mergeFolderAlbums true/false does not "split" identical albums

[simbun]

This caught me out initially too as 'mergeFolderAlbums=false' should surely stop them merging, but it doesn't, or at least it does unless one of the albums contains multiple discs. There are ways around it mainly through the use of the match filters, and also in some circumstances - if you have a multidisc album and a single disc album - by not tagging one of the albums with a DISCNUMBER but both of those options didn't appeal.

I tag my music as per the attached screenshot (which is broadly aligned with MuiscBrainz except for ALBUMADD where I place distinguishing text, largely for remasters). As you can see, using just ALBUM would cause these groups to merge, so I created a new tag that contained the hash of:

Code:

albumartist, boxtitle, album, release, albumadd, date

NOTE: If this was purely for MinimServer's album attribution I could have just used 'boxtitle, album, release, albumadd' but I've found it quite convenient to have a primary key for an album, especially with MinimServer's tagUpdate functionality.
I used foobar2000 to perform this hash, but if you have MusicBrainz id's in your tags then you may already have something suitable.

I then use this tag in place of the album tag in MinimServer by renaming them both using aliasTags (so MinimServer forms albums correctly) and use .displayFormat to label it:

Code:

aliasTags: Album:inAlbum, AlbumUniqID:Album
itemTags: inAlbum, release, boxTitle, albumAdd, remasterDate
tagFormat: Album.displayFormat={$date^^ - ^$inAlbum^^^$boxTitle^ (from the boxset '^')^$release^ (^)^$albumAdd^ (^)^$remasterDate^ [^ Remaster]^}

It may seem extreme, but I don't think there's another way.