Please help me start up with tags

[Alandbush]

(03-08-2021 12:34)MiniMe Wrote:  My fav example for playing a hi level folder is e.g. having a folder that is named e.g. "Weekend". I would move in and out of this folder my fav cd folder for the weekend and would like to in one go create a playlist for it, so without having to redo all tags or to have to move all albums one by one into a new playlist.

This example suggests you would benefit from a playlist creator.

A playlist file contains a list of filenames and their respective absolute or relative folder path. No files are physically moved/copied; no tags need redoing.

This can be performed by both of your control points (Lumin playlist help) BUT the playlist is saved within the control points' device, i.e. it cannot be shared across other control points.

MP3tag and other Windows/Mac software can also perform this function with the benefit of saving the details as a playlist file (more info) to your music directory.
Minimserver recognises playlist files and a control point can display the contents of a playlist file as if it was an 'folder'/'album'.

[Alandbush]

(03-08-2021 14:35)MiniMe Wrote:  Any chance to get the file type (preferrably in 3 char) into the album displayformat?

#AudioFormat

See more info.

[simbun]

(03-08-2021 12:34)MiniMe Wrote:  From my previous chapter with Sonos devices I could in the Sonos app always play hi level folders. I miss this option in uPnp streaming sofar. I'm sure though this can be programmed around.

I use BubbleUPnP and at each level within an index there's a vertical ellipsis that if selected offers me the ability to 'Play, Shuffle play, Enqueue' every item within that index. I don't know if this functionality if offered by every control point, but it's not controlled by the server, so you might have to look around.

(03-08-2021 12:34)MiniMe Wrote:  My fav example for playing a hi level folder is e.g. having a folder that is named e.g. "Weekend". I would move in and out of this folder my fav cd folder for the weekend and would like to in one go create a playlist for it, so without having to redo all tags or to have to move all albums one by one into a new playlist.

If you continued to move albums into a Weekend folder you'd be able to replicate the Sonos functionality simply by browsing via '[folder view]'.
If you wanted to avoid moving albums around, and didn't want to modify the tags, the other option is tagUpdate.
It's a slightly more advanced feature, but it allows you to create virtual (they only exist within the scope of MinimServer) tags that could be used to bring multiple albums under an index selection.

For instance:

Code:

@ALBUM=Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
@ALBUM=Dark Side Of The Moon
+WEEKEND_PLAYLIST=1

adds the virtual tag WEEKEND_PLAYLIST with a value of 1 to each song that has an album name of 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' or 'Dark Side Of The Moon'.
You could then leverage automatic selection and add WEEKEND_PLAYLIST=1 to indexTags, and you'd see a selection within the control point called WEEKEND_PLAYLIST that when selected would contain all of the albums you've added via the tagUpdate script (or that have a WEEKEND_PLAYLIST tag in the files themselves).

Out of interest is Sonos your target system, as by going this route you'll lose the option to have stereo (two speakers paired L & R) or synchronised playback.

[MiniMe]

Thanks or all the help and suggestions.

No Sonos for me any longer. I don't need multiroom and found that other endpoints work better E.g. 8player (found in IOS App Store) plays almost everything and almost to everywhere incl the phone that it runs on.
Also Linn Kazoo (old) app works well in finding everything that MinimServer serves over the network and this app is both available for computer and phone. It can also add the higher level results similar to BubbleuPnp. Kazoo has some options to add files from the upper levels coming from MinimServer. By the way I use Metadatics for tagging. I found that it does everything but extracting playlists.

A playlist generator might thus be a solution, as long as MinimServer could serve them to the control point software as album or so. With tagging done right (still experimenting!) behavior of a "Weekend" folder could be mimicked by (mis)use of the Genre, it could get the trick done in spite of some flexibility lost. Given the control point views that are better and easier looking if tagging is done right, I'd go the tagging route anyway.

I noted that if I go to Genre, then find my fav Genre thereunder, and then on the right side of this fav Genre tell the app to create a playlist, I see that it pushes all items twice (previously 3x?) to the playlist. Can this be prevented?
This makes sense though, because if you open the Genre, you'll find thereunder [n] Albums + [n] items + Album (and under the Album there are again the albums within the genre. MinimServer setting?

[MiniMe]

(03-08-2021 13:57)simoncn Wrote:  [..] setting the tagFormat option to:

Album.displayFormat={$artist^^ - $album}

Thanks this was a good starting point!

(03-08-2021 15:10)Alandbush Wrote:  #AudioFormat

Thanks! Found the solution in #AudioQuality

[MiniMe]

Ok, so now I have set TagFormat as: Album.displayFormat={$AlbumArtist^^ - $album^^ ($#AudioQuality^^)}. In addition for if AlbumArtist is missing I substituted it with Artist by setting tagValue as: AlbumArtist.default={Artist}
This results in the desired album names in the control point.

I happend to get it right mostly.

[simoncn]

What setting do you have for Album.sortTags?

[MiniMe]

I think I have the album sorting + playlist sorted with the following tagOptions:

album.sortTags={albumartist,Album},items.sortTags={albumartist,Album,title,Track​number}

I had issues with A-Z sorting of compilation Albums, that I resolved with AlbumArtist tagged into "VA"

Then, how does it come that if I browse e.g. to Genre, then go to Sorted by quality, that if I click the ' CD' option, that I get all items below 2x in the playlist? (I know that there below are a [n] items + cd1 + cd2 = together 2x all the items) But can I prevent this duplicate adding?

[simoncn]

Is "sorted by quality" the MinimServer #AudioQuality selection or something else that the control point provides? What is 2x? What are cd1 and cd2?

A screenshot showing the problem would be helpful.

[simbun]

I don't have ios to test your control point, and I'm not sure what 'Sorted by quality' is, but assuming you're just saying that if you Enqueue from a top level index e.g. Genre, then it adds everything below it to your playlist (the same songs from [n] Albums, [n] items e.t.c.), then that's probably the expected behaviour. I assume if you make the selection and then enqueued from '[n] albums' it works as expected.
BubbleUPnP has a setting to remove duplicates so you're able to enqueue from a top level folder, but it's control point specific so you'll have to dig into the settings.
MinimServer does have the setting listViewAlbums which tells MinimServer when to take you directly to an album view (which would prevent duplicates), but if you set this too high you'll only ever be able to make a single index selection.

On an unrelated note, the other thing you'll probably want to install is BubbleUPnP server (unless all your renderers are OpenHome compatiable), which creates proxies for your renderers to give them OpenHome capabilities. This means the queues (and responsibility for advancing tracks) are held on the (proxy) renderer, otherwise you'll have to stick to a single device/control point and make sure it's always on. This does however mean your control point must also be OpenHome compatiable, which I'm pretty sure Lumin is but not sure about 8-player.