MinimServer Forum

Dear Minimserver community,

I'm like fairly new to the MinimServer software and the possible joy that it brings,

Reason for me to step aboard is that I have uPnp streaming software that reads tags and is not so handy with my hierarchically sorting in folders. As such I look for a way to tag similarly, but I found quickly that how to set up proper sorting is for me a challenge.

What I have hierarchically in folders is the following:
Top : Genre (folder name)
Mid : Artist + Album (subfolder name)
Low : Track number (filenames in the subfolder)

When I came from Sonos I could click a Top level folder and play everything underneath. Now with the uPnp streaming I somehow can not yet play such Top level folder, but rather need to add Mid level one by one.

I know MinimServer can by tagging e.g. quickly show everything in a Genre, and display all items belonging to that Genre, however the sorting of files thereunder is A-Z of names that Minimserver has collected from both Filenames and Track Titles.

My question is, how do I tag and index in a way that is appropriate for the Top, Mid, Low levels in the further above example?

If any questions, please feel free to suggest, if already answered, could someone point me in the right direction? Any help I'd appreciate

I think this comes down to the following logic:

Tags for browsing:
Genre, Artist, Album

Order for displaying ALL results by:
by Genre, then by Artist, then by Album name, then by track number (right now the nn track index are the first digits of the filename itself)

Order for displaying results by Genre,
by Genre, by Artist, by album name, by track index

Order for displaying results by Artist:
by Artist, by album name, by track index

Order for displaying results by Album:
by Artist, by album name, by track index

Right now I have no tagging done, and I want to do it right the 1st time.
Are there other things to take into consideration? Can I somehow get the database to sort on filenames?
Note that besides the Genre I have everything coded in the filenames e.g. "Artist - Album track number Track title.WAV"

(02-08-2021 12:17)MiniMe Wrote: [ -> ]Right now I have no tagging done, and I want to do it right the 1st time Are there other things to take into consideration?

Composer, performer, performer_name, lyricist, label ...

(02-08-2021 12:17)MiniMe Wrote: [ -> ]Note that besides the Genre I have everything coded in the filenames e.g. "Artist - Album track number Track title.WAV"

The above can be converted by MP3Tag into individual tag values although the filename is not the ideal format.

Check the following guidelines

1 - Install/Run MP3 Tag

2 - File -> Add directory

3 - Edit -> Select all files

4 - Convert -> Filename to Tag

5 - Amend format string appropriately. A preview of the tag values is displayed.

However, your current filename structure lacks a separator character between Album and Track number.
You will need a different format dependent on the track number value.

If your track numbers consist of a leading zero try the following format (i.e. the leading zero is the separator):


6 - Select OK to add tags to files

7 - For tracks 10 and above its more time consuming (i.e. the track number is the separator):

Convert -> Filename to Tag


Select OK (nb - this results in a track number tag value of 0)

View -> Sort by -> Track

Select the files with Track 0

Convert -> Tag to Tag

Select Field name 'TRACK' and set format value to '10'

Select OK

9 - Repeat as necessary

(02-08-2021 10:08)MiniMe Wrote: [ -> ]What I have hierarchically in folders is the following:
Top : Genre (folder name)
Mid : Artist + Album (subfolder name)
Low : Track number (filenames in the subfolder)

When I came from Sonos I could click a Top level folder and play everything underneath. Now with the uPnp streaming I somehow can not yet play such Top level folder, but rather need to add Mid level one by one.

I know MinimServer can by tagging e.g. quickly show everything in a Genre, and display all items belonging to that Genre, however the sorting of files thereunder is A-Z of names that Minimserver has collected from both Filenames and Track Titles.

My question is, how do I tag and index in a way that is appropriate for the Top, Mid, Low levels in the further above example?

MinimServer doesn't have the concept of a drill hierarchy, instead it has Intelligent Browsing, which essentially means that it displays all the indexes you have configured via IndexTags e.g. "Artist, AlbumArtist, Genre", as a list of items from which you can choose to subset by as few or as many as you like (it's more powerful than that, so read the linked guide).

So, if you were to configure indexTags as "Artist, AlbumArtist, Genre", in your control point you'd see:

[n] albums
[n] items
Artist
AlbumArtist
Genre

The selection of the top two items takes you to your album or song list, the sorting of which is controlled by the default, or configured sort order. You can however only define one sort order for each, typically it'd be "AlbumArtist, Year, Album" for album.

