devs, Jim has said that 7.6 will now define any tracks that have a string in their tags, which matches the "compilation category naming" option, a comp.
[the option is in settings on the "my music" tab] right now, b/c that default is "Various Artists" that means that if that option is left unchanged, any track with that string of Various Artists, presumably in the artist or albumartist field, will now be classified as a comp to SBS. is that true??? IF SO, I APPLAUD THIS DECISION! IT IS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, NO DOUBT! GLAD TO SEE IT HAPPEN, THANK YOU! however, it is ONLY a step, and one about which i have some concerns. i would make the following suggestions: *1.* the user should be able to define AS MANY strings as they want, or NO STRINGS if thats what they want. this new propsed option would be EXACTLY like the existing "guess tags format" option in this way. the user could define multiple criteria; OR they could DEFEAT the function, by defining no criteria. but it would be UP TO THE USER, not forced and mandatory. for instance, someone may have AA tags on everything, and they'd want Various Artists, Soundtracks, and other strings recognized, so they could input whatever they wanted. however, others would not want this function at all, so they'd just leave all the fields in settings blank, defeating it. since it wouldn't be invoked, it wouldn't add any time to the scan process. perfect. *2.* you should NOT conflate the current "presentation" option, of what to denote the comps category, with ALSO being a string to recognize as meaning comp. first of all, thats too limited, its only one string. secondly, someone might want all their comps presented eg. under "Music Compilations" yet not have a single tag with that string on anything. i understand why you created that direct relationship, it was the dirty, quick and easy way to implement the new feature. but going forward it should be undone. how SBS classifies comps vs how to display them should remain SEPARATE entities/functions. *3.* it probably goes without saying, but explicit comp tags should always take precendence over defining comp status to SBS. string recognition functions should not trump that. *4.* since i am sure it has become apparent to you, the devs, that most users will come to SBS with either explicit comp tags (itunes) or AA tags, (WMP, winamp, loads of others) i think you now see that your current VA detection logic is in those cases, totally moot. that being the case, it makes sense to make that unnecessary logic OPTIONAL, so that users who don't need or want it can turn it off. Erland did the code already: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=8324 this will shorten the scanning process for those who don't need it, especially important for infrant users for example. it should still be "on" by default, and if it causes unwanted behavior for a given user when turned off, it could just be turned on again. but i see no reason for this logic to always be on as a mandatory condition. let the user decide! they might even desire the library effects of it being off even if they don't have comp tags or AA tags. *5.* since you are apparently doing this work now, you should be aware of this nasty bug: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=9523 basically, SBS was not displaying files that had the "Various Artist" string, at least under Home > Artists > Various Artists (maybe elsewhere also) b/c that conflicted with the so called "special case" VA category name, (the same option i was talking about earlier, on the "my music" tab, which has the default value of "Various Artists" ) --- again, i am glad you are moving in this direction, but i think its important to not hardcode anything, make it all optional, and don't conflate scanning options with presentation ones. thx! -- MrSinatra www.lion-radio.org using: sb2 & sbc (my home) / sbr (parent's home) - sbs 7.5b - win xp pro sp3 ie8 - p4(ht) 3.2ghz / 2gig ram - 1tb wd usb2 raid1 - d-link dir-655 - 40k+ mp3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=78205 _______________________________________________ beta mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/beta
