QuickselectPath (Feature Proposal)

[Oliviander]

Hi Simon,
and here comes my second idea:

Most of the time I select music along the same path
and therefore it is quite cumbersome to click through all
the options (Even in minimserver)

Most of the time when I hear classical music
I select it Composer - Work - Artist
(If there is more than one artist to select)

Normally this is

Selecting the UPNPserver
Selecting Tag Genre or Style or in my Case ALBUM_Category
Selecting Classical Music
Selecting Tag Composer
Selecting the requested Composer
Selecting Tag Work
Selecting the requested Work
Selecting Tag artist
Selecting Artist
Selecting Album to play

That means ten selections are to be made.

Minimserver can reduce this to 7 by setting the
list view Albums property to an appropriate number.

In my Collection it is even shorter to use the folder structure.

AssetUpnp can reduce this to 5 steps, if you create a search tree
with only 1 tag selection in each hierarchy of the search tree
because then you don't have to select the Tags that
are to be used.

As it is the same effort to choose between 2 possible tags or 5,
IMO a quickselect feature should consequently only have
1 tag to select per hierarchy
(and therefore have no visible choices between different TAGs at all)

So the fastest selection path I could wish for would only need

4 clicks

1. Selecting the Server
(automatically showing all composers)
2. Selecting the Composer
(automatically showing all the works)
3. Selecting the Work
(automatically showing all Works
-which are Groups in my case- with artist info)
4. Selecting the Work to play

This configuration implicates that it must be possible to
set up multiple instances of the server, as it wouldn't be possible
to make any other search when this server is selected.
(and in this case I already would have the Contents limited to classical music only)

A more versatile solution would need to put in another click.
But it would make more than one QuickselectPath possible
and would work well with only a single instance:

1. Selecting the Server
(in this case it shows the same view as now but with some more icons
for several predefined quickselect paths)
2. Selecting one of the predefined quickselect paths
which could be defined completely in the following way

QuickselectPath = "Classical Works" (Example Name)
Album_Category = "ClassicalMusic" (is meant to be a fixed filter)
Composer = <SelectManually>
Work = <SelectManually>

This would select "ClassicalMusic" for the TAG: Album_Category
automatically and then showing autmatically the
Composers List

3. Selecting the Composer
(automatically showing all the works)
4. Selecting the Work (automatically showing all Works
(which are Groups in my case) with artist info)
5. Selecting the Work to play

Another Quickselect Path might lead to your favourite albums

Quickselect Path: "Favourites"
Rating = "5"
Album = <SelectManually>

or

Quickselect Path: "Favourite Vocal Jazz"
Album_Category = "Jazz"
Genre = "Vocal"
Rating = "5"
Album = <SelectManually>


And now the most elegant solution i could think of combining those 2 models

Take my second model with several quickselect paths.
When you select minimserver on your control point
you now can see several things to be selected that
I will call RootView:

Some tags
Some QuickselectPaths
Folders
(and may be something else in the future)

Now make it possible that Minimserver can have
a configured preselection of this first hierarchy.
Therefore you could forexample preselect
the Favourites QuickselectPath

So when selecting the Server you would automatically
enter that path and you would see only your favourite albums.

And now TATA
to make things complete
add an new extra feature
>> Show complete Collection
or
>> Root View
to get back to the root view

With this model I can select my ClassicalWorks
again with 4 clicks.
And I still have the whole Search tree available.

I for my case would still like to set up several
Instances of Minimserver as described in my
other posts, and now with different quickselect Paths
and different preselections for my different Musical Categories.

I am courious how you (and others) my (s)

<Pooh enought English writing for today>

[Dieter Stockert]

I like this.