Box Set Cover Art

[DavidHB]

(20-05-2015 19:05)simoncn Wrote:  Can you explain this in slightly more detail? In BubbleDS, which image do you see for the overall album? I would assume it is the first.

Yes, it is, and that is what I expected, from the description in the User Guide. This is what it looks like in BubbleDS at the 'disc' level:



The same is also true in Kazoo, and again I get the 'correct' image at disc level and below.

(20-05-2015 19:05)simoncn Wrote:  From your previous post, I had thought you had a third image that you wanted to use for the overall album.

Not specifically, but there are cases where this would make sense. You sometimes get sets where the box cover has one image while each separate disc has (say) a cardboard cover with its own image (often with readable information about the music), and all of these images are different from the box cover image.

An example of this in my collection is a 22 disc set of Stravinsky conducting his own works. At present, this has been split into 11 different albums, each with its own artwork taken from disc covers, but I think it would be better to have a single album with 11 subtitled 'discs'. Also, one of the albums is currently using the artwork for the complete box, which doesn't really work. So to be able to use the box cover for the complete album and the individual cover images for the disc level and below would be nice.

Would it be possible to have a separate image file (say 'album.jpg' or 'album.png') at a defined level in the folder structure, which could then be identified for use as the album art in lists of complete albums? The embedded images or folder.jpg etc. files would then appear at lower levels in the hierarchy and also on 'now playing' displays. Obviously, with such an arrangement, if there were no album.jpg file at the defined location, things would work as they do at present.

I'd be interested to know what you think.

David

[simoncn]

(20-05-2015 23:39)DavidHB Wrote:  An example of this in my collection is a 22 disc set of Stravinsky conducting his own works. At present, this has been split into 11 different albums, each with its own artwork taken from disc covers, but I think it would be better to have a single album with 11 subtitled 'discs'. Also, one of the albums is currently using the artwork for the complete box, which doesn't really work. So to be able to use the box cover for the complete album and the individual cover images for the disc level and below would be nice.

Thanks for this example.

Quote:Would it be possible to have a separate image file (say 'album.jpg' or 'album.png') at a defined level in the folder structure, which could then be identified for use as the album art in lists of complete albums? The embedded images or folder.jpg etc. files would then appear at lower levels in the hierarchy and also on 'now playing' displays. Obviously, with such an arrangement, if there were no album.jpg file at the defined location, things would work as they do at present.

I'd be interested to know what you think.

David

MinimServer doesn't recognise any "levels" in the folder structure and I don't think it would be a good idea to introduce this. The processing of the contents of a folder doesn't depend on where the folder is in the hierarchy or on its hierarchical relationship to other folders.

[DavidHB]

Thanks, Simon. I'm sorry I couldn't respond sooner; as you might guess, I've been busy resolving a couple of issues with radio streams, discussed elsewhere.

(21-05-2015 16:23)simoncn Wrote:  MinimServer doesn't recognise any "levels" in the folder structure and I don't think it would be a good idea to introduce this. The processing of the contents of a folder doesn't depend on where the folder is in the hierarchy or on its hierarchical relationship to other folders.

I expressed myself badly. All I was suggesting was that the album.jpg (or whatever) file was placed somewhere where it would be identified and scanned appropriately. I fully understand that the hierarchy we are really concerned with is the containment hierarchy defined by the contents of tags and not by position in the file system.

That said, and given my example, is there any way of showing different artwork for the whole album from that displayed for the contents of individual disks?

David

[simoncn]

(21-05-2015 23:45)DavidHB Wrote:  That said, and given my example, is there any way of showing different artwork for the whole album from that displayed for the contents of individual disks?

The only way to do this would be to have a dummy track that is tagged as part of the album but not as part of any of the album's discs (i.e., no DISCNUMBER tag). The art from this track would be used for the overall album.

[DavidHB]

(22-05-2015 11:05)simoncn Wrote:  The only way to do this would be to have a dummy track that is tagged as part of the album but not as part of any of the album's discs (i.e., no DISCNUMBER tag). The art from this track would be used for the overall album.

Thanks for the suggestion; I had a go with it. There's good news and bad news.

Part of the good news is that the results are identical in BubbleDS and Kazoo (allowing for the different UIs). My examples are in Kazoo.

Further good news is that the artwork for the whole album is indeed separately displayed, as the outlined tile on this screenshot shows:



The dummy track (one second of silence saved as a FLAC, with appropriate tags) had to be located in one of the folders where the other tracks of the album were saved, but it didn't seem to matter which of these folders was used.

The first bit of bad news is that selecting the album produces a 'partial album' display, with a 'Complete Album' icon, no disc categorisation and all tracks/groups individually displayed, thus:



Once the complete album is selected, the separate discs (subtitled in this case), do display, but so does the dummy track, in a pseudo-disc of its own. As you see from the outlined area in the following screenshot. I have done my best to suppress the unwanted display, but it's still not all that elegant.



Is there any way of improving on this result?

David

[simoncn]

(22-05-2015 16:44)DavidHB Wrote:  The dummy track (one second of silence saved as a FLAC, with appropriate tags) had to be located in one of the folders where the other tracks of the album were saved, but it didn't seem to matter which of these folders was used.

This is probably because album merging across folders is not triggered unless the folder contains a track with a DISCNUMBER tag or the mergeFolderAlbums property is set to 'true'.

