Combining Genres

[DavidHB]

(19-12-2014 09:50)mars51 Wrote:  It works like a charm.

That's excellent news.

(19-12-2014 09:50)mars51 Wrote:  ... using MP3Tag, you go to Views>Customize Columns and create a new column "Genre Group" based on the value & field of the existing Genre column but replacing "$meta_sep(genre,\\)" with "$meta_sep(genregroup,\\)". That gets you a new Genre Group column without values. Next, Tools>Options & click on Tag Panel entering "Genre Group" as a new field (to the existing Album Artist, Composer and Discnumber fields). That gets you a new editing box on the left sidebar to input "Jazz" or whatever. Let MP3Tag grind through the re-tagging, add "GenreGroup" to indexTags, re-scan in Minimwatch and your Control Point sees GenreGroup in folder view.

Thanks for posting this 'how to' guide. For anyone using Windows, I think that MP3Tag is the best application for this kind of work, so it's useful to see the specifics on the forum.

(19-12-2014 09:50)mars51 Wrote:  The total elegance of your idea is that you don't need to edit Genre.

Maybe not 'elegance', but I did make the suggestion with the thought that you might not wish to amend your genre tags.

(19-12-2014 09:50)mars51 Wrote:  I will do the same for Classical where I fortuitously have "Classical (Piano Concerto), Classical (Symphony)" etc as existing Genres.

A number of other users have similar schemes, so the approach could find quite wide application. To be honest, my own decision was to use only very generic genres, because I don't find the genre concept very meaningful below that top level, but the whole point of an application like MinimServer is that it can respond flexibly to different requirements. It's always good to see the details of other users' browsing schemes.

(19-12-2014 09:50)mars51 Wrote:  I'm only now appreciating Intelligent Browsing for the genius it is because I'm really not a playlist person.

Nor am I; I have always felt that the playlist idea was a bit alien, and a function of the technology rather than of user need. We didn't use playlists in the simpler days of LP and CD!

The clever thing about MinimServer is that, from the user perspective, it's not clever. It 'just' gives any cooperative control point the means to offer the user a responsive browsing experience. Of course, there will be a lot of cleverness needed 'under the hood' to provide this service, but, given the data sets and protocols he has to deal with, Simon has proved remarkably adept at shielding us users from the really geeky stuff.

David