Icons when browsing

[simoncn]

(19-01-2013 16:48)magister Wrote:  I have some questions and a suggestion about icons when browsing.

Questions: when I browse my library, sometimes an album cover is shown and sometimes not. For instance, right now I'm browsing by Composer and most of the names have an album cover, but a few do not. Likewise with Genre and Conductor.

1) Is the display of an album cover controlled by MinimServer or by my control point? (I have customized indexTags to show composer, conductor and composition, among others, and my controller [PS Audio's eLyric] implements this correctly.)

2) If controlled by MinimServer, how is the choice of cover determined when one is not looking at specific album? The last one in a category that was played? Why are some blank?

Suggestion: I find it a little disconcerting sometimes to see covers and sometimes not, and to see one particular cover in a category. E.g., I have several albums by Beethoven; something in my brain doesn't like seeing a random album when I'm browsing by composer -- "Hold on! I didn't ask for that album . . . I know I have more Beethoven albums . . . ???"

Would it be possible to load at startup a list of tags and associated images; something like "conductor=cndctr.jpg" and the image cndctr.jpg would be displayed rather than an album cover when browsing by conductors?

Maybe some people like seeing a cover, even if it's not the one they're looking for. And I have no idea how hard this would be to implement. I would be willing to contribute some icons if Simon would implement this feature. (I'm no great artist, but at least it would be a starting point, and those with the skills could always improve them . )

David

I think the problem you're seeing is caused by PS Audio eLyric. I've seen similar things when browsing with PlugPlayer, and PS Audio eLyric is a rebranded and customzied version of PlugPlayer.

When I browse using Kinsky, I see a "person" icon for the Conductor index and for each conductor in that index. The icon graphic is provided by Kinsky. MinimServer tells Kinsky to display this by sending a container type of object.container.person to the control point.

I suggest you raise this as a problem report with PS Audio eLyric. Perhaps the PS Audio folks could explain why random cover images are displayed instead of displaying a "person" icon as Kinsky does. They might even be willing to make some improvements in this area.

It might be possible to do something like you're suggesting in a future release of MinimServer. The simplest way to implement it would be for MinimServer to look for a file named 'Conductor.jpg' when it scans your library. If if finds this file, it would associate it with the Conductor index tag (and similarly for Composer, etc.)

As a further refinement, it would be possible for MinimServer to look for image files for specific conductors such as 'Sir Colin Davis.jpg', or specific composers such as 'J. S. Bach.jpg'. You could spend many happy hours making a collection of these icons.