When entering a release into MB, we should always reflect the reality of the media. So medium 1 should be Side A & F, etc.
As for tagging in Picard, you might want to check out the Classical Extras plugin. I’ve never used it, but I know it offers a lot of flexibility in tagging classical music, so you might find a way in there of getting something sortable by your player.
Thanks. I did that last night with release. I found a plugin in Picard called “Re-order sides of a release” which I think did the trick. It broke the release into folders (one per medium) which I didn’t care for but it did translate the track sides (A, B, …) to disc numbers (1, 2, …).
So I think problem solved. I might re-jig the plugin to not create extra folders though.
The plugin itself takes no part in folder creation, this is up to your naming script. What probably is the case is that your naming script creates folder per disc number, and as the plugin assigns a separate disc number for each side you get multiple folders.
But yes, I think to solve this you’ll need to adapt the plugin. It probably would make sense to have the plugin create a variable _originaldiscnumber or something along that line. In that case you could react to this situation in your naming script, e.g. by replacing %discnumber% with a $if2(%_originaldiscnumber%,%discnumber%).
If you change the plugin and found a solution you are satisfied with consider submitting a pull request.
Ok. In any case the solution lies somewhere in your naming script. The reorder sides plugin only modifies the totaldiscs, discnumber, totaltracks and tracknumber tags in the loaded metadata, so check your naming script for uses of those.