By selecting Genre, you'll be presented with a list of Genres present in your music files, and once you've made a selection you'll be taken back to the index page which will look exactly like the original presentation except for the absence of the Genre index (bearing in mind the intelligent browsing logic).
At this point you can choose to subset by another index, or to see the matching albums or songs.

I think it'd be best if you tag a handful of albums with the basic tags (making sure they're across a number of different genres so you can test the index selection) and point MinimServer at them (you shouldn't need to configure anything but the path initially), and it'll give you a better idea of how it works. At that point you'll probably have more specific questions which we may be able to help answer.
Basic tags should include: Album Cover, Album Artist, Album, Genre, Disc Number, Track Number, Artist, Track Title and Release Date.

I don't know if you've already made a control point choice, but BubbleUPnP is probably the best, unless you're on ios then your choices are a bit more limited.

Thank you both!
In short I see so many filtering options that it dazzles me. I prefer a much cleaner view with lesser options. But I think I'm on the right path! As a control point I use 8-Player pro on IOS and sometime I use Lumin App. A smart TV I can use for verification if grouping and sorting is the same on both the apps and elsewhere.
From my previous chapter with Sonos devices I could in the Sonos app always play hi level folders. I miss this option in uPnp streaming sofar. I'm sure though this can be programmed around.
My fav example for playing a hi level folder is e.g. having a folder that is named e.g. "Weekend". I would move in and out of this folder my fav cd folder for the weekend and would like to in one go create a playlist for it, so without having to redo all tags or to have to move all albums one by one into a new playlist.
I think with MinimServer I do need to dig in deeper or do some additional browsing up to the album level and put albums in the playlist one by one. But, everything I guess will be possible if MinimServer is set up correctly!

Meanwhile I was able to implement some basic tagging, learning on the fly.

What I have tagged for some albums are:
Album
Track Artist
Track Title
Track #
Genre
Album Artist

To keep my logic during browsing I have "misused" the Album Tag by putting "Artist - Album Name" in this Tag.

With the above I can in the indexed selection e.g. quickly move to a genre, and from there find what I need.
Say that I want to create a playlist of an entire genre, I notice that there is an option to browse to Genre, then select the Genre, thereunder is a folder [n] Albums, [n] items, Album. I notice if I put into a playlist the [n] items, that it sorts everything A-Z by Track Title. Can you change this to sort by Genre, Album, Track # also?

In MinimServer properties I have IndexTags = Genre, Album.
and when browsing I see results in the following order:
[no tag]
[folder view]
[n] Albums
[n] Items
Album
Genre

In addition in the Lumin App I find
Song: [n] - with note the number of songs is duplicate of what I have, is this a MinimServer database setup issue?
Album: [n] - this is useful
AlbumArtist : [n] - I do not need this, can I turn it off?
Genre: [n] - this is useful
Recently added: - I do not need this
Last modified: - I do not need this
Folder view.


Short version:
How can I sort by Genre, Album name, Track # items that I take from an itemized overview into a well-sorted playlist?
How do I get rid of -for me- unused browsing options.

(03-08-2021 12:34)MiniMe Wrote: [ -> ]In MinimServer properties I have IndexTags = Genre, Album.
and when browsing I see results in the following order:
[no tag]
[folder view]
[n] Albums
[n] Items
Album
Genre

MinimServer is sending these index entries in the folowing order:
[n] Albums
[n] Items
Genre
Album
[no tag]
[folder view]

It sounds like your control point (8-player?) is changing the sort order.

Quote:How can I sort by Genre, Album name, Track # items that I take from an itemized overview into a well-sorted playlist?

You can use the items.sortTags option to change the sort order of the [n] items list. See the Tag options section for details.

Thanks!
Yes 8-player might have flipped round the options. Lumin app showed exactly in the order described.

I have now set the tagOptions to items.sortTags={Genre,Album,Tracknumber}. This looks already better.

I now combine in the Album tag the Artist + album name. If I would not misuse the Album tag, is there a way to obtain an overall listing of artist+albumname together with the 2 fields combined? Or should I just go with how I did it..?

You can use tag formatting to combine multiple tags for display purposes. for example, if you have Artist and Album tagged separately, you can send a combined "artist - album" title to the control point by setting the tagFormat option to:

Album.displayFormat={$artist^^ - $album}

The provides a lot of flexibility as you can easily change what information is included and how it is displayed without needing to change any tags.

I was hoping to be able to get it to display as:

Album.displayFormat={$albumartist^^ - $album $kind}

in order to have a result e.g. Metallica - Black Album WAV.

Any chance to get the file type (preferrably in 3 char) into the album displayformat?