Mysterious rating control on album view

[laurent22300]

Many times in the past, I noticed that all my ratings for certain albums were mysteriously changed, without having done anything. Today, after many tests, I finally found what the problem is.

It seems that there's a tiny hidden rating control in the album view ("Small Details" view). It's about 1 or 2 pixels high and 2 or 3 pixel wide, just above the album's title. When you accidentally click on it, all your ratings for that album are going to be changed (which is rare but incredibly annoying).

I've attached a screenshot to this email. I hope it can be fixed!

System:

- Windows 7
- Winamp 5.601

[MrSinatra]

wow, good catch.

i have been meaning to ask this of the devs:

is the "album rating" something a user is supposed to be able to set, and what purpose does it serve in the app? can/is it written to tags? what frame?

what i would like, (and i suspect others would too), is for album ratings to NOT be set by the user, but rather a mathematical result derived from the avg of the rated tracks on a album. that way, you get a granular rating to compare albums to each other based on individual track ratings, which are more accurate. the album rating would be to the hundreths scale, so n album could be 3.58 stars, for example.

[laurent22300]

what i would like, (and i suspect others would too), is for album ratings to NOT be set by the user, but rather a mathematical result derived from the avg of the rated tracks on a album. that way, you get a granular rating to compare albums to each other based on individual track ratings, which are more accurate. the album rating would be to the hundreths scale, so n album could be 3.58 stars, for example.

This is indeed how it works, the "album rating" is actually the average of the album's tracks.

But it also mean that if you accidentally set this album rating to, for example, 3 stars, the rating of all the tracks is also going to be set to 3 stars. I wish they could show some message boxes like "Winamp is going to change the rating of more than 1 track - do wish to continue" to warn us in case we clicked the control by mistake.

In the meantime, if they could remove of disable this invisible control that would be a good start.

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by laurent22300

This is indeed how it works, the "album rating" is actually the average of the album's tracks.

i just checked this out.

unfortunately, it doesn't do decimals, so the album ratings aren't granular, and worse, if you rate one track a 5 out of 5 and leave the other 19 tracks UNrated, the album gets a 1 rating! imo, it should only take rated tracks into account, OR leave the album unrated unless ALL tracks are rated.

Originally Posted by laurent22300

But it also mean that if you accidentally set this album rating to, for example, 3 stars, the rating of all the tracks is also going to be set to 3 stars. I wish they could show some message boxes like "Winamp is going to change the rating of more than 1 track - do wish to continue" to warn us in case we clicked the control by mistake.

In the meantime, if they could remove of disable this invisible control that would be a good start.

actually, what i would want is for "album ratings" to be display ONLY, as a result of the track math, and to not be a clickable, user operated function at all.

[MrSinatra]

btw, which skin are you in for that SS?

[laurent22300]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

btw, which skin are you in for that SS?

It's Bento with "Winamp Classic" color theme.

[QUOTE]actually, what i would want is for "album ratings" to be display ONLY, as a result of the track math, and to not be a clickable, user operated function at all. [QUOTE]

I'd definitely like that too. This album rating control has been nothing but troubles. I don't know how many times I had to manually reset all my tracks ratings after accidentally clicking on it.

[DrO]

i'm not going to comment on any of the other points raised about rating (isn't my area really and i don't have the time to properly read / comment on things), but whilst waiting for my 415Mb Windows update install (now done), i've made a small patch that will be part of the next Winamp release (no eta) to resolve the small details view rating being applied issue.

-daz

[laurent22300]

That's brilliant, thanks DrO!

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by DrO

i've made a small patch that will be part of the next Winamp release (no eta) to resolve the small details view rating being applied issue.

am i correct to assume its only to the classic skin? what did you actually do? remove the tiny stars, or remove their ability to change things?

[DrO]

it wasn't a skin related issue since that part is skin-independent. the fix is just blocking rating click handling when in small details view mode - simpler than having to go through and changing other logic with how the view is created / handled.

-daz

[MrSinatra]

so does that apply to my use? meaning, i use bento, so in the next update, will small details album rating no longer work? (fine with me if so btw, i'd actually suggest that album ratings only be a display item, not a functional one)

sorry to be a pest about it.

[DrO]

i don't quite know what your use is (tbh i just looked at the first post of the thread and skipped everything else), so all i've done is a patch that will prevent clicking in that small part of the view causing the rating to be changed via a click action.

if you're wanting 100% blockage of the click-to-rate option (based on a quick skim of the posts), then it's been in the following location since 2007... preferences -> media library -> appearance -> rating column appearance -> miscellaneous -> check 'Block clicking' will do that i believe.

-daz

[JoeDanski]

Originally Posted by DrO

i'm not going to comment on any of the other points raised about rating (isn't my area really and i don't have the time to properly read / comment on things), but whilst waiting for my 415Mb Windows update install (now done), i've made a small patch that will be part of the next Winamp release (no eta) to resolve the small details view rating being applied issue.

-daz

That's fantastic!!!

Could you also check on the accuracy of the calculation of the album rating? I noticed the calculation is not always correct. Also if you sort albums according to album rating, they don't appear correctly. I have 5*'s the some 4*'s, then a 5* again.... Has this to do with roundimg error perhaps?

[DrO]

that patch made it into the real world about a year ago.

no idea when it comes to the rating and the accuracy of the rounding involved other than i think it tends to round up to the nearest whole value (but am not sure and it's not an area i've too much interest in giving up free time to look into).

-daz