Multiple Instances (Encouraging Feature Development:)

[Oliviander]

Hi Simon,
as promised my suggestion for multiple instances in detail.

1.) I already have multiple instances of minimserver running
in an VMware virtual Windows XP prof machine.
I do this by running them as different windows users.
(short instruction for the interested:
Login as User: USER
Setup minimserver
Login as User: OTHERUSER
Setup minimserver
You have to change the HTTP port to a different value
Login as User: USER
Start a cmd.exe as user OTHERUSER
change directory to c:\\programs\minimserver lib
Type: java -jar minimserver.jar
Do the same for USER (or start it from the desktop)
I did not do any crashtests on this setup
but I hear the music coming from it right now

2.) I don't think that it is a good idea to try to have
any properties that affect the audio and browse
behavior should be kept in sync between different servers,
as this would limit the application how
these multiple instances may be used.
( in another thread somone wanted different transcoding
for different renderers. As long as this feature doesn't exist
one could easily have it, setting up a duplicate server)

3.) only properties (as the http:port)
that may result in a conflict, should be dependent.

4.) I envision a Master Configuration Window for Minimserever
where you can start and stop,
create, delete and copy (duplicate) instances of
minimserver; Automaticaly choosing non conflicting ports and
maybe other properties that are dependent in this sense.
In this window you should see a list of your existing servers.
And you should be able to call the config window seperate for each
existing server from there.

5.) My personal use for multiple instances would be setting
up seven different servers for:

Classical Music
Jazz
Pop
Movies
Worldmusic
Word
Test

and one inculding All music (Masterserver)

I would restirct the special servers
to rather few index tags to keep it simple
and would make the All music server complex
with all tags indexed (for strange searches)

In the Moment I have a Tag: Album_Category
(with only the seven abovementioned entries)
I alomost always choose this as the first
distinction when selecting music.
So I could spare myself 2 clicks when
setting up these Category as seperate servers.

Maybe this becomes obsolete when other features
make a faster selection possible but by now this would
be an elegant solution.

[Oliviander]

(11-03-2013 22:44)Oliviander Wrote:  1.) I already have multiple instances of minimserver running
in an VMware virtual Windows XP prof machine.
I do this by running them as different windows users.
(short instruction for the interested:
Login as User: USER
Setup minimserver
Login as User: OTHERUSER
Setup minimserver
You have to change the HTTP port to a different value
Login as User: USER
Start a cmd.exe as user OTHERUSER
change directory to c:\\programs\minimserver lib
Type: java -jar minimserver.jar
Do the same for USER (or start it from the desktop)
I did not do any crashtests on this setup
but I hear the music coming from it right now

I hope not that many tried this solution,
since it doesn't work anymore for me
And I couldn't pin the reason.

But in the meantime I have a better solution,
(not even needing different users)

Just use the following script to start minimserver and
be sure to use different http: ports (see advanced settings)
for each instance and and different
APPDATA directories.
And be sure to write APPDATA in CAPITAL LETTERS:

title 1_Klassik
set APPDATA=C:\minim\1_klassik
cd c:\programme\minimserver\lib
java -jar minimserver.jar
exit

(The title and exit commands are only for convieneince)

[simoncn]

(18-03-2013 01:00)Oliviander Wrote:  Just use the following script to start minimserver and
be sure to use different http: ports (see advanced settings)
for each instance and and different
APPDATA directories.
And be sure to write APPDATA in CAPITAL LETTERS:

title 1_Klassik
set APPDATA=C:\minim\1_klassik
cd c:\programme\minimserver\lib
java -jar minimserver.jar
exit

(The title and exit commands are only for convieneince)

I confirm that this will work. On Windows, the MinimServer launcher reads the APPDATA environment variable and uses it to locate the instance data files. This is a good solution for Windows until I can add official support for multiple instances.

[Oliviander]

(18-03-2013 12:38)simoncn Wrote:  I confirm that this will work. On Windows, the MinimServer launcher reads the APPDATA environment variable and uses it to locate the instance data files. This is a good solution for Windows until I can add official support for multiple instances.

