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Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
29-04-2020, 11:51 (This post was last modified: 29-04-2020 11:53 by gnomus.)
Post: #1
Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
It's been a while since I posted here. I have been using Minimserver for many years, but I am trialling Minimserver 2 at the moment and will almost certainly upgrade when the trial period ends.

With the new install (QNAP) and 'lockdown', I thought this might be a good time to consider whether I could improve my user interface in Linn Kazoo.

My music library consists of 2100 'Albums' that are split nearly 50:50 between 'Classical' and a range of other Genres - Pop/Rock, Jazz, etc. My requirements for browsing Classical are somewhat different to browsing other genres. For example, I am not especially interested in 'Composer' when looking at the non-Classical library, whereas Composer is paramount when searching through my Classical stuff.

I've pretty much just used the 'default' setings since I installed Minimserver, and so most of my option boxes are blank. At the moment, I have this set in 'indexTags':

Artist, Genre, Composer, Conductor, Orchestra, Composition, All Artists, Soloists, -#AudioData:Music Info, #AudioFormat

It would be nice to have some sort of set up that allowed me to go into my Classical Library with a list of submenus contained within; and then also have a 'non-Classical' library with a different submenu system (different items in a different order).

Is it possible to do this? And if so, how? I would be interested to hear how others have organized their libraries.

I apologise in advance because, despite having read the user guides several times, I am not entirely sure I understand these things so advice may have to be of the 'Ladybird Book' variety.

Thanks in anticipation.
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29-04-2020, 12:59
Post: #2
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
MinimServer 2 supports profiles, which enable you to switch between different combinations of property settings using the configuration web interface. A profile switch automatically restarts MinimServer, which can cause a slight delay depending on the size of your library. The description of profiles (brief at present) is in the Quick start guide.
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29-04-2020, 13:22
Post: #3
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
(29-04-2020 12:59)simoncn Wrote:  MinimServer 2 supports profiles, which enable you to switch between different combinations of property settings using the configuration web interface. A profile switch automatically restarts MinimServer, which can cause a slight delay depending on the size of your library. The description of profiles (brief at present) is in the Quick start guide.

Thanks, Simon. So would I then have to select these profiles from the ‘Source’ screen in Kazoo (in the same way as I might select my LP12)?
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29-04-2020, 13:33
Post: #4
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
Ah. OK. I think I understand it. Changing profile requires going to the Minimserver browser page, selecting the profile, and then restarting. Thats not what I’m after - it would be slower than what I do now.

What I would like is for my ‘opening screen’ to give me a choice between Classical and Non-Classical and for either choice to bring me to a new set of options that are different. Is that possible?
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29-04-2020, 14:14
Post: #5
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
You don't need to restart after changing profile. This happens automatically under the covers. No rescan is required and it should not take very long unless you have a very large library.

If by 'opening screen' you mean the top-level menu that you see in a UPnP control point, it is not possible to customize the MinimServer browsing menus from this interface.
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29-04-2020, 14:20
Post: #6
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
Understood. Is it possible to ‘create’ a menu item in that top level menu (for example, ‘Non Classical’), that would list all my music that is not tagged as ‘Classical’? Secondly, is it possible to set an existing menu item ‘Composer’ such that it will list music that is only tagged as ‘Classical’?
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29-04-2020, 14:46
Post: #7
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
(29-04-2020 14:20)gnomus Wrote:  Understood. Is it possible to ‘create’ a menu item in that top level menu (for example, ‘Non Classical’), that would list all my music that is not tagged as ‘Classical’? Secondly, is it possible to set an existing menu item ‘Composer’ such that it will list music that is only tagged as ‘Classical’?

You could try to use the tagupdate file. Configuring it in the right way you can group different Genres (but you cannot change the availability of certain tags)
Here attached you can find what I use and can be a starting point for your needs.


Attached File(s)
.txt  tagUpdate.txt (Size: 2.08 KB / Downloads: 31)
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29-04-2020, 15:41
Post: #8
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
This is a good suggestion if you have Genre tagged consistently.
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30-04-2020, 00:06 (This post was last modified: 30-04-2020 00:34 by DavidHB.)
Post: #9
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
(29-04-2020 15:41)simoncn Wrote:  This is a good suggestion if you have Genre tagged consistently.

Stefano's tagUpdate.txt file looks a little complex for gnomus' stated need. Assuming that all Classical tracks have a Genre tag with the value "Classical", one could have a simple tagUpdate.txt file which reads

@GENRE=Classical
+CLASSICALGENRE=Classical

Enter the location of the tagUpdate.txt file in the tagUpdate property. (For instance, I put my tagUpdate.txt directly in my content directory, which on my QNAP NASs is /share/Multimedia/Music, so the value of my tagUpdate property is "/share/Multimedia/Music/tagUpdate.txt".) Then change the indexTags property so that the Genre entry is at the beginning, and reads:

ClassicalGenre=Classical:Classical library, Genre,

and restart MinimServer. This puts an entry of "Classical Library" at the top of the MinimServer top level menu (immediately below "n Albums", "n Items" and "n Playlists"), with Genre immediately below it. Selecting "Classical Library" does what the label suggests: it gives you a menu applicable to the Classical genre only.

One could obviously expand this arrangement to include menu entries for other Genres, but I have relatively few non-classical albums, and am happy to select them by Genre. The arrangement works in MinimServer 0.8 and MinimServer 2.

It could be argued that the arrangement only serves to cut out a step in the browsing process. In practice, I find that it is an easy and satisfying way to filter the range of available selections to those I mostly want to use.

David
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30-04-2020, 08:56 (This post was last modified: 30-04-2020 09:33 by simbun.)
Post: #10
RE: Improving My Menu System In Kazoo
(30-04-2020 00:06)DavidHB Wrote:  Stefano's tagUpdate.txt file looks a little complex for gnomus' stated need.

My assumption was that, although he didn't spell it out, he gave him an example to help him create a tagUpdate file that mapped all his Genres to either Classical, or Non Classical, and then filter accordingly (because Non Classical doesn't exist in the data) e.g.
@GENRE=Classical
+MUSICFILTER=Classical
@GENRE=Jazz
+MUSICFILTER=Non Classical
@GENRE=Pop/Rock
+MUSICFILTER=Non Classical
...

If he just wanted to filter on Classical then he doesn't need a tagUpdate file at all, just:
indexTags: ClassicalGenre=Classical:Classical library
tagValue: ClassicalGenre.default={Genre}

Although I assume internally this does have the additional cost of storing Genre values twice (in one tag called Genre and one called ClassicalGenre).
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