Hiding 'items' or 'playlists'? Displaying the number of 'composers' or 'artists'?

[nbpf]

Beside the customizable indexTag indexes, MinimServer also provides default 'albums', 'items' and 'playlists' indexes together with their respective number of items, see, e.g.,
https://github.com/nicolabotta/screensho...G_0557.PNG.

Is it possible to selectively disable displaying one or more of these default indexes? I virtually never use 'items' and 'playlists' for browsing my collection and I would prefer not to see them on the top of the screen all the time.

An ancillary question: Is there is a MinimServer configuration option that allows displaying the number of items for the customizable indexTag indexes as well?.

It is a bit strange to be able to see the number of playlists but not the number of composers or artists!

Thanks, nbpf

[simoncn]

The menu entries with numeric prefixes are not index entries. This is why they are formatted differently and appear at the start of the list before the index entries. When selected, they produce "flat lists" of albums, items and playlists that don't allow any lower-level index selections.

[nbpf]

(29-02-2016 13:26)simoncn Wrote:  The menu entries with numeric prefixes are not index entries. This is why they are formatted differently and appear at the start of the list before the index entries. When selected, they produce "flat lists" of albums, items and playlists that don't allow any lower-level index selections.

Thanks Simon, I get the difference. Is there currently an option for hiding one or more of the 3 flat views? Best, nbpf

[simoncn]

(29-02-2016 13:51)nbpf Wrote:  Thanks Simon, I get the difference. Is there currently an option for hiding one or more of the 3 flat views? Best, nbpf

This isn't possible at present. The playlists entry will not be shown if you don't have any playlists.

[nbpf]

(29-02-2016 14:18)simoncn Wrote:  

(29-02-2016 13:51)nbpf Wrote:  Thanks Simon, I get the difference. Is there currently an option for hiding one or more of the 3 flat views? Best, nbpf

This isn't possible at present. The playlists entry will not be shown if you don't have any playlists.

Thanks for the feedback Simon!

The three flat views are very interesting for debugging and for getting a "live" metrics of the current browsing selection. But they also can be quite annoying when browsing under normal conditions. This is because they always show up so prominently on the top of the browsing window but, as you have pointed out, as entry points for browsing, they preempt the most peculiar feature of MinimServer: after entering a flat view, no "intelligent browsing" is available anymore!

If hiding the flat views is not an option, a viable alternative would perhaps be to list them below the user's indexTags. In that position, perhaps separated from the user's indexTags by a blank like, they would nicely report the metrics of the current browsing selection and provide a low-level alternative to intelligent browsing.

A position below the indexTags seems more consistent also from the operational point of view: one typically starts browsing via indexTags values (and users will tend to put indexes that they use most at the beginning of the indexTags list). Once the intelligent browsing options are exhausted, one might fall into a flat-view option.

My point in a nutshell: the flat views are, in contrast to indexTags views, low-level browsing options. Consequently, they should be placed below the indexTags browsing
options (although, perhaps, above the folder view, another low-level browsing option).

Best,
Nicola