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suggestions to customize browsing
25-08-2012, 18:34
Post: #1
suggestions to customize browsing
Quote:
This is a confusing area, because of the various different uses of Artist / ARTIST / artist:

1) It's a tag value (ARTIST) that can be used one or more times in each file.
2) It's an index value (Artist) with special rules (use ALBUMARTIST tag if available, otherwise merge the values of the ORCHESTRA and CONDUCTOR tags with the values of the ARTIST tags).
3) It's a value (artist) sent by MinimServer to the control point for use when displaying albums or tracks in the browser or the playlist. This value is currently the same as that used for 2).

I presume your question is about 2). I think what's currently there is too complex, and I don't want to make it more complex by adding special treatment of other tags such as PERFORMER. I'm thinking of simplifying it so it works like all the other index fields and displays the same information as 1). For 3), I'd like to make this value more flexible and configurable than it is currently, with the capability to mix in tag values of the user's choice.

With this change, every index would display exactly what's in the corresponding tag, so you could build any kind of custom index that you want. You'd also be able to display these indexes under a name that's different from the name in the tag. For example, you could use PERFORMER as the tag name, and browse all your PERFORMER values using? an index named Artist.

I think this approach would be both simple and flexible.

hi, i've quoted this from the linn forums as introduction, as i think that this would be exactly the most straightfoward and flexible way to handle indizes. now i'm used to the conditional artist indexing, but in the beginning it was quite confusing. i would prefer the containers to show exactly what the corresponding tags contain.
i have a vision to customize browsing the following way: a listbox in minimwatch, where you can add and remove tags arbitrarily and the ability to reorder them. minimserver should show only indizes corresponding to these tags in the right order. for each tag in the listbox the following options:

1) map the tag name to an individual name shown in minimserver (this would handle different languages, etc.)

2) assign a tag for sort order (this would make all discussion of different sort orders obsolet) and specify a list of strings which are ignored by the sorting algorithm (e.g. the, los, las, ...)

3) alphagrouping: not only switch on/off, but additionally an integer number of items when alphagrouping applies. i personally want alphagrouping for containers containing 1000 or more items, but definitely not for just 5 items (when you have narrowed down your selection).

4) option to add the number of items in a container in front of its name.

5) if upnp search is available, enable/disable this container for searching.

as the title suggests, please take this as suggestions, and not as requests - i know that this is quite much. i'm still very happy with the current version of minimserver.

cheers, winxi
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25-08-2012, 20:19
Post: #2
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
(25-08-2012 18:34)winxi Wrote:  1) [...]

I like that.
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25-08-2012, 20:47
Post: #3
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
(25-08-2012 18:34)winxi Wrote:  hi, i've quoted this from the linn forums as introduction, as i think that this would be exactly the most straightfoward and flexible way to handle indizes. now i'm used to the conditional artist indexing, but in the beginning it was quite confusing. i would prefer the containers to show exactly what the corresponding tags contain.
i have a vision to customize browsing the following way: a listbox in minimwatch, where you can add and remove tags arbitrarily and the ability to reorder them. minimserver should show only indizes corresponding to these tags in the right order. for each tag in the listbox the following options:

1) map the tag name to an individual name shown in minimserver (this would handle different languages, etc.)

2) assign a tag for sort order (this would make all discussion of different sort orders obsolet) and specify a list of strings which are ignored by the sorting algorithm (e.g. the, los, las, ...)

3) alphagrouping: not only switch on/off, but additionally an integer number of items when alphagrouping applies. i personally want alphagrouping for containers containing 1000 or more items, but definitely not for just 5 items (when you have narrowed down your selection).

4) option to add the number of items in a container in front of its name.

5) if upnp search is available, enable/disable this container for searching.

as the title suggests, please take this as suggestions, and not as requests - i know that this is quite much. i'm still very happy with the current version of minimserver.

cheers, winxi

Item 3 is already available. Please see the release notes for version 0.50 for details of how to specify this.

Thanks for the other suggestions. Smile
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25-08-2012, 23:05
Post: #4
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
simoncn Wrote:  Item 3 is already available. Please see the release notes for version 0.50 for details of how to specify this.

Thanks for the other suggestions. Smile

Just another available great option i have missed. this brings me to my next suggestion - tooltip texts for minimwatch Wink

thanks a lot!
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30-08-2012, 12:19
Post: #5
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
Hi, here is my suggestion number 7:
I personally prefer 'Hide Contents' not to be shown, as I never add folders with subfolders to the playlist and I never run into problems with duplicated items. But I definitely like all the other extras. So it would be nice to have the 'showExtras' separated, maybe with checkboxes for each extra.
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30-08-2012, 18:52
Post: #6
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
(30-08-2012 12:19)winxi Wrote:  Hi, here is my suggestion number 7:
I personally prefer 'Hide Contents' not to be shown, as I never add folders with subfolders to the playlist and I never run into problems with duplicated items. But I definitely like all the other extras. So it would be nice to have the 'showExtras' separated, maybe with checkboxes for each extra.

