Playlist organisation - Printable Version

Playlist organisation - Printable Version

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Playlist organisation - simbun - 14-12-2024 13:30

I was chatting to a user on another forum who creates "playlists" by duplicating tracks from their other albums (a little piece of me died inside). The reason he uses this approach is so they're integrated into his normal browsing process, which for him is folder view (primarily because he has arbitrary and ragged hierarchies).

I thought MinimServer might be able to help because it displays playlists in folder view in much the same way it does folders, but it sorts them by type e.g.

Code:

1 Folder

2 Folder

...

1 Playlist

2 Playlist

...

Is there a way to have the contents of a folder sorted by name rather than by type first? I know there's Folder.sortTags but I don't want to sort by tags.

Taking this one step further, folder view is actually a much nicer way to browse playlists as you can have organisation. Maybe using this view instead of the existing playlist view could be supported in some way?

Thanks as always for an excellent product.

RE: Playlist organisation - simoncn - 15-12-2024 16:10

In folder view the list of folder contents is in three sections, each with different rules for sorting.

1) A list of subfolders, sorted by folder name
2) A list of playlists in the folder, sorted by playlist title
3) A list of audio items in the folder, sorted by album name then item title

The sort order of 1) and 2) cannot be changed. The sort order of 3) can be changed using the folder.sortTags setting.

Are you asking for 1) 2) and 3) to be sorted as a single list or for 1) and 2) to be sorted as a single list preceding 3)? It is hard to see how the sorting of 3) should be combined with the sorting of 1) and 2), given the ability for the user to customise the sorting of 3). Also, listing subfolders before playlists helps the user know which entries represent subfolders and which represent playlists.

I am not sure how your suggestion of using folder view instead of the existing playlist view would work. For example, would you want to see a list of folders containing playlists with other contents of these folders shown or with other contents of these folders not shown?

RE: Playlist organisation - simbun - 15-12-2024 18:59

(15-12-2024 16:10)simoncn Wrote: Are you asking for 1) 2) and 3) to be sorted as a single list or for 1) and 2) to be sorted as a single list preceding 3)?

The use case was that he'd create a Deluxe Edition of an existing album by adding additional tracks to it from compilations/singles e.t.c. whilst keeping a copy of the original, so he'd want to see:
Album1
Album2
Album2 [Deluxe Edition] (this is a playlist)
Album3

(15-12-2024 16:10)simoncn Wrote: It is hard to see how the sorting of 3) should be combined with the sorting of 1) and 2), given the ability for the user to customise the sorting of 3).

Agreed,3 should always be controlled separately.

(15-12-2024 16:10)simoncn Wrote: Also, listing subfolders before playlists helps the user know which entries represent subfolders and which represent playlists.

Is there any difference from a UPnP perspective other than one being storageFolder and the other being playlistContainer, as they're both just containers for tracks? I guess the control point could treat them differently, but does the distinction concern the user? If you had folders A, B, C and playlists D, E, F then you'd never know anyway.

(15-12-2024 16:10)simoncn Wrote: I am not sure how your suggestion of using folder view instead of the existing playlist view would work. For example, would you want to see a list of folders containing playlists with other contents of these folders shown or with other contents of these folders not shown?

The view would just contain playlists and their parent folders, so assuming a setup of:

Code:

./Beatles, The/Best Of Beatles.m3u8

./Bowie, David/Best Of David Bowie.m3u8

./Various Artists/Top Pop Tracks.m3u8

./Playlists/Grammy Awards: Album Of The Year.m3u8

./Playlists/MOJO Playlists/Best Albums of 2024.m3u8

./Playlists/Rolling Stone: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.m3u8

The first level would look like:

Code:

Beatles, The

Bowie, David

Playlists

Various Artists

To keep things simple (for the user) I would have thought the root of the playlists (in the MinimServer presentation) should be the shared parent of all playlists, so if we excluded the top 3 playlists from the original example MinimServer would present:

Code:

Grammy Awards: Album Of The Year

MOJO Playlists

Rolling Stone: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

I'm seeing the existing view as default with this as a configurable option.

I'm a little pressed for time at the moment but I hope that makes some sense.

EDIT: Having written them down I think I really like the browsing playlists by folder idea, but not the thought of folders and playlists being sorted together in that view Smile

RE: Playlist organisation - simoncn - 18-12-2024 12:01

An important point to factor into this discussion is that the "n playlists" index in tag view is similar to "n albums" and "n items" in providing a flat list of all playlists.

For albums and items in tag view, structured browsing is also available via MinimServer's intelligent browsing using tagged information. There is no such equivalent for structured browsing of playlists in tag view. I think this would be the right place to add some kind of structured browsing of playlists rather than by making changes to how folder view works.

Also, the "n albums" and "n items" lists have sort orders that can be configured using the Album.sortTags and items.sortTags options. The "n playlists" list is sorted by alphabetical order of playlist title with no way to change this. Some means of configuring this sort order could be useful if the number of playlists is large. For example, a specifying a sort tag such as Artist, Album or Date could tell MinimServer to look for the first occurrence of that tag in the contents of each playlist and use these tag values for sorting the list of playlists.

RE: Playlist organisation - simbun - 18-12-2024 15:24

(18-12-2024 12:01)simoncn Wrote: An important point to factor into this discussion is that the "n playlists" index in tag view is similar to "n albums" and "n items" in providing a flat list of all playlists.

Whilst it is a flat list like "(n) albums|items" it's only available at the root index and doesn't make use of tags, much like "folder view", so it's a bit of an anomoly really.

(18-12-2024 12:01)simoncn Wrote: For albums and items in tag view, structured browsing is also available via MinimServer's intelligent browsing using tagged information. There is no such equivalent for structured browsing of playlists in tag view. I think this would be the right place to add some kind of structured browsing of playlists rather than by making changes to how folder view works.

I wasn't suggesting to change how folder view works, just to have a "folder view" of playlists at the root index.

(18-12-2024 12:01)simoncn Wrote: Also, the "n albums" and "n items" lists have sort orders that can be configured using the Album.sortTags and items.sortTags options. The "n playlists" list is sorted by alphabetical order of playlist title with no way to change this. Some means of configuring this sort order could be useful if the number of playlists is large. For example, a specifying a sort tag such as Artist, Album or Date could tell MinimServer to look for the first occurrence of that tag in the contents of each playlist and use these tag values for sorting the list of playlists.

I'd imagine most playlists contain multiple AlbumArtist, Album and Date tags, and pulling from the first track only reduces flexbility. You could lump a playlist containing multiple AlbumArtists into a Various Artists category, but then you're back in the same boat as before with everything lumped into one list.

If you wanted to use tags it would make most sense to pull them from the playlist file:

Code:

#EXTALB:  Album

#EXTART:  Artist

#EXTGENRE:  Genre

My dad makes extensive use of playlists so I had a quick play to see how folder view could look (used extension .m3u8.m3u8 on one playlist):
[attachment=3280]

Ultimately I think he'd have an Artist folder in the root index with "Best Of" playlists within, just to avoid the clutter at the top level, but hopefully you get the idea.

Whilst a tag view of playlists is more aligned with MinimServer I just don't think it makes sense for playlists. I also thought it would take much more work, as for those who store their playlists in a single folder "all that's required" (having no knowledge of what's really required) is a shortcut to it from the root index.