I have a couple of issues with auto-scan if library is empty: 1. After first-time install, there might not be any music in the default location (eg. "My Music" is empty for me, except for an iTunes library). 2. If the scanner crashes SBS, then SBS needs restarting. Thus SBS can't really be started and tweaked to investigate. 3. The settings might not be correct; I'd be annoyed if after waiting 1 hour to scan music, I then find it doesn't look right, need to tweak settings and discover a full rescan is necessary.
(1) Maybe this isn't a problem if the setup wizard prompts the user. I've never seen the setup wizard. Does it prompt for many settings, such as "where is your music located?". I heard that it didn't. (2) Shouldn't happen, but Scanner in 7.6 seems very unreliable, and it's crashing randomly for me. I can't get a full scan to complete, and it crashes quite quickly. Hence, every time I start up, it rescans and crashes. (3) It's worth showing the user any settings that if changed would require a full rescan, before doing a scan. There is also an auto-rescan when a setting is changed that affects the way the scanner works, which is also annoying in that it's not always obvious and there can be multiple settings to change (such as music path on one settings tab, and separator character on another settings tab). Suggested Improvement: It's hard to see what might affect a scan at the moment (some options have tooltips to say a rescan will automatically start when apply is pressed). Options are spread across at least two tabs (Basic Settings and Music Library Settings). I think any settings that control or require a library rescan should be on a separate settings tab called "Library Scan", instead of mixed in with all of the other settings. They are more likely to be a once-off configuration, and there's not many of them. I'd even just have a single "Full Rescan" button action on this "Library Scan" settings page, and have "Scan for changes" on a separate page. >but thats not what i'm suggesting. at the end of the wizard, a prompt >could appear that simply says "Allow SBS to scan for your Music now?" >and the choices would be "Yes" or "No" > Either: 1) Display a message at the end of the wizard, so it is truly a one-off occasion (as the wizard will only be run once). This could run the out-of-process scanner, before starting SBS. 2) When SBS is started, show a warning that the "library is empty and a scan is required" on the player UI. The web UI could even auto-open the scan settings page and display the message. Don't auto-rescan, let the user decide when to rescan. _______________________________________________ beta mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/beta