The showExtras switch does what you say you want (it removes all selections that include 'Hide Contents'), so I'm not clear exactly what change you're suggesting.

The reason for having the showExtras switch is to accommodate control points that can't handle 'Hide Contents' correctly. This is why it either disables all the 'Hide Contents' choices or none of them.
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30-08-2012, 20:35 (This post was last modified: 30-08-2012 20:58 by winxi.)
Post: #7
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
(30-08-2012 18:52)simoncn Wrote:  The showExtras switch does what you say you want (it removes all selections that include 'Hide Contents'), so I'm not clear exactly what change you're suggesting.

The reason for having the showExtras switch is to accommodate control points that can't handle 'Hide Contents' correctly. This is why it either disables all the 'Hide Contents' choices or none of them.

Hi, my intention was to just switch off Hide Contents. It seems that I'm still not really get the point about the Hide Contents functionality. I can figure out that it may be useful when adding a complete multidisc album AND the control point doesn't filter out duplicate items. Moreover, the multidisc album has to be incomplete (e.g. just a song of disc 2 and no disc 1), because otherwise the '>> Disc X' selection wouldn't even show up.
Hide Contents does also appear e.g. with '>> Tag View' or '>> Show All' in an alphabetical grouped view and i can't figure out in which case this would be useful. It would prevent adding the complete '>> Tag View' or '>> Show All' to the playlist, but i wouldn't want to do this anyways.

Let me give an example for '>> Show All' in an alphabetical grouped view. Now, the browsing steps are the following to get to the view of all albums:
1) >> Show All
2) >> View All (with >> Hide contents at the top)

I would like a switch to get directly to the view of all albums when selecting '>> Show All' without step 2). I'm sure that Hide Contents is something useful for some people, although I doesn't really know why. I believe that it handles some rare cases for a few people and thus it should be optional.

winxi

EDIT: so, i think i've figured out the intention of Hide Contents in all >> views. I will give an example again, please correct me if I'm wrong:

1st level:
n albums --> choose
n items
All Artists
...

2nd level:
>> Show All --> choose
#
A
B
...

3rd level:
>> Hide Contents
View All

If somebody decides to add the whole container 'n albums' of the first level to the playlist (I personally would never do that), '>> Hide Contents' in the 3rd level will prevent duplicated items.

I would love an option to omit the 3rd level, but to keep '>> Show All' in the second level. Adding all items to the playlist without having duplicates could still be achieved by adding the '>> Show All' container to the playlist instead of 'n albums' in the first level. In fact, I would want to omit every level containing '>> Hide Contents' in any case.

'>> Hide Contents' is quite a special concept, and it may be confusing for the users. After all, it demonstrates that you really think thoroughly about what you are doing.

cheers, winxi
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30-08-2012, 21:48
Post: #8
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
(30-08-2012 20:35)winxi Wrote:  If somebody decides to add the whole container 'n albums' of the first level to the playlist (I personally would never do that), '>> Hide Contents' in the 3rd level will prevent duplicated items.

I would love an option to omit the 3rd level, but to keep '>> Show All' in the second level. Adding all items to the playlist without having duplicates could still be achieved by adding the '>> Show All' container to the playlist instead of 'n albums' in the first level. In fact, I would want to omit every level containing '>> Hide Contents' in any case.

'>> Hide Contents' is quite a special concept, and it may be confusing for the users. After all, it demonstrates that you really think thoroughly about what you are doing.

cheers, winxi

A user should never choose 'Hide Contents'. It needs to be there to support automated browsing by control points when adding a complete container and all its subcontainers to the playlist. This is very common, and it's important for MinimServer to support it correctly. For example, someone might search by artist and then add all albums by that artist to the playlist, possibly with random play or shuffle. Without the 'Hide Contents' choice in the 3rd level menu, the 1st level 'Play all' selection wouldn't work as the user expects. There are many other similar examples.

I could rename 'Hide Contents' to 'Do not select!' or '**!!??##', but I suspect this would lead to even greater confusion.
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31-08-2012, 09:50
Post: #9
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
(30-08-2012 21:48)simoncn Wrote:  A user should never choose 'Hide Contents'. It needs to be there to support automated browsing by control points when adding a complete container and all its subcontainers to the playlist. This is very common, and it's important for MinimServer to support it correctly. For example, someone might search by artist and then add all albums by that artist to the playlist, possibly with random play or shuffle. Without the 'Hide Contents' choice in the 3rd level menu, the 1st level 'Play all' selection wouldn't work as the user expects. There are many other similar examples.

I see that this is essential in some situations. But a switch to turn off the 3rd level (containing Hide Contents) would at least for me result in a better browsing experience, as I rarely add whole containers to the playlist. There is also the possibility that a control point cares about duplicate entries. In that case such a switch would be also a good thing.
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05-09-2012, 15:04 (This post was last modified: 05-09-2012 15:05 by winxi.)
Post: #10
RE: suggestions to customize browsing
Suggestion 8) Blush
The option to add dynamic containers to the top folder view, like 'Most played', 'Last played' and so on.
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