Alphabetical grouping for playlists

[sy-subrc]

Hi Simon,
first of all I want to thank you for developing such a nice upnp-server!
I tested a lot of other upnp servers before and was not very satisfied with them (performance issues, static navigation trees, no search support,...)
The last 3 years I used MediaTomb which is very flexible in creating customer specific upnp navigation trees (server-side javascript based) but does not support upnp search and is not further developed.
Because of the missing search functionality I now tested MinimServer and was very surprised about the features (including search support), stability and performance. Very good work!
I have one question regarding playlists. Is there a way to configure alphabetical grouping for playlists? I did not found any hint in the user manual.

Best regards
Harald

[simoncn]

(10-04-2014 17:02)sy-subrc Wrote:  Hi Simon,
first of all I want to thank you for developing such a nice upnp-server!
I tested a lot of other upnp servers before and was not very satisfied with them (performance issues, static navigation trees, no search support,...)
The last 3 years I used MediaTomb which is very flexible in creating customer specific upnp navigation trees (server-side javascript based) but does not support upnp search and is not further developed.
Because of the missing search functionality I now tested MinimServer and was very surprised about the features (including search support), stability and performance. Very good work!

Thanks very much!

Quote:I have one question regarding playlists. Is there a way to configure alphabetical grouping for playlists? I did not found any hint in the user manual.

Best regards
Harald

This feature isn't supported at present. Would you like to do alphabetical grouping for the full list of playlists, or alphabetical grouping for the contents of an individual playlist, or both?

[clio09]

While we are talking about grouping I have a small issue. I downloaded all samples of Linn's 24 bits of Christmas. Previously when I used JRiver I could arrange the songs in a folder on my MacMini numerically in order of their daily release. Using JRemote with Jriver I could see the contents displayed accordingly. Now that I have this folder on a NAS that also runs MinimServer I know longer see the appropriate order in the playlist of PlugPlayer. Is PlugPlayer the issue here?

[simoncn]

(10-04-2014 21:18)clio09 Wrote:  While we are talking about grouping I have a small issue. I downloaded all samples of Linn's 24 bits of Christmas. Previously when I used JRiver I could arrange the songs in a folder on my MacMini numerically in order of their daily release. Using JRemote with Jriver I could see the contents displayed accordingly. Now that I have this folder on a NAS that also runs MinimServer I know longer see the appropriate order in the playlist of PlugPlayer. Is PlugPlayer the issue here?

Did you "arrange the songs" by editing their filenames so that the alphabetical order of the filenames matches the daily release order?

If so, this approach doesn't work with MinimServer's folder view. This view sorts the songs by album name first and then by track number.

[sy-subrc]

I thougt about alphabetical grouping for the full list of playlists. But after my posting I found the playlists in the folder view also. In my case the folder view is much better than alphabetical grouping (I'am using some self made bash scripts to create playlists e.g. playlists for each album I recently added to the library and they are created in a separate folder for each year and playlists containing podcast episodes extracted from RSS-feeds).

[simoncn]

(11-04-2014 12:04)sy-subrc Wrote:  I thougt about alphabetical grouping for the full list of playlists. But after my posting I found the playlists in the folder view also. In my case the folder view is much better than alphabetical grouping (I'am using some self made bash scripts to create playlists e.g. playlists for each album I recently added to the library and they are created in a separate folder for each year and playlists containing podcast episodes extracted from RSS-feeds).

Folder view is quite useful for organising playlists.

The (normally preferred) tag view style of browsing the library doesn't work for playlists because they can't be tagged.

[clio09]

(10-04-2014 22:17)simoncn Wrote:  

(10-04-2014 21:18)clio09 Wrote:  While we are talking about grouping I have a small issue. I downloaded all samples of Linn's 24 bits of Christmas. Previously when I used JRiver I could arrange the songs in a folder on my MacMini numerically in order of their daily release. Using JRemote with Jriver I could see the contents displayed accordingly. Now that I have this folder on a NAS that also runs MinimServer I know longer see the appropriate order in the playlist of PlugPlayer. Is PlugPlayer the issue here?

Did you "arrange the songs" by editing their filenames so that the alphabetical order of the filenames matches the daily release order?

If so, this approach doesn't work with MinimServer's folder view. This view sorts the songs by album name first and then by track number.

What I did in the file folder I created is renamed the file putting the numerical order of the song first in the file name followed by song title to correspond to date release. So for example:

01 Song Title
02 Song Title

Etc. up through 26. Each song is tagged with Album and Artist metadata as well.

I suspect your answer is still applicable, but is there any work around you can think of?

[simoncn]

(11-04-2014 18:00)clio09 Wrote:  What I did in the file folder I created is renamed the file putting the numerical order of the song first in the file name followed by song title to correspond to date release. So for example:

01 Song Title
02 Song Title

Etc. up through 26. Each song is tagged with Album and Artist metadata as well.

I suspect your answer is still applicable, but is there any work around you can think of?

Yes, my previous answer is still applicable.

The best solution is to create a .m3u playlist for these files. If the Linn files are all in the same folder, you can put the .m3u file in this folder as well. Inside the .m3u file, you need to list all the Linn files in the order you would like to see them, for example:

first-file-name.flac
second-file-name.flac
etc.

If the .m3u file is named "Linn Downloads.m3u" (for example), you will see an entry named "Linn Downloads" in the "n playlists" choice from the top-level menu. Clicking on this will show you all the songs in the correct order.

[clio09]

(11-04-2014 19:18)simoncn Wrote:  

(11-04-2014 18:00)clio09 Wrote:  What I did in the file folder I created is renamed the file putting the numerical order of the song first in the file name followed by song title to correspond to date release. So for example:

01 Song Title
02 Song Title

Etc. up through 26. Each song is tagged with Album and Artist metadata as well.

I suspect your answer is still applicable, but is there any work around you can think of?

Yes, my previous answer is still applicable.

The best solution is to create a .m3u playlist for these files. If the Linn files are all in the same folder, you can put the .m3u file in this folder as well. Inside the .m3u file, you need to list all the Linn files in the order you would like to see them, for example:

first-file-name.flac
second-file-name.flac
etc.

If the .m3u file is named "Linn Downloads.m3u" (for example), you will see an entry named "Linn Downloads" in the "n playlists" choice from the top-level menu. Clicking on this will show you all the songs in the correct order.

Okay I have been following the recent Streaming thread here and now know what a .m3u file is and how to use the text editor on my Mac to open one. Pardon the ignorance but when I create the .m3u file am I using the text editor to create the song list, then change the extension from .txt to .m3u.

Also, the files are WAV or AIFF, not FLAC. Does it make a difference? In your examples is that a syntax I should be using or should I just type in the song name with .wav or .aiff file extension in the order I wish for them to appear.

[simoncn]

(11-04-2014 20:39)clio09 Wrote:  Okay I have been following the recent Streaming thread here and now know what a .m3u file is and how to use the text editor on my Mac to open one. Pardon the ignorance but when I create the .m3u file am I using the text editor to create the song list, then change the extension from .txt to .m3u.

This should be OK.

Quote:Also, the files are WAV or AIFF, not FLAC. Does it make a difference? In your examples is that a syntax I should be using or should I just type in the song name with .wav or .aiff file extension in the order I wish for them to appear.

You should type the filenames (including their .wav or .aiff extensions) in the order you want them to appear when you view the playlist.