This is a suggestion I had for the 1.1 beta, but I suggested it after the feature freeze. So now, I'm finally getting around to resuggesting it, as I think it's a small thing that could be very useful.

An option to ignore certain words in collection browser sorting would be nice. For example, I don't care about the words "The" or "A" at the beginning of an albums' name; I would much rather the album be sorted by the second word in these cases, as that word is more meaningful to me. (E.g., I would rather that "The Beatles" be listed near "Bob Dylan", rather than "Ted Leo and the Pharmacists".) I would still want the words displayed, of course (otherwise I would just rewrite the artist tag as "Beatles", in this case.)

This could be internationalized, as well -- German-speakers presumably don't care about a "Das" starting a title, nor do French-speakers likely care about "Le" or "L'".

Hope this makes sense. Thanks for your great work on Amarok!

i'd rather suggest retagging your files properly....

the suggested method is a PAIN in the A** (sorry). in german it would then be "der / die / das", in french "le / la" etc. etc. with 50 languages around, it would take ages to check all the possibilites.

besides: it sucks on the ipod, and i hate it. i always look at the wrong place to find the artist. (damn you, why is "The Beatles" at the top of my list, even though it starts with a 'T').

...muesli

An option in the config dialog:

Prefixes to ignore:

INPUT_BOX

I'd stick 'the' in there, maybe even der,die and das. The performance implications would be fine, muesli, should I try?

yea, I agree trying to have it be internationalized would be stupid, especially since plenty of people have more the one language in their album titles.

I generally remember whether or not there is a 'the' and usually just use the filter at the top regardless.

mxcl's suggestion sounds good to me, since that seems to be the most flexible way to allow for everybody's preferences without adding (I agree) unnecessarily messy internationalization.

As for why I would want it that way, it's purely aesthetic... I want to see the full name of a band (which can include a "the"), but I want them sorted by the first "important" word, much as I would sort my bookshelf. Otherwise I end up with half of my bands showing up in the T section, which I just don't like the looks of. Obviously there are other ways to get around this, but none that I like as much.

Thanks for the feedback and discussion; it's nice to hear other peoples' opinions and get input from the developers.