Discsubtitle groupings

[simbun]

For me MinimServer already exceeds my expectations by some margin, so please take this request/suggestion as it is intended - the cherry on top ;-)

Quite often you'll have special album releases that contain extra content, and that content will be contained on an additional disc and have a disc subtitle. In such a case MinimServer would show:

Code:

Rumours (Expanded Edition)
--------------------------
  Disc 1
  Live, 1977 "Rumours" World Tour
  More From The Recording Sessions

To me the 'Disc 1' is visually jarring, so I add the name of the album (without the release info) to the first disc so in the control point it looks like:

Code:

Rumours (Expanded Edition)
--------------------------
  Rumours
  Live, 1977 "Rumours" World Tour
  More From The Recording Sessions

Which looks and works well, however, I've just ripped a few albums where the disc subtitle is on the third disc, and so the presentation looks like:

Code:

Brit Awards 2015
----------------
  Brit Awards 2015 (Disc 1 by default)
  1..21
  Brit Awards 2015 (Disc 2 by default)
  1..22
  Previous Brit Winners
  1..20

Not only does this look a little messy (at least to me), but if I wanted to play everything apart from the bonus content (something I do probably every time apart from the very first time) I'd have to firstly clear the existing queue, then enqueue both discs, and finally head to the playlist and play from the beginning.

Would it be possible that if you saw consecutive discs with the same disc subtitle, you group those discs together, to produce something like:

Code:

Brit Awards 2015
----------------
  Brit Awards 2015
  1..43
  Previous Brit Winners
  1..20

As always, thanks for the product, the support and the consideration.

[simoncn]

Thanks for this suggestion. I understand what you want and why you want it.

When deciding whether to add a new feature, there is always a trade-off between added functionality and added complexity.

Currently an album is either fully split into discs or fully merged. Your suggestion adds a third case of partially merged. It also adds a new concept of "disc group" which is a combination of multiple discs (where each disc is identified by a DISCNUMBER value).

These new cases and concepts would need to be explained in the documentation. This adds complexity for a new user trying to understand how MinimServer handles multidisc albums. This area is already fairly complex for users to understand.

The implementation code would also become significantly more complex. At present, the disc number is used to identify a disc grouping. If tracks belonging to disc 2 are grouped with tracks belong to disc 1, either some other disc grouping internal structure would be needed or all tracks from disc 2 would need to be reclassified as being from disc 1.

As I understand your use case, you want to always treat all tracks from disc 1 and disc 2 as belonging to a single disc. This suggests a simple solution of tagging all these tracks as being part of disc 1.

For these reasons, I don't think the added functionality justifies the added complexity.

[simbun]

(09-01-2022 18:43)simoncn Wrote:  As I understand your use case, you want to always treat all tracks from disc 1 and disc 2 as belonging to a single disc. This suggests a simple solution of tagging all these tracks as being part of disc 1.

Modifying the tags creates bigger problems on the back end though, as now systems (such as taggers and verifiers) can't identify what it is (as it's now a single disc with 43 tracks who's TOC doesn't match any in the database). The reason I like MinimServer so much is that it enables a model, viewer relationship; I can have the data stored in a highly structured, consistent way (ALBUM, RELEASE, DISCSUBTITLE, GROUP, TITLE, SUBTITLE, e.t.c.) yet I'm able to bring it all together and present it in a way that works for the control point.

I've just re-read the multidisc albums section. Whilst striving for the most "correct", flexible tagging scheme, I forget that not everyone has the same desire; having disc numbers or subtitles embedded in the album field horrifies me, yet it's the ability of MinimServer to mop all this up and make sense of it, that probably makes it as popular/valued as it is.
I had thought that having the one rule of "simply" grouping by disc subtitles may have made things easier for you, but I hadn't taken into account that some people actually want to see the physical separation of discs (hence the implementation of showAllDiscs I assume) - which doesn't really make sense to me as it's purely a limitation of the medium on which the album was distributed - so I completely understand that adding yet another grouping into the mix makes things unnecessarily complicated, especially when it appears it's for a relatively small set of albums.

tagUpdate to the rescue again, although it's a bit of a messy one as it has to renumber tracks.

Thanks Simon.

[simoncn]

I am with you in preferring to merge multiple discs. When I made this the default for multidisc albums, I didn't realise how many people prefer discs to be separated. Various tweaks since then have attempted to strike a difficult balance between different preferences for how to handle this, unfortunately making the rules more complex with each change.

Rather than adding yet further tweaks such as overloading DISCSUBTITLE, a better solution that meets a number of requirements would be a flexible way to map the physical structure of discs and tracks to a logical hierarchy that can be configured to suit the user's requirements. This could include a level above album for boxed sets and a level below album and above disc for subdivisions such as the acts of an opera. The latter should also satisfy this requirement of yours. This is not imminent but might happen after some more urgent work items have been completed.

