Minor Composers - some problems I am struggling with!

[pgbj]

First, let me say this is a cracking bit of software and with any other software I wouldn't probably be able to even attempt to do this. So thanks!

I have a moderate-sized classical music library which I mainly search as COMPOSER->CATEGORY("Oratorios","Piano Sonatas"etc)->COMPOSITION or ALBUM. Due to a few compilation-type albums, my list of composers has "Bach" (100+ albums) shoulder-to-shoulder with "Banchieri" (1 madrigal on a re-construction of Venetian Vespers). So I decided to do the following to "remove" these minor composers from my main index...

Set up a tagUpdate file with entries such as:

@COMPOSER=Banchieri
=COMPOSER=[Minor Composers]
+MINORCOMPOSER=Banchieri

then in the tagValues property (and MinorComposer in itemTags):

Composer.value.display={MinorComposer}

The idea being I would just get a catchall [Minor Composers] entry in the index but would still see the composer or minor composer name if set in the Now Playing screen (or wherever Bubble deigns to display it).

1. The tag update all seems to be happening and is recorded in a tag update file. The minor composers are gone from the index and replaced by a single [Minor Composers]. However, the MinorComposer tag does not seem to be replacing the composer display value. Instead I get [Minor Composers] displayed as the composer metadata in Bubble. If I for example add MinorComposer to indexTags I see a list of minor composers so that all works.

2. I have a couple of composers with accents e.g Albéniz. I think this is all entered UTF-8 but it does not show any match in the tag update log. Should this be able to match? It displays properly everywhere.

3. I chose the catchall [Minor Composers] as I thought square brackets would sort after alphanumeric in UTF-8 and so be at the end of the index. Instead it is at the front?

Any thoughts? Thanks!

[pgbj]

Sorry a further update... the log file contains this single warning...

Warning: custom value conflict for COMPOSER tag '[Minor Composers]' in file Various/McCreesh, Paul/Venetian Vespers (McCreesh, Paul) (Disc 1)/02 - Intonationi (11) d'organo, libro primo, complete (1607); Intonazione.flac
current display/sort value is 'Traditional'; new display/sort value is 'Gabrieli'

I have checked there is only one COMPOSER tag. If I remove the files, the warning just moves to another file.

It's as if the association between COMPOSER=[Minor Composers].display=Gabrieli is being maintained once for the whole library rather than once per file?

I clearly am missing something!

[simoncn]

(19-10-2017 16:24)pgbj Wrote:  It's as if the association between COMPOSER=[Minor Composers].display=Gabrieli is being maintained once for the whole library rather than once per file?

This is indeed how it works. Each COMPOSER value (for example, [Minor Composers]) must have a single consistent sort value and a single consistent display value.

You can do what you want in a slightly different way. In the tagValue property, you can set ComposerDisplay.default={MinorComposer, Composer}. This creates a new tag ComposerDisplay in each file and this tag has the value of the MinorComposer tag if present or the Composer tag otherwise.

To make the ComposerDisplay tag show on the Now Playing screen instead of the Composer tag, you can set the tagFormat property to Composer.displayFormat={$composerDisplay}.

Regarding your other questions, you can use accented characters in the tag update file and these must be entered in UTF-8 format. Square brackets sort before alphabetic characters because MinimServer doesn't sort by Unicode codepoints. The MinimServer sort collation sequence uses the standard Unicode Collation Algorithm for the first 256 Unicode codepoints and sorts by Unicode codepoints after that (see this thread). To ensure a tag value sorts after all Western alphabetic characters, it needs to start with a Unicode codepoint greater than U+00FF.

[DavidHB]

With a mostly classical library which is probably a little (but not much) smaller than yours, the only reason I can think of for doing what you have done is to shorten displayed lists. There are occasions when I want to find the composer with only one track in my collection (sometimes for that very reason!). So I wouldn't want to put some composers in a separate list - how does one define 'minor' in any case?

