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krutsch · 22-04-2015, 20:06

(22-04-2015 19:52)simoncn Wrote:
(22-04-2015 18:55)krutsch Wrote: Agreed... MinimServer is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but the syntax is mysterious. The good news is that Simon is very responsive to user queries and the documentation has some good examples.

But I concur with your opinion that an updated FAQ would be most helpful.

My experience with FAQs is that they answer 20, 50 or 100 questions that I don't have and they (usually) don't answer the one question that I do have.

If you post your question(s) to the forum, you are likely to get a quick and personalised response.

Well, I was being complimentary of your enthusiasm in supporting your customers; and no FAQ can replace the personal touch.

But, I'm not sure you are getting the point that @steen was making: you have been answering the same questions, over-and-over, and there is a lot of tribal knowledge in these forum pages. And, the syntax is difficult for most users.

For example, configuring MinimServer to ignore "The" as a leading word in an artist/album title has been a common question (I think I even asked that one).

Going back through the forum postings (or your own memory) and creating an FAQ for these common issues, with examples of the syntax, might save you and others a lot of time.

It's none of my business and I'm not criticizing... But, if it were up to me, I would consider taking the top 10 issues, for example, and integrating the syntax directly into the UI as configuration options; like a set of drop-downs or radio buttons to turn common things on/off (see my previous example).

I've been a professional programmer and UX designer for 20+ years and the best UIs are designed this way: lots of user input, re-factored into common use cases and simply/clearly presented.

Just food for thought and trying to be helpful...

simoncn · 22-04-2015, 20:40

(22-04-2015 20:06)krutsch Wrote: For example, configuring MinimServer to ignore "The" as a leading word in an artist/album title has been a common question (I think I even asked that one).

If I needed this information and I didn't want to take the time to read the User guide, I would try a Google search for:

MinimServer ignore The

If you try this, you will find the top result answers the question.

Quote:It's none of my business and I'm not criticizing... But, if it were up to me, I would consider taking the top 10 issues, for example, and integrating the syntax directly into the UI as configuration options; like a set of drop-downs or radio buttons to turn common things on/off (see my previous example).

This isn't as simple as you are implying. MinimServer supports ignoring "The" for a single tag, multiple tags or all tags. You can also ignore a list of prefixes such as {The, Les, A, An}. Providing buttons for all these combinations isn't practical and providing a button for one fixed combination would be over-restrictive.

krutsch · 22-04-2015, 21:10

^^ OK, got it. For the users you are serving, this is a fine approach.

steen · 23-04-2015, 01:48

Even just starting with the Server tab on minimwatch and the very first line where one could enter values into 'aliasTags'. Mine is currently empty.

In the User Guide there is a section for aliasTags but I just don't "get it" even after several reads.

It is very obvious that minim is a total powerhouse but was developed (lol, by a developer) who thinks like a developer. I heard about it from Mr. Bubblegum because I could not stand that PLEX does not have any UPnP search making a 1TB music library pretty much worthless on PLEX and he informed me that minim does full upnp search which of course it does.

I initially gave up on minim very quickly because I thought it was limited to just ONE folder but then I discovered minimwatch must be used to add additional folders (up to eight as you point out) and I've been sticking with it since.

I'm sure once it "clicks" it's a piece of cake and obviously is for you and many of those on this forum. I just wish the overall explanation of tags and where they go and what they do was explained in less of a coder/developer way in more in terms of an end user / people who are used to DUMB applications... if that makes sense.

simoncn · 23-04-2015, 09:31

(23-04-2015 01:48)steen Wrote: Even just starting with the Server tab on minimwatch and the very first line where one could enter values into 'aliasTags'. Mine is currently empty.

In the User Guide there is a section for aliasTags but I just don't "get it" even after several reads.

Taking the example in the User guide, you might have some ReleaseDate tags in your files and you would prefer MinimServer to read these as if they were Date tags. To do this, you would put ReleaseDate:Date in aliasTags. Does this help?

Quote:It is very obvious that minim is a total powerhouse but was developed (lol, by a developer) who thinks like a developer. I heard about it from Mr. Bubblegum because I could not stand that PLEX does not have any UPnP search making a 1TB music library pretty much worthless on PLEX and he informed me that minim does full upnp search which of course it does.

I initially gave up on minim very quickly because I thought it was limited to just ONE folder but then I discovered minimwatch must be used to add additional folders (up to eight as you point out) and I've been sticking with it since.

I'm sure once it "clicks" it's a piece of cake and obviously is for you and many of those on this forum. I just wish the overall explanation of tags and where they go and what they do was explained in less of a coder/developer way in more in terms of an end user / people who are used to DUMB applications... if that makes sense.

If you can point out parts that aren't clear, I will try to improve them.

steen · 23-04-2015, 21:22

It's starting to become a bit more clear the more I mess around with it.

Something that might be helpful would be to add a small section that would allow newbies like me to copy and paste fully formed values/agruments into our minimsever property tabs, save, rescan, see what it does. Simliar to what the thread starter had on his screen shot since I actually stole some of that stuff and it helped me.

Like I was saying, more real world examples and ideally stuff that is already formatted and can literally be COPY / PASTED would be awesome.

I have a *lot* of tagging work to keep me busy for now so the minutia and accoutrements of the deep world of minim tags are taking a small back seat at this time.

Mbraham · 03-05-2015, 20:19

Hello, I'm new to this tagging, but from I'm read so far, I do want to start using it - yet struggling to get started. As "Steen" suggests above, it's not easy for someone like myself to figure out which syntax to us, if I want to use multiple tags for example, do I just put them all in the "tag options" field, separated by commas???

Especially "steen"'s last entry hinting at COPY/PASTE type examples would be of great help.

As background to what I'm looking for to begin with is the sorting order of artists and albums, ignoring the The, A, Les, etc type words.

simoncn · 03-05-2015, 22:12

(03-05-2015 20:19)Mbraham Wrote: Hello, I'm new to this tagging, but from I'm read so far, I do want to start using it - yet struggling to get started. As "Steen" suggests above, it's not easy for someone like myself to figure out which syntax to us, if I want to use multiple tags for example, do I just put them all in the "tag options" field, separated by commas???

Especially "steen"'s last entry hinting at COPY/PASTE type examples would be of great help.

As background to what I'm looking for to begin with is the sorting order of artists and albums, ignoring the The, A, Les, etc type words.

To do this, you can put the following in tagOptions:

Artist.ignore.sort={The, A, Les}, Album.ignore.sort={The, A, Les}

Mbraham · 03-05-2015, 22:25

thank you Simon! to foolproof my understanding, I'll copy paste your quote into tagOptions, apply and rescan right? or do I need to restart minim server to see the results? I'm using Auralic Lightning DS as UI.

M

DavidHB · 04-05-2015, 12:28

(03-05-2015 22:25)Mbraham Wrote: do I need to restart minim server to see the results? I'm using Auralic Lightning DS as UI.

Either a rescan or a restart on MinimServer will work. I don't use Lightning, but I have half a recollection that it uses a cache. If it does, you should clear the cache and restart Lightning as well, so that the results of the change in MinimServer feed through to the Control Point.

Incidentally, the ignore.sort I use in TagOptions is

all.ignore.sort={The,Der,Die,Das,Le,La,L',Les,Il,El}

It's not comprehensive, but it has worked for me so far. I could add to it if the need arose. I use 'all' because I prefer to maintain a consistent approach for all tags.

David