the itemTags property

[simoncn]

(19-09-2013 21:58)winxi Wrote:  I wonder if the itemTags property could be dropped to reduce the complexity of the properties dialog. This would require MinimServer to check the tagCustom, tagFormat and the tagOptions properties for tags which are not contained in indexTags. If it find such zombie-tags, it would automatically index them.

A problem may be that then it isn't possible to use +/- to customize the sort direction of these tags. But if I'm not wrong, this is only relevant when used in the Album.sortTags setting. This could be compensated when the Album.sortTags setting would allow to have +/- for its tags, too. For example, when Album.sortTags could be set to '{-Date, +Album}'.

The timing of this is an interesting coincidence. I've just been looking at a problem which occurs when itemTags is used to specify reading a tag name that will be used in the tagUpdates file. Detecting that this tag should be read (without the benefit of itemTags) would require a complete preparse of the tagUpdates file.

Another case is when itemTags is used to specify reading of a tag for use in aliasTags. There may be other such cases, either now or in the future.

The sort direction is used in all places where a tag can be sorted. A future release of MinimServer will add new facilities for customized sorting which will allow sorting to be controlled by itemTags values. I think it's better to specify the sort direction of a tag in one place only.

The current approach seems very simple to me: if a tag name is present in indexTags or itemTags, MinimServer reads it; otherwise, it doesn't. The approach you're suggesting would require a much more complicated set of rules to say whether or not a tag is read, and these rules would need to be updated every time a new feature is added that makes use of a tag.