Classical music is such a rich and varied repository (it's far more than a genre) that it is virtually impossible to categorise it systematically without the categories coming apart. I much prefer (mostly) alphabetical listings of composers, albums and works. Simply by using the MinimServer alphaGroup property, I get manageable alphabetical breakdowns of any list that has more than (in my case) 50 entries. This seems to me to be much simpler than trying to sub-categorise tag values arbitrarily. And if, under 'B', Bach comes next to Banchieri, what's the problem?

David

[pgbj]

@simon. Thanks for that - makes sense. I will give it a go. i thought I had got the characters in UTF8 - at least they display the same everywhere.

@david. I am not making any value judgement about who is minor or major - it is simply about reducing list sizes for my main navigation list and aligning the UI to my main use cases. I can see no realistic use case to play the 1 two minute madrigal by Banchieri that is part of a larger Vespers compilation. If i want to hear it I will want to hear the album and will search by album artist.

Removing these composers, will streamline the use case that represents 95% of my browsing - but you're right if someone comes in the room and says 'play me something by banchieri' then I am undone...

Thanks for the responses

[simoncn]

(19-10-2017 19:46)pgbj Wrote:  Removing these composers, will streamline the use case that represents 95% of my browsing - but you're right if someone comes in the room and says 'play me something by banchieri' then I am undone...

Not entirely, as you can find him in your MinorComposer index.

[pgbj]

(19-10-2017 19:58)simoncn Wrote:  Not entirely, as you can find him in your MinorComposer index.

True -except I just did that to see that I was creating MinorComposers...

Btw Your suggestions works as I was hoping. So thanks

[DavidHB]

(19-10-2017 19:46)pgbj Wrote:  @david. I am not making any value judgement about who is minor or major - it is simply about reducing list sizes for my main navigation list and aligning the UI to my main use cases ... Removing these composers, will streamline the use case that represents 95% of my browsing ...

I understand, and I am grateful for your patience with what I now see was a slightly prissy comment. But I still recommend that you look at alphaGroup, as it works with any tagging scheme. Once a list gets beyond a certain length (which you define), it is automatically divided up alphabetically. So if, as your collection grows, lists start getting longer again, there is a fallback. Cleverly, the alphabetical selection screen also gives you the option to look at the complete list if that is what you prefer to do in a particular instance.

David

[pgbj]

(19-10-2017 22:20)DavidHB Wrote:  But I still recommend that you look at alphaGroup, as it works with any tagging scheme.

Yes I am using alphagroups for my Composition tags - as there can be a lot of those even within one category. (Though I still have a lot of work to do to get Composition names consistent for the same work - but that's my new best mate mp3tag's job....)

The great thing is that minimserver gives us all the chance to customise our music collection to fit the way we browse and listen to our music.

[DavidHB]

(20-10-2017 09:06)pgbj Wrote:  Though I still have a lot of work to do to get Composition names consistent for the same work - but that's my new best mate mp3tag's job....

There is one trick in MP3Tag which I have not seen as widely documented as it should be. Let's say that you have a particular work that is tagged to your satisfaction. You then acquire another recording of the same work, for which you want to use, say, the same Title and Composition tag values as on the first album.

Open the first album in MP3Tag. Then use the 'Add Directory' icon to add the new album to the grid. Select the first pair of files which you want to have the same Title. Click the drop-down arrow at the right hand end of the Title input box, and you will see a list of the Title values used in the current selection, plus <keep> (= leave as it is) and <blank> (= clear the text). Select the value you want to use, and it will be applied to both selected tracks. Click the Save Icon. (Note that if you enable the setting Options>Tags>Save tags when using arrow-keys/single mouse click, your changes are saved whenever you move from one file to another; this has saved me a lot of retyping!)

When it comes to the Composition value, you need to select all the relevant tracks on the new album, but only need to select one track on the first (source) album. Use the same procedure to apply the source value to the tracks on the new album.

This procedure greatly reduces the amount of manual editing required to ensure consistency, and is also much less error-prone. There are occasions (with Composer naming for example) when it can be used with dozens or even hundreds of files at once.

(20-10-2017 09:06)pgbj Wrote:  The great thing is that minimserver gives us all the chance to customise our music collection to fit the way we browse and listen to our music.

Exactly. I feel that I was very lucky to stumble across it, four years ago now.

David