Suggestion to avoid mandatory steps when browsing

[simoncn]

(15-08-2012 13:38)simoncn Wrote:  

(15-08-2012 13:09)winxi Wrote:  

(14-08-2012 21:47)simoncn Wrote:  Are you asking for the album to be opened automatically and show you the album contents?

Yes, that was my intention. It would save the one mandatory step to choose the only album available.

Yes, I think I can do this. I'll try an experiment and let you know.

Unfortunately, I've been unable to make this work. This is because of a limitation of the UPnP architecture and protocol.

Let's take the simple case of browsing to an Artist who has exactly one album in your collection (for example, Pink Floyd and The Dark Side of the Moon). The container hierarchy is:

(root)
--Artist
----Pink Floyd
------The Dark Side of the Moon
--------Speak to Me
--------Breathe
--------etc.
----other artists
--other tags

When you open the Pink Floyd container, you get a UPnP albumContainer titled The Dark Side of the Moon, and when you open this albumContainer, you get all the tracks.

You're asking for MinimServer to make opening the Pink Floyd container show you all the tracks from The Dark Side of the Moon. Thie would require MinimServer to create the following container hierarchy:

(root)
--Artist
----Pink Floyd
------Speak to Me
------Breathe
------etc.
----other artists
--other tags

or alternatively this hierarchy:

(root)
--Artist
----The Dark Side of the Moon
------Speak to Me
------Breathe
------etc.
----other artists
--other tags

With the first of these, the control point doesn't receive a UPnP albumContainer for The Dark Side of the Moon, which means it won't group the tracks together into an album (I tried this with Kinsky). With the second of these, the user doesn't see Pink Floyd in the list of artists, but sees The Dark Side of the Moon instead.

However, it would be possible for the control point to implement what you want. When it receives the Pink Floyd container from the server, and sees that it contains exactly one container (an albumContainer titled The Dark Side of the Moon), it could automatically open this albumContainer for you.