Displaying pictures of artists?

[simoncn]

(02-10-2015 12:08)Mihaylov Wrote:  Do you plan to add images for minimserver folders ("choices") in the home container as in Asset UPnP?
Visualization of "choices" is much more convenient than the Artist, Date, Genre, etc signatures.

I have Asset UPnP and I am not seeing these images. Perhaps they are provided by the control point. Which control point are you using?

[Mihaylov]

Simon, these images are mine.
   
Asset images are in the folder AssetImages and they have name Composer.jpg, Genre.jpg, etc. and may be changed and added by user.
The CP is Lumin.

[simoncn]

(02-10-2015 20:11)Mihaylov Wrote:  Simon, these images are mine.

Asset images are in the folder AssetImages and they have name Composer.jpg, Genre.jpg, etc. and may be changed and added by user.
The CP is Lumin.

There was some discussion earlier on this thread (see this post) about providing a way for users to manually set custom images.

At the time of the discussion, there wasn't much positive reaction to this idea. I think it could be useful and I will bear it in mind as a possible enhancement for a future release.

[josch67]

Hello Simon,

I am really happy with Minim, it works great with QNAP 212 and Linn KlimaxDS. Thank you!

I would find it great to have a simple version of artist images. A jpeg in the artists root folder, for example called artistname.jpg should be a simple way. If there is a picture display, if not > no picture

Regards Josch

[simoncn]

(06-11-2015 20:45)josch67 Wrote:  Hello Simon,

I am really happy with Minim, it works great with QNAP 212 and Linn KlimaxDS. Thank you!

I would find it great to have a simple version of artist images. A jpeg in the artists root folder, for example called artistname.jpg should be a simple way. If there is a picture display, if not > no picture

Regards Josch

Thanks for this suggestion.

Some users have a library where the top-level folders represent artists but many users have some other folder structure. To support both cases, it might be better to have an optional top-level folder named "images" with an optional subfolder named Artist where MinimServer would look for artistname.jpg files.

The "images" folder could also be used to provide images for other tag names such as Composer, Conductor, etc. For example, if the "images" folder has a subfolder named Composer, MinimServer would look for composername.jpg files in this folder.

See this thread for some previous discussion on this subject.

[josch67]

Hello Simon,

you are right, this would be a more common way for all users. A solution like you suggest would make me happy!

Regards Josch

[BassTreble]

I'm wondering if this is in development or was dropped as an idea. I've read this thread and also the thread Simon linked to on the Linn site (I think) and just wanted to add my humble vote for images. Personally, I'm not so fussed about artist images but would like to see a more graphically rich library tree and search results. As previous discussions have yielded division between users perhaps this could be an option users could enable or disable.

I think the overall experience would be infinitely more pleasing (particularly as some of us encourage our partners and family members to use our UPnP AV servers instead of Google Music or Spotify) if MinimServer could display the music library with random album art taken from music within the Albums, Items, Artists, Genres containers etc like most of todays music streaming apps do. I have installed BubbleUPnP on my wife's phone and she is happy to use it but finds navigating tedious because "why can't it have pictures like Google Music" and I agree.

And when I perform a search, I think it would be much more effective to see a category for Albums with a series of 3 or 4 album covers returned in the search with a "More" option which then opened up all album art returned if there are several more. Beneath that would similarly be album art for the returned Tracks, and returned Artists etc with Track Titles and Track Artists simply being a list beneath.

I've tested several UPnP AV servers and, for me, MinimServer is by far the best for my needs. Seriously; by far. While most of us here are quite technical and are happy to install, test and uninstall UPnP AV servers, DLNA servers, numerous control points etc and can live with boring folder trees, it would be nice if we could extend the power of our efforts to our partners and families so they can *seamlessly and effortlessly* enjoy our fruits as well thus making our music/video collections a much more social affair. The only thing, in my mind, preventing this is the lack of "pretty" imagery and "finish" in the UX.

IMHO.

[simoncn]

Thanks for this feedback.

The presentation of search results is determined by the control point. You might want to contact the author of BubbleUPnP with your suggestion for this.

Can you list the places (apart from search results) where artwork is currently missing and you would prefer to have a random image instead of no image?

Have you used any other UPnP servers that come closer to what you would like to see here?

[Pepsican]

(27-03-2015 22:18)simoncn Wrote:  

(27-03-2015 22:05)Lakorus Wrote:  Hello Simon,

as I opened this thread, I would appreciate such an option very much, though it's mostly a cosmetic thing. For me, a solution similar to the one you have for album art would be perfect:

For example:
First look into the MP3's current folder if there is a jpg that is named exactly like the artist is.
If there isn't any, use the album art in the artist's first album (alphabetical).

Best regards
Lakorus

Edit: Obviously, I was a bit slow in typing. Stampie covered it pretty well!

Thanks for this feedback!

An artist would typically have tracks in a large number of folders. If each of these folders specifies a different image for the artist name, it isn't clear which image MinimServer should use.

It also isn't clear how to extend this to support other image types such as Composer, Conductor, Soloist, Genre, Instrument, etc.

Because of issues like these, this approach would be more difficult to implement than the design that I described.

Not to mention that this assumes a separate image file is in the folder. But what about embedded images in for example FLAC files?

[mdp]

Hi there,

I would be very pleased with images in artists browsing. Using Linn Kazoo app, Asset mediaserver running on windows computer gives artists folders filled with images coming from albumart of the album folders unterneith. (In my database the structure is: Folder [artists]/Folder [Year]-[Album]) Media server Synology and Minimserver gives just empty Artists (just folder Thumbnail).

When looking at the music with eLyric app, the Synology Mediaserver and Minimserver content are displayed the same as Asset Mediaserver. So also the way the app handles the content makes a difference. There is something in the Minim- and Synologyserver data that eLyric can read and Kazoo can't.

So my suggestion is to make a start in wich artwork direct in the artist folder is shown. So new database "starters" can put artist art in the artist folder from scratch.
Then make it possisible to extract artist art from sub folders with selection options: first, Newst or highest quality. When in the future online lookups come availible like the way Kazoo get data from Last.fm, this search link can added as an option in artistsSort.

I shall post some printscreens of the difference between the way eLyric and Kazoo app handles the same source Server.

Yours mdp