I bought it.

Any thoughts on two liberaries on one pc

Thanks Michael

[twosides]

Just been away for a week with my A3000. The way the artists are listed in a crazy order has driven me mad. Some are alphabetical which are fine, but others are being filed under 'etc'. I have tried the 'Group' mod which doesn't give me any better success. Anyone got anywhere in giving us just an Artist list in alphabetical order????

Cheers.

[Free4]

Sorry guys I been away for a while.

I have had a dig through the xml files and tried a few things this one seems to have been a mistake that was left out by the guys at sony.

Without access to the source code we can't do much more with it beyond this. To be honest I wish they would open the source code of this app it would make a lot of sense since they have done such an abismal job todate themselves I am sure we as a community could make it much more suitable for our personal requirements.

-can't help you on much more but if i find anything else out I'll post.

enjoy.

-free4

[peterjf]

I have noticed an issue when I have deleted albums from my HD1 and HD5H when in 'Groups' view. (I still use SS 3.4 because of the 'feature' of SS4.0 that does not list albums in any logical order on the player.)

On occasions, the tracks are all deleted but the name of the group remains in the list view on the PC. However, on disconnecting the player from the PC, the group does not appear in the list on the player.

If, for any reason, I want to put the music back on to the player on a later occasion, this means that the same group appears twice on the list view, and can cause some confusion.

The reason I have put this onto this forum is that if this happens, and you are stuck with an 'empty' album in Group view, it is best to leave it there. I have tried deleting such an empty group on a couple of occasions, and the database on the player has corrupted on disconnection from the PC - needing a re-initialisation of the player and a re-transfer of all the music.

This has not happened when I have left the 'empty' albums in place, and I cannot think of anything else that I have done that may cause this to happen.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[Free4]

I'm gonna add another plead

SONY please use Python for this app then we can all mod it with ease..

probably fall on deaf ears but hey worth a try.

-free4

[!Sora~]

just noticed an issue with this....

i'll assume it works fine on all models of mp3ers ON SONICSTAGE

i dont know if its only my misreading the machine

but i found nowhere in the playing setting on my A3000 that says "GROUP"

so the xml only benefits on SS not the machine itself?

[Free4]

Yes it only benefits the Sonic Stage application. Its to help you see things better when the device is attached and you are viewing its contents through Sonic Stage.

Hopefully Sony will have paid attention and fixed this in the next version of SS. - 4.1

-free4

[stueyh]

Thanks Free4 for the "Group" view fix.

Like yourself, I listen to mainly Electronic music and organise my music by album and never by artist. I rip my CD's using windows media player and then edit the mp3 tags to tidy up the album name and get them consistent so that they display nicely on the player and in some sort or order. I then use SS to transfer to my NW-A608.

The "Group" view is most def an improvement however I still have an issue. With this view, instead of seeing 1 entry per album (as in your 2nd screenshot) I see (say there were 12 tracks on an album) 12 entries all with the same album name. Every album is listed this way. It doesn't seem to group the individual tracks in one album together under the album name. Everything is fine when i view the albums on the NW-A608 though.

Am I doing something wrong? It means that if i want to delete an album I have to select the 12 individual tracks and delete, rather than highlighting the album name once and deleting. It is also harder to see what albums are on the player as you have to scroll through the long list.

[Free4]

Bizarre I have never seen that but then again i am using Sonic Stage to rip the albums in the first place.

I also make sure that those tracks i have just ripped look right in sonic stage before transfer to the device (A608). Generally if it is a mix album i have the "compilation" flag checked in the properties of each track.

If this "Group" tag that wasn't there previously doesn't work for you, I'd suggest not using it and upgrading to the latest version of SS as I have read somewhere they have fixed this lack of Album view problem with an "Album" view YAY!! Although there are mutterings of some performance reduction in the latest version. I can not say either way as i haven't upgraded quite just yet.

Since its xml I am only providing a tag that was missed out by sony not adding additional functionality. All the functionality is in the core of Sonic Stage. I can have no affect on that, unfortunately believe me if i could i would.

There may even have been a reason they missed the tag out? I don't know. Still its worked for most people.

Edited November 12, 2006 by Free4