My MinS multiple Instance Solution on a Virtual XP_Machine still works under 0.81,
but wth your new Update mechanism (Which is actually great !!! )
I now have to update all 9 Instances of MinS seperately.

I can live with that as I am aware that this is not an official
supported use of MinS.

But you once mentioned that you are thinking about how to
implement a multiple instance solution, and I told you that
you shouldn't force anything to be the same on the different
instances.

I now see that my opinion was wrong <g>
at least regarding program versions.

Thx for the great work

[simoncn]

(30-12-2013 22:46)Oliviander Wrote:  

(18-03-2013 12:38)simoncn Wrote:  I confirm that this will work. On Windows, the MinimServer launcher reads the APPDATA environment variable and uses it to locate the instance data files. This is a good solution for Windows until I can add official support for multiple instances.

My MinS multiple Instance Solution on a Virtual XP_Machine still works under 0.81,
but wth your new Update mechanism (Which is actually great !!! )
I now have to update all 9 Instances of MinS seperately.

I can live with that as I am aware that this is not an official
supported use of MinS.

But you once mentioned that you are thinking about how to
implement a multiple instance solution, and I told you that
you shouldn't force anything to be the same on the different
instances.

I now see that my opinion was wrong <g>
at least regarding program versions.

Thx for the great work

I will make sure this is handled correctly when the official support for multiple instances is available.

[Oliviander]

(02-01-2014 13:08)simoncn Wrote:  I will make sure this is handled correctly when the official support for multiple instances is available.

Hi Simon,
After some absence from playing with minimserver I am back.
Your server is still the greatest and works perfectly for me.

Bu I am still missing a way to get faster to the musicfiles.

I just tried workaround for the missing
multiple instances or
predefined search tree features.
I have an Album_Category Tag that splits my music collection into parts.
In the moment I handle this with multiple server instances one for each
possible Tag_Value of this Tag.
But as I would prefer running minimserver on my NAS I tried to create a
TagUpdate script creating a seperate Tag for each entry adding it to the
Index tags.

Album_Category can be "Classical" "Jazz" or "Pop"
and I created a Tag Classical with the value TRUE
or Jazz with Value True or Pop with Value true.
Hoping theat the selection would be skipped as there
exists only the value true for these entries

BUT

There comes up an [unknown] entry for the other files and
I have to select again. I guess there is no way to suppress the
[unknown] entry.

So my question is
do you have multiple instances still on the Roadmap
or predefined Searching trees or anything which
would reduce the clicks you have to do on minimserver to get the
files that you want.

(Like my suggested Quickselectpath feature I suggested 2 years ago)
http://forum1613.minimserver.com/showthr...67#pid2467

[simoncn]

It seems that multiple instance support is unlikely to happen any time soon. All the design approaches that I have considered either added too much complexity in the implementation or made the user interface more awkward for the great majority of users who don't want to do this.

I am open to providing a shortcut capability that would enable a tag choice to be autoselected based on matching a user-specified value such as "true" or "1". My intuition is that this shouldn't be too difficult to implement but I won't know until I start work on it.

I have thought about the possibility of adding some kind of selection path capability where one selection choice would automatically make the next one. For example, this could allow the user to specify that selecting a Genre value would automatically prompt for an Artist value next. This would be a significant departure from the MinimServer approach of allowing any tag value to be selected at any time and I think it is likely to be considerably more complex to implement than it is to describe. I would need to think very carefully about this before coming to any decision and there is no possibility that it could happen in the short to medium term because of other items on my to-do list that have higher priority.

[simoncn]

(02-11-2015 23:43)simoncn Wrote:  I am open to providing a shortcut capability that would enable a tag choice to be autoselected based on matching a user-specified value such as "true" or "1". My intuition is that this shouldn't be too difficult to implement but I won't know until I start work on it.

This feature is available now in update 70.