[simbun]

(10-01-2022 11:41)simoncn Wrote:  Rather than adding yet further tweaks such as overloading DISCSUBTITLE, a better solution that meets a number of requirements would be a flexible way to map the physical structure of discs and tracks to a logical hierarchy that can be configured to suit the user's requirements. This could include a level above album for boxed sets and a level below album and above disc for subdivisions such as the acts of an opera. The latter should also satisfy this requirement of yours. This is not imminent but might happen after some more urgent work items have been completed.

Whilst adhering to the limitations of the UPnP spec throughout no doubt! Not thought of creating MinimControl ;-)

Box sets are an interesting one; within the current implementation I've chosen to have everything within the box set be an album, and have the tag BOXTITLE be appended to the album name (using .displayFormat of course) so I know it's come from a box set. I've chosen this route as I have quite a few albums that I have multiple releases of (original, remasters, 50th Anniversary e.t.c.) and given I sort them by the original release date I can see them next to each other, but it also means I see "albums" that really should only be seen within the confines of the box set e.g. archival recordings that have never been released before other than through the box set itself.

Have you thought how you'd display items at that level? I think it would be nice to see them represented as a single entity, but I wouldn't want to lose the ability to have all the albums listed next to each other. Maybe you could show the box set alongside the albums (with some differentiator), and have some way of hiding certain discs within the set so they're only listed when you descend into it.

Anyway, looks like you have enough to be keeping you busy for some time yet!

[simoncn]

I would expect the box set to appear in the albums list. Opening the box set would show all the albums inside (as a list of albums, not the way discs are shown). The albums inside would not show alongside the box set, only when the box set is opened. This approach is simple and should work with UPnP.

[simbun]

I guess if they're albums then they'll be returned from an album UPnP search, or would they be akin to Groups like you have now which don't show up in searches?

The reason I ask is because in BubbleUPnP, if I navigate to 'The Beatles' via AlbumArtist, I can click on the 3 vertical dots alongside one of their albums and it gives me the ability to show 'Albums by The Beatles ...', that hopefully would return all the albums outside of box sets plus albums in box sets e.g. 'Sgt Pepper' contained in the box sets 'The Beatles' and 'The Beatles in Mono' as well as the album 'Sgt Pepper (Super Deluxe Edition)'.

[simoncn]

Albums inside a box set would show as albums in a UPnP search.

Please provide more information about groups not showing up in a search. How are you doing this search?

[simbun]

(11-01-2022 11:35)simoncn Wrote:  Please provide more information about groups not showing up in a search. How are you doing this search?

Sorry I think I got myself confused there. I noticed that the Groups are of [object.container.album.musicAlbum] so was half expecting them to be returned by the BubbleUPnP 'Albums by ...', but given it's a server side UPnP search you don't need to compromise i.e. you don't classify the group as an album.

(11-01-2022 11:35)simoncn Wrote:  Albums inside a box set would show as albums in a UPnP search.

So it looks like by default I'll have a view closer to what I would on a shelf of real CD's (with just the cover of the box set visible), and by using the UPnP search/'Albums by' I'll be able to see all the albums next to each other, much like I do now. Colour me excited :-)
Now I'd better make sure I've got box set artwork available.

[Oliviander]

(10-01-2022 11:41)simoncn Wrote:  I am with you in preferring to merge multiple discs. When I made this the default for multidisc albums, I didn't realise how many people prefer discs to be separated. Various tweaks since then have attempted to strike a difficult balance between different preferences for how to handle this, unfortunately making the rules more complex with each change.

Rather than adding yet further tweaks such as overloading DISCSUBTITLE, a better solution that meets a number of requirements would be a flexible way to map the physical structure of discs and tracks to a logical hierarchy that can be configured to suit the user's requirements. This could include a level above album for boxed sets and a level below album and above disc for subdivisions such as the acts of an opera. The latter should also satisfy this requirement of yours. This is not imminent but might happen after some more urgent work items have been completed.

Hi Simon
++1 for such a feature

but also question regarding this topic,
as I am struggling with the discsubtitle again:

Is there a general Limitation to the use of
discsubtitle.formatdisplay
Or might i be doing something wrong ?

Actually I use

tagvalue :
GROUP.replace={ALBUMPART},
DISCSUBTITLE.replace={DISCNUMBER}

which are both working as intended
but

tagFormat :
Group.displayFormat={$COMPOSER_SHORT^^: ^/$WORK^^^$PART^ - ^}, DISCSUBTITLE.displayFormat={$COMPOSER_SHORT^^: ^/$WORK^^}

only seems to work for the Group-Tag and not for Discsubtitle-Tag
and I don't get any error message ?

and Thx again for this great piece of software.