Streamlining the browsing tree & multiple configs

[DavidHB]

(19-09-2013 00:11)haggis999 Wrote:  ... my goal is the simplest solution that actually does the job.

We can have a useful discussion, because we at least agree on the purpose of the exercise.

Quote:However, I'm struggling to fully understand your post as I'm not sure what you mean by "indexing". I suspect you mean the use of metadata tags.

Yes and no. 'Indexing' is a central concept of database management, and, whatever else our music collections may be, they are also databases (= sets of ordered data). An index is simply a (small) subset of the database that forms an ordered list with pointers to the location of items within the database. By way of example, it is easy to see that the card index (or computerised listing) in your local library performs this function.

When you are modifying the settings in MinimServer, as you have been discussing with Simon, you are, in effect instructing it to change the way it indexes your music collection. Obviously, you are using data in tags for this purpose, but the key to the way MinimServer works is not the tags as such, but the way in which the server uses those tags to build the set of lists/indexes which it provides to the Control Point, so that you can use them for browsing (and, I hope, in due course searching as well).

The most clever thing in this process is the way in which the relevant part of one list can become subordinate to some other list, so that you can browse through the different 'layers' of listing. Your understandable concern has been to minimise the number of steps in this process, but we should at least acknowledge that something rather clever has been done to get you to the point at which you can make the request.

Quote: ... if you are suggesting that well organised physical disk storage of your music files can be the equal of well organised metadata then I have my doubts. To my mind, only metadata can cope with CDs that contain a mixture of works by a mixture of composers. Even albums that contain only works by the same composer must be difficult to browse when it is impossible to list all the works in the album title. How would you know which album to look in for a specific work unless you have a photographic memory?

The folder/file tree is, in fact, just another index, maintained by the OS (with the order specified by the user's creation of folders and files), rather than by Mininimserver. We are used to seeing it laid out as a tree structure, but the system actually stores it in tabular form; each logical drive has a 'file table'. All file systems/OSs now in use use some variant of this arrangement, because it is powerful and efficient, and provides an intuitive means of browsing and searching for files.

Like any single list, the file system has limitations, which you clearly understand. But it also has some particularly useful characteristics. Firstly, because it is a component of the OS, it has to be accessible to every application running in the system. Secondly, it is highly user configurable; typically within a top-level 'music' folder, for example, you can arrange your digital collection in any way you want.

Like many people, I keep music CDs of different genres on separate shelves. I only use a few high-level genres; the more detailed one tries to make a genre categorisation, the more useless it becomes, because art always has a happy way of defeating our attempts to classify it. Within each broad genre, I tend to arrange the music differently, just as fiction and non-fiction tend to be arranged differently in public libraries. The file system can mimic the physical ordering of my CDs rather well; as this ordering (which is of course a de facto list/index) has developed over the years to suit my needs, I tend to use it quite a bit. I don't need to change MinimServer settings to do this. And outside MinimServer, when I am using, say, dBPoweramp or MP3Tag to manage the collection, that standard order is still there.

Against that background, while I understand your doubts, my experience suggests that you will not know how well the file system can work for you unless you use it.

Quote: I'm all for a sensible and well organised disk folder structure but metadata allows you to directly target any work without caring where the music file is stored.

People who don't care where things are stored tend to lose them; that is as true of data as of anything else. If you are looking after your data in a properly organised file system, why not make full use of it? Of course the file system, being just another index, can co-exist with any other index you use. So, in MinimServer, I might use the folder view to get to Classical -> Bach, and then drop into a tag view (= an index) to find the artist whose Bach recording I wish to listen to. I find that very powerful.

Quote: You can also exploit more abstract concepts such as musical genres, which is impossible via the file storage structure unless you duplicate the files.

The file structure can be, and often is, based on abstract concepts, such as my use of genre described above. What the file system (or any single list/index) cannot do is provide more than one ordered view of the data. I quite agree that duplicating data in order to get a multiple view is bad practice in all sorts of ways. Multiple views require multiple indexes, and that is where applications like MinimServer come in.

Quote: ... my approach is quite the opposite of having its "origins in some physical arrangement of media". Metadata lets you break free from the constraints of the file storage system. The power of metadata is such that I can't remember the last time I looked at a folder view of my music.

I have already explained that the file system is just another index; it is not the way that data is physically stored on the drive (we don't need to go there!). Its constraints are not greater than those of any other single index. As I have said, the way we physically store our books, CDs or whatever, if it is not completely random, creates, in effect, a form of list or index. If that 'index' is useful in helping us to locate the physical CD on the shelf, we might wish to mimic its order in our music file system, to help us locate the virtual copy of that CD, particularly on those occasions when no other index is present. If other indexes are present (as when we are using a Control Point to access MinimServer), they can happily work with the folder view, as previously discussed.

The bottom line here is that the file system and other, application-based indexes are complementary; each has its use and, as MinimServer demonstrates, they can work particularly well together. To regard either as a complete substitute for the other would, in my view, be very unfortunate.

(The other) David