[Oliviander]

(05-11-2015 17:01)simoncn Wrote:  

(02-11-2015 23:43)simoncn Wrote:  I am open to providing a shortcut capability that would enable a tag choice to be autoselected based on matching a user-specified value such as "true" or "1". My intuition is that this shouldn't be too difficult to implement but I won't know until I start work on it.

This feature is available now in update 70.

Hi Simon,
I love this feature. Thank you very much.


That you neither plan to support predefined searchin paths
nor multiple instances is a pity IMO, but it is your choice and I respect that.
[Either of them would help to accelerate and tighten the selection prozess]


But maybe you could implement the following little feature.
With this I could at least come to a point where I
(and especially my wife) would be comfortable with.
Today I experimented to simulate a simple quickselect feature with existing MinimS mechanics - and I came close but one option didn't work
as I expected :

The TagValue option Replace doesn't only replace a TagValue
with a new one but also creates one if the Tag was not existing before.

If you could add a TagValue method that works exactly like replace but only kicks in if there is at least one existing value for the selected Tag
I would be where I want to be.

So what did I try (the following is a simplified example):

In my files I have a Tag named ALBUM_CATEGORY which only can have
Specific values: Klassik - Jazz - Pop

I created a TagUpdate file:

@ALBUM_CATEGORY=Klassik
+KLASSIK=1
+KLASSIKKOMPONIST=1
+KLASSIKINTERPRET=1

@ALBUM_CATEGORY=Jazz
+JAZZ=1
+JAZZINTERPRET=1

@ALBUM_CATEGORY=Pop
+POP=1
+POPINTERPRET=1

Then I tried to replace the some of these tags with actual values

Klassikkomponist.replace={COMPOSER_SORT},
Klassikinterpret.replace={ARTIST_SORT},
Jazzinterpret.replace={ARTIST_SORT},
Popinterpret.replace={ARTIST_SORT},


indexTags are (thx to your new feature):

Klassik=1, KlassikKomponist, KlassikInterpret, Jazz=1, JazzInterpret, Pop=1, PopInterpret, .....


As you can see This would have worked perfectly if the
TagValue replace option would not create tags where none existed before
and would only replace the existing "1" entries.

I assume it shouldn't be very difficult to add another method to the
TagValue section that behaves like suggested.
This would make me very happy



(and maybe the possiblity to suppress the [unknown] entry for
some selections. Maybe an entry in the indexTags like

Klassikinterpret<>[unknown]

That would be obviously nice for these
selections but, I admit, one can still live without it)


What do you think of this idea ?

THX for the greatest Musikserver there is

[simoncn]

This is an interesting and creative approach for how to select the combination of genre and composer/artist in a single operation.

I have considered your request very carefully, trying to think of a more "normal" situation where the proposed new feature would be useful. I haven't been able to come with one, so I won't be adding this feature at the present time.

Fortunately, there is a way for you to do what you want without the new feature. You can change your tag update file to the following:

@ALBUM_CATEGORY=Klassik
+KLASSIK=1
+JAZZINTERPRET=0
+POPINTERPRET=0

@ALBUM_CATEGORY=Jazz
+JAZZ=1
+KLASSIKKOMPONIST=0
+KLASSIKINTERPRET=0
+POPINTERPRET=0

@ALBUM_CATEGORY=Pop
+POP=1
+KLASSIKKOMPONIST=0
+KLASSIKINTERPRET=0
+JAZZINTERPRET=0

Your tagValue settings should be as foolows:

Klassikkomponist.default={COMPOSER_SORT},
Klassikinterpret.default={ARTIST_SORT},
Jazzinterpret.default={ARTIST_SORT},
Popinterpret.default={ARTIST_SORT}

The only problem with this is that the menu for Jazzinterpret (etc.) will start with a 0 entry because 0 is sorted before alphabetic characters in the MinimServer collation order. To move this entry to the end of the list, you can change the 0 to any Unicode character that sorts after alphabetic characters. The Unicode character U+02CD (low macron) should be suitable.