The way Minim shows the contents on a NAS

[GerardH]

HI,

I have all CD s nicely organized on my NAS in a folder structure.
Root: Artists
sub dir of Artist. year - Album Name

Call it Windows based , see it the way you did put them on a shelf.

If look what Minim gives me as content of my collection:
# albums , # items , # playlists, Artist, Date , Genre, All Artist, Composer, Untagged, and at last the most important : Folder View

Where is this - for me unlogical - sequence defined? I want the most logical : Folder View on top . These metadata, are less important as basic folder setup : Artist sub dir year - CD name.

PLS HELP

BR Gerard

[simbun]

(18-04-2025 12:15)GerardH Wrote:  Where is this - for me unlogical - sequence defined? I want the most logical : Folder View on top . These metadata, are less important as basic folder setup : Artist sub dir year - CD name.

The following are system indexes that can't be reordered/removed.

Code:

# albums
# items
# playlists

[folder view]

The majority of servers list [folder view] last as it's the least popular form of browsing.

Tag based indexes separate the system indexes and can be removed with the following configuration option:

Code:

indexTags: none

NOTE: You can only make this configuration change if you're running the full version of MinimServer.

[Peter StreamMagic]

Where is this - for me unlogical - sequence defined? I want the most logical : Folder View on top . These metadata, are less important as basic folder setup : Artist sub dir year - CD name.


Since Minim Server is a tag based program it seems logic to me Folder View is not on top.
If tagged properly Minim Server can do exactly what you want without using Folder View.
Select Artist→Year→album leads to same albums you defined in your folder structure.
Selecting Year→Artist → album leads to the same output.
Intelligent browsing, once you get used to it, you probably experience it searches better, more flexible than using your fixed folder structure.

[GerardH]

Sorry,

I dont want tag based . " properly set up meta data dependant search ".
The most logical, simple , straight forward, is basic Folder View as defined in Windows , as shown in Windows Explorer .

Whatever tags you hang on it , is also not quite necessary .

I want to play Bowie, Heroes CD. Live is not more difficult.

See att s pls.

[simoncn]

You should be able to get what you want by setting the configuration options described in post #2.

[lyapounov]

(18-04-2025 17:41)Peter StreamMagic Wrote:  Since Minim Server is a tag based program it seems logic to me Folder View is not on top.
If tagged properly Minim Server can do exactly what you want without using Folder View.
Select Artist→Year→album leads to same albums you defined in your folder structure.
Selecting Year→Artist → album leads to the same output.
Intelligent browsing, once you get used to it, you probably experience it searches better, more flexible than using your fixed folder structure.

If you allow me, I disagree for one simple reason: "tagging properly" does not exist, specially when it is about classical music. Rock is simple: you have one album title, one artist, etc.

But how do you tag the 5th symphony of Beethoven by Karajan the 1963 version in a proper way ? Which album title do you use ?

In database design, you should never have redundancies. The name of the composer is somewhere else, so should not be part of the title. Same with the main artist, same with the date of recording. So remains Symphony number 5. In your library, can you imaging scrolling through all Symphony number 5 from all composers until you find the Beethoven Karajan 1963 version ? And also, there not only symphony number 5 on this album, there is another symphony. But then comes another publish of the album under a different label, and damn, the same recording is with another symphony, inducing change in album title. And OMG, they reissued a 24 bits version where all symphonies are under a single album (not in this case, but for example the recent whole Shostakovitch symphonies - concertos and Lady Macbeth by Andris Nelsons under a single album; not to mention that for us french people Chostakovitch starts with a C, while in the anglo saxon world it starts with a S, but this is another story); then all your tagging are screwed.

When such changes, a folder structure needs only to move files, much easier than retagging. I barely use tags for this reason BTW.

Long time ago, I was teaching database. Creating the model of classical music was my favorite exam for my students. Because you have many concepts: album, track, work, part of work, artists, recording, remastering, etc... And all don't always fit together nicely ! Just try, and you'll see that there is no "proper tagging".

I have over 10 000 albums, and I can tell you that the folder structure is the best by far. I have top level which is Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, 20th Century, Opéras, Jazz, Blues, Rock, World Music, Movies, French songs, and all well structured under this top arbo.

This is why BTW I love Minimserver which allows to browse by folder structure, and I hate Roon, who spat at me when I asked for a folder structure saying that this was a very stupid idea.

Just my 2 cents.

"De gustibus et coloribus non es disputandem"

Cheers

[simbun]

(21-04-2025 09:27)lyapounov Wrote:  If you allow me, I disagree for one simple reason: "tagging properly" does not exist, specially when it is about classical music. Rock is simple: you have one album title, one artist, etc.

As it turned out, the OP's collection was non-classical so a tag based approach is definitely superior, unless of course you don't need that flexibility, or you desire a different flexibility e.g. ragged hierarchies e.t.c.

(21-04-2025 09:27)lyapounov Wrote:  But how do you tag the 5th symphony of Beethoven by Karajan the 1963 version in a proper way ? Which album title do you use ?

I keep meaning to dig into classical tagging, only as an academic exercise really as I don't listen classical, but wouldn't you ever want to browse all Beethoven's works/performances of Symphony number 5/Karajan recordings? How would you achieve that with folder view?

I'd love to see an example of how you store that "album" vs how it would be tagged (realising you're not the person to be asking about the tagging).

[Mark_UK]

(21-04-2025 09:27)lyapounov Wrote:  But how do you tag the 5th symphony of Beethoven by Karajan the 1963 version in a proper way ? Which album title do you use ?

Quote:I'd love to see an example of how you store that "album" vs how it would be tagged (realising you're not the person to be asking about the tagging).

That could be tagged by, Composer, Conductor or Work all off which function in Minim

[Henri]

Tag based indexes separate the system indexes and can be removed with the following configuration option:

Code:

indexTags: none

NOTE: You can only make this configuration change if you're running the full version of MinimServer.
[/quote]

Thanks for that config option, just what I needed.
It may be the least popular form of browsing but it's one I also use - I guess it's because of years and years of using a Win Explorer file view and playing to Win media player that I'm used to it so now I like to have the option on my NAS via MinimServer. I do use the others views at times (Audio quality/Rate and Format etc) but they're not exactly my 'first' go to.