Quote:The first bit of bad news is that selecting the album produces a 'partial album' display, with a 'Complete Album' icon, no disc categorisation and all tracks/groups individually displayed, thus:

I don't know why this is happening. I will set up a test to see if the same thing happens for me. It might be a few days before I can do this.

Quote:Once the complete album is selected, the separate discs (subtitled in this case), do display, but so does the dummy track, in a pseudo-disc of its own. As you see from the outlined area in the following screenshot. I have done my best to suppress the unwanted display, but it's still not all that elegant.

The [no disc] section in the album listing can't be suppressed.

[DavidHB]

(22-05-2015 19:25)simoncn Wrote:  

(22-05-2015 16:44)DavidHB Wrote:  The dummy track (one second of silence saved as a FLAC, with appropriate tags) had to be located in one of the folders where the other tracks of the album were saved, but it didn't seem to matter which of these folders was used.

This is probably because album merging across folders is not triggered unless the folder contains a track with a DISCNUMBER tag or the mergeFolderAlbums property is set to 'true'.

I understand. I don't think that this is a problem, just something to be aware of.

(22-05-2015 19:25)simoncn Wrote:  

(22-05-2015 16:44)DavidHB Wrote:  The first bit of bad news is that selecting the album produces a 'partial album' display, with a 'Complete Album' icon, no disc categorisation and all tracks/groups individually displayed, thus:

I don't know why this is happening. I will set up a test to see if the same thing happens for me. It might be a few days before I can do this.

I now understand this; it's just the normal effect of MinimServer working. I found that the issue did not arise if I accessed the album through the 'nnn albums' entry in the library list. With the dummy track, I had tried to take a minimalist approach to tagging, but realised that I needed to populate any tag through which I which I wished to browse to the album. In my case, that meant that I need to populate Genre and ComposerSort/Composer, and I had failed to provide the Genre data. So the problem is now fixed for me.

However, that does raise another question. Where disc numbers or subtitles are to be shown, should not a part match of a multi-disc album which includes tracks from more than one disc also show the separate disc information, rather than just a list of tracks (that is, be formatted as per the third image rather than the second image in my previous post)?

(22-05-2015 19:25)simoncn Wrote:  

(22-05-2015 16:44)DavidHB Wrote:  Once the complete album is selected, the separate discs (subtitled in this case), do display, but so does the dummy track, in a pseudo-disc of its own. As you see from the outlined area in the following screenshot. I have done my best to suppress the unwanted display, but it's still not all that elegant.

The [no disc] section in the album listing can't be suppressed.

Understood. "Suppress" in my case meant simply reducing the title information to three dots. As a matter of interest, why is this section required? As far as I can see, the user does not need it.

David

[simoncn]

(23-05-2015 12:11)DavidHB Wrote:  However, that does raise another question. Where disc numbers or subtitles are to be shown, should not a part match of a multi-disc album which includes tracks from more than one disc also show the separate disc information, rather than just a list of tracks (that is, be formatted as per the third image rather than the second image in my previous post)?

All partial abum selections (for single-disc as well as multidisc albums) are displayed as as an album item list (UPnP container class object.container) rather than as a complete album (UPnP container class object.container.album.musicAlbum). This is to provide a clear indication that the album is incomplete and also to provide a link to the complete album.

Quote:Understood. "Suppress" in my case meant simply reducing the title information to three dots. As a matter of interest, why is this section required? As far as I can see, the user does not need it.

You might have a real track (or tracks) with no disc number. Any such tracks would appear in this section. MinimServer doesn't know that the track you have tagged in this way is a dummy track.

[DavidHB]

(23-05-2015 19:36)simoncn Wrote:  All partial abum selections (for single-disc as well as multidisc albums) are displayed as as an album item list (UPnP container class object.container) rather than as a complete album (UPnP container class object.container.album.musicAlbum). This is to provide a clear indication that the album is incomplete and also to provide a link to the complete album.

I don't pretend to have great knowledge of UPnP container classes, but are you saying that the behaviour of the class is fixed? I quite see the need to show the difference between complete and partial displays of album contents, but does not the presence of the 'complete album' icon or tile on its own do this? It seems a pity to remove the disc information when it is still valid and potentially relevant.

(23-05-2015 19:36)simoncn Wrote:  You might have a real track (or tracks) with no disc number. Any such tracks would appear in this section. MinimServer doesn't know that the track you have tagged in this way is a dummy track.

Yes, I can see why such an error would need to be identified. Is there no way to tell MinimServer that the dummy track is a deliberate insertion, and that the [no disc] section is not required?

David

[simoncn]

(24-05-2015 17:39)DavidHB Wrote:  I don't pretend to have great knowledge of UPnP container classes, but are you saying that the behaviour of the class is fixed? I quite see the need to show the difference between complete and partial displays of album contents, but does not the presence of the 'complete album' icon or tile on its own do this? It seems a pity to remove the disc information when it is still valid and potentially relevant.

Most control points display the object.container.album.musicAlbum class differently than the object container class. The behaviour of MinimServer when showing partial albums was chosen with this is mind.

Quote:Yes, I can see why such an error would need to be identified. Is there no way to tell MinimServer that the dummy track is a deliberate insertion, and that the [no disc] section is not required?

This is not (in my opinion) necessarily an error. There is no way to tell MinimServer that this is a dummy track and I don't have any plans to add such a capability. Instead, I am hoping at some point in the future to investigate alternative approaches to providing "album art" that is different from "disc art".