Navigation help

[DavidHB]

(24-07-2017 20:27)freaknout Wrote:  My son is 9 and he doesn't have "open" access to iPad/iPhone only the remote control (I know, a strict parent!). The remote can access the server, etc, but when you have 1800 artists it takes the poor guy a lot of time!

I understand the problem, but, as my offspring were grown up by the time the Internet was invented, I don't pretend to know how to solve it. Watching my two year old granddaughter niftily calling up her choice of pre-recorded CBeebies programmes on her mother's tablet, I'd say you have an uphill struggle on your hands. Sooner rather than later, your son will want a phone . A hint for that moment is that, in my opinion, Bubble UPnP (or its stable mate BubbleDS Next for the Linn DS/DSM range), which is only available on Android, is the best currently available control point for UPnP/DLNA music streamers.

(24-07-2017 20:27)freaknout Wrote:  Pre-built playlists sound interesting and after spying the playlist folder I wondered how I could create some and then store them for access. I use Naim equipment with the excellent Naim app and I created a UPnP playlist but I think must store them within the app itself.

Yes, that's normal for control point apps. The problem with it is that the playlists are only available for that one control point. Putting them on the server makes much more sense.

MinimServer can index playlists in the .m3u format. The playlist file is a plain text file with a particular layout. To give you an idea of what they look like, here is one:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:609,Montreux Alexander (30th Anniversary Edition) [Live] - 1 - Night Mist Blues
../Jazz and Blues/Monty Alexander/Montreux Alexander/01-01-The_Monty_Alexander_Trio-Night_Mist_Blues-LLS.flac
#EXTINF:186,Jazz on Film: Film Noir (Disc 1) - 2 - Four Deuces
../Jazz and Blues/Jazz on Film - Film Noir/Jazz on Film; Film Noir, Disc 1/102 - Four Deuces.flac
#EXTINF:410,Mali to Memphis: An African-American Odyssey - 7 - Don't Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down
../World/Mali to Memphis; An African-American Odyssey/07 Eric Bibb - Don't Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down.flac
#EXTINF:164,Mali to Memphis: An African-American Odyssey - 5 - You Don't Know My Mind
../World/Mali to Memphis; An African-American Odyssey/05 Guy Davis - You Don't Know My Mind.flac
#EXTINF:239,Mali to Memphis: An African-American Odyssey - 9 - My Home Is in the Delta
../World/Mali to Memphis; An African-American Odyssey/09 Muddy Waters - My Home Is in the Delta.flac

You'll get the idea that, for all except the terminally geeky among us, putting something like this together is not high on our list of enjoyable activities. So I use
Playlist Creator (sorry, Windows only) to drag and drop file entries from the music folder into the playlist layout. This makes setting up a playlist the work of moments.

A couple of hints. Firstly, MinimServer needs you to create the playlists in the Music folder on the NAS. I set Playlist Creator to do relative addressing (so the file paths all begin with '../'), and store all my playlists in a 'Playlists' folder within the Music folder. So it makes sense that the music folder is (or is within) a Windows share, so it is easily accessible from the Windows computer running Playlist Creator.

Secondly, for use on the NAS, you need to save the playlists with forward rather than backward slashes in the file paths. There is a setting in Playlist Creator to do this automatically.

Since writing the above, I see that alphaGroup has helped to solve your problem. Even so, you might also like to try the odd saved playlist.

David