New to Minimserver - a few questions

[stampie]

I’ve been trying out Minimserver on my Synology DS710+ and am using it in conjunction with a Naim NDX streamer, with n-stream iPad app as control point. (I have been comparing it to the standard Media Server that comes with the DiskStation.)

I’m gradually getting the hang of it, but have a few questions.

1. Album art:
When scrolling through the list of albums in the n-stream app there is a short delay whilst the art is retrieved. I realise that this is natural when first running minimserver/n-stream as the image cache is being generated, but this seems to happen all the time - as if the art isn't being cached.

With the DS media server this doesn’t happen as there is no delay once cached.

I don’t know whether the issue sits with n-stream or Minimserver, but any help would be appreciated.

2. Title.displayFormat:
I want to display tracklisting for albums in the format
“White Room – Cream”, so I used the tagFormat option to try and get this.

I used the syntax “Title.displayFormat={$title^$artist^^^ - }”, but the n-stream ignores it and just displays “White RoomCream”.

I also tried it using ‘/’ character with the same result. I also checked on plugplayer and the results are the same.

Can anyone help me come up with the correct syntax?

3. Refreshing Index:
When I rip a new CD and add it to my library (or make tagging data changes to existing files), is manually selecting restart in Minimwatch the only method for triggering an update to the index?

4. all.sortValue.ignoreThe
I’m trying to use the ability to ignore ‘The’, but it doesn’t appear to be working. Am I right in assuming that the n-stream is ignoring this instruction and doing its own thing?

5. Distinguishing singles from albums
I have all my CDs scanned, of which around 10% are singles, but I didn’t name or tag them specifically to make them easily identifiable.

I was wondering if there was a way to do this with Minimserver. I started thinking about perhaps using some sort of filter based on number of tracks, but that wouldn’t always work (some albvums only have a couple of tracks etc.)

The other idea that just occurred to me would be to create a custom tag and then somehow get Minimserver to read this and index accordingly.
Any guidance or thoughts appreciated.

Finally, just wanted to say thanks very much
Regards
Nick