Question about the licence model and browsing through music

[simbun]

Hi Music-Guy/Music-Man,

I've already replied to one of your earlier posts on the dbpoweramp forums but now that you've provided a little more detail I'll reply on here as MinimServer is my music server of choice so I know it a little better - and because I think it's the best one out there :-)

(05-07-2022 10:15)Music-Guy Wrote:  Is it also possible with MinimServer:

• to exclude individual subfolders from the media scan?
  

There's an option called excludePattern which takes a comma delimited list of strings that are matched (just a straight textual match) against the files and folders in the music directory, all matches being excluded from presentation e.g. the string 'audiobooks' would exclude that entire folder structure.

(05-07-2022 10:15)Music-Guy Wrote:  

• to declare directories such as "Soundtracks" or "Compilations" as "collective folders" so that individual artists of an album contained therein do not appear in the general list of album artists?
  

MinimServer can't do this directly, but what you can do in MinimServer is create a new virtual tag that can be used to filter the content before you start to browse your audio files by the other tags such as Genre, Artist e.t.c.

As an example, a standard browse tree might look something like this:
n Albums*
n items*
n playlists*
Artist
Genre
[folder view] *

Those indexes marked with a * are a constant and can't be removed but everything else can be customised.

By using GENRE=podcast/audiobook and COMPILATION=1 you'd be able to generate an additional index that when selected would look something like:
AudioType
> Podcasts
> Audio Books
> Compilations
> Music (this would contain everything that didn't match the GENRE or COMPILATION filters)

That requires a little customisation, but we'd be able to help you with that. Alternatively, you could first browse by folder, choose '/music/compilations' and then switch into Tag View to compete your browsing.

Also, rather than have an index (that presented the 4 options) you could instead create them as direct filters (as you have in your navigation structure for Audiobooks) which when clicked on will subset the browse tree immediately.

(05-07-2022 10:15)Music-Guy Wrote:  Now I want to browse via UPnP through my music with Browse Tree "Artist\Album".
But under "Artists" all artists are listed that are also included in the collection folders.
This makes the view very confusing.

Hopefully you can see that if your first action is to filter your content to Music for example, subsequent browsing (like viewing Artsist) will only contain those Artists within the Music section.

(05-07-2022 10:15)Music-Guy Wrote:  What I basicaly want is a navigation structure similar to what I know from twonky:

• Genre/Artist/Album
• Audiobooks
• Artist/Album
• Artist Index
• By Date
• By Folder
• Playlists
  

One other thing to point out here (as simoncn has already alluded to) is that MinimServer doesn't define drill hierarchies, whereas Asset will allow you to define [Genre/Artist/Album], I have no idea about Twonky but I assume it does as you're asking for it.
With a defined hierarchy you'd select the [Genre/Artist/Album] index and will be presented with a list of Genres, after which a list of artists would follow, finishing with the albums. With MinimServer you'd have to select the Genre index, then select from one of the values presented, then do the same for Artist, and finally select the Album view.

Whilst it may initially seem a little more work it is much more flexible, and with some of the intelligent browsing features it has I bet it'll actually feel quicker.

Finally, in your example navigation structure you have 'By Date', is this a tag that's in your audio files?
MinimServer has RecentlyAdded and RecentlyPlayed which are limited to a maximum of 1000 entries each.