Track titles prefixed by Artist tag when displaying m3u playlist contents

[Andre Gosselin]

(01-09-2014 09:30)simoncn Wrote:  

(01-09-2014 06:25)Andre Gosselin Wrote:  Note how, when browsing the playlist, the value of the Artist tag is prepended to the track title.

I am pretty sure this behavior did not occur in previous minimserver versions (but I found no way of reinstalling a previous version to be 100% sure).

It is easy to revert to a previous update to verify changed behaviour by doing the following:

1) In the Packages tab of the Properties window, type the name of the previous update name in the 'Other package' field (for example, to revert to update 35, type minimserver-0.8-update-35)

2) Click Install and follow the prompts to install the update and relaunch MinimServer

Quote:Track metadata of m3u playlists were reported identically to the way they were when navigating through folder view or index tags. This indeed makes sense, since a playlist just points to files holding tracks, and the metadata should not be reported differently simply because the track is identified in a playlist.

This is an intended change to the previous behaviour. If you use the optional #EXTINF tag to specify a title, the #EXTINF title is used when you are viewing the playlist. If you want to see the original title in the playlist, you should omit the #EXTINF line or omit the #EXTINF title or change the #EXTINF title to the title you want to see displayed.

For example, you could use:

#EXTM3U
C:\mu\flac\A Sei Voci\Allegri- Miserere; Messe Vidi Turbam Magnam; Motets\01 Allegri- Miserere a 9, version avec ornamentations baroques.flac

or

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:873,
C:\mu\flac\A Sei Voci\Allegri- Miserere; Messe Vidi Turbam Magnam; Motets\01 Allegri- Miserere a 9, version avec ornamentations baroques.flac

or

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:873,Allegri: Miserere a 9, version avec ornamentations baroques
C:\mu\flac\A Sei Voci\Allegri- Miserere; Messe Vidi Turbam Magnam; Motets\01 Allegri- Miserere a 9, version avec ornamentations baroques.flac

Simon,
Thanks for this fast answer. Thanks for informing me of this recent change in the handling of m3u playlists. This change however creates important problems for me.
1. I have a collection of more than 17,000 playlists, which have worked well for more than 2 years now with MinimServer. Editing those will be a time-consuming task. The music manager used to generate those playlists (MediaMonkey) automatically generates the #EXTINF lines shown in my post, and I have no control over that. Would it be possible to introduce a setting to tell MinimServer to ignore those lines inside m3u playlists, to keep the old MinimServer behavior and save big trouble for those like me who used to depend on it for a very long time ?
2. For the same track, the title metadata (as shown for ex. by BubbleUPnP with the "Show metadata" selection after a long press on the track) are reported differently, depending on whether the track is accessed through a playlist or by browsing the library indices. In the first case (playlist), the track "Title" value includes the "Artist", but not in the second case. This is inconsistent, and in my humble opinion, incorrect. Track metadata should be reported as they are stored in the music file.
3. All control points I know of allow the display of the Artist value alongside the title, on a separate line or distinct column of the screen. Including the Artist in the Title then becomes totally redundant, an clutters the display. When the Artist value is long (consider numerous singers in an opera for ex.), the title then may become way too long and exceed the display capacity of the control point. Worst, since the Artist value now comes first in the Title line, you face the situation where the important info (eg the title per se) is completely truncated, making the display practically useless.
4. I think it should be up to the control point to decide how to display the track metadata, and not to the music server.

Honestly, I have difficulty understanding why this (sudden) change in MinimServer behavior was needed, and who benefits from it. If you object to the idea of introducing the setting outlined above, would you have a suggestion to keep my huge playlist collection in a usable state ?

Thanks for your help