ML3 Nightly testing

[mvallevand]

For tonight I decide to lift the kimono a bit and look at collections. I did find and fix a few things and added a change to make collections more usable for me.

- Changing default collection via right click in config.exe should work.
- DB Scans in would not update all configured collections from config.exe
- added ability to easily select directories when making Collections

Because of the db changes, you might want to backup your old database just in case.

Martin

[Dave72]

Thanks for looking into that so quick Martin.
I read about that right-click default in some old thread.. it made sense to me, as one might not want the *entire* collection (system) to be up front on first startup (I like my whole albums collection up front).

Would it be worthwhile to have a collection require a password ? I have some adult audio tracks (Red Peters etc) that I wouldnt want my young ones to be found playing (lol). Any way to require a pin code to access a collection at the collection selection screen ?

(not a real big deal, can just leave them out of the scan completely..)

[Jaggy]

Excellent, now it is starting to do things a bit more like I expected when I installed it.

One question/suggestion about collections, I have my music stored under a main "Music Library" directory & under that in sub directories I have "Artist" & under that again I have "Album" say I would like to setup a "Favorites" collection & I want to pick "Artist1 Album-Greatest Hits" but not "Artist1 Red Album" as all the good songs are on the greatest hits album this would require the selection for setting up albums to go down another level, is that possible?

Further but more difficult I think, probably the proposed "Ratings" will do what I want. I would like to be able to select "Artist1 Red Album" but not select track 1,2,5,7,9,10 as they are already on Greatest Hits.

[psycik]

Collections are only really designed for stuff in descrete paths.

Say Music\Collection1 or Music\Collection2 and with will take decending from there.

I did toy with the idea of putting a file with the collection name in a directory. This would allow you do do what you want, but would require a fairly large rewrite of the collections code...and the number of people that use collections is pretty finite...

So if martin wanted to look at an idea like that. Then that was the best way that a collection system covering selected directories could work....

[Jaggy]

Collections are only really designed for stuff in descrete paths.

Say Music\Collection1 or Music\Collection2 and with will take decending from there.

I did think that was how it was setup & I did say I could shuffle my files.

I did toy with the idea of putting a file with the collection name in a directory. This would allow you do do what you want, but would require a fairly large rewrite of the collections code...and the number of people that use collections is pretty finite...

There are probably other ways of doing what I want but collections seem the logical way to me. Mainly I want a default collection for the wife with just her stuff in it (WAF is very important ) then one with her humor recording (not really music as the are talking but??) then my stuff....which will have some of her stuff in it as well. I can see the idea when you setup collections for things like Xmas etc. but I think they have a lot more potential than that.

So if martin wanted to look at an idea like that. Then that was the best way that a collection system covering selected directories could work....

I will just have to wait & see his reaction <grin>

[mvallevand]

Hi here are a few comments:

Yesterday's update does allow a little bit better selection of folder but it only goes one level deep. In the future as I've written I do expect adding improved tree control.

I suggested an option of auto-playing foldername.m3u instead of sorted tracks when a folder is queued. I didn't get any feedback but your 1,2,5 scenario is what this is decided to achieve.

I also will allow tagging albums as compilations and live albums, and will give an option of putting them automatically into their own collection.

Your Red Album scenario also indicates another thing thing I am planing. I don't like naming multi disk files 101 102.. 201 201, but I haven't worked it all out.

Martin

[mvallevand]

Would it be worthwhile to have a collection require a password ? I have some adult audio tracks (Red Peters etc) that I wouldnt want my young ones to be found playing (lol). Any way to require a pin code to access a collection at the collection selection screen ?

Not now, I will wait and see on this. Probably putting a password on the system collection is as far as I'd take it. Certainly to avoid surprises consider the noindex.txt file and norandom.txt file for the system collection.

Martin

[Dave72]

consider the noindex.txt file and norandom.txt file

I forgot about noindex.txt. I guess this could work for now, at least it wont be available (and yet, still on my hd for access with other utils (no real reason to play them at the htpc/mvp end anyhow..)

BTW, I should let ya know.. my sister in law was staying with us for a few days, she found ML3 on the MVP and was browsing and playing tunes without troubles. She's not a tech-head or anything, so I think this is a good sign for the 'average' joe on the current release level. Only thing she didnt know about was how to switch collections at the remote.. there's no indication that this is an option. No big deal though.

[mvallevand]

Actually she just found your password protection!

Thanks for this feedback, I actually found ML2 confusing and odd when I first installed it, but it really does become second-nature after a bit of use and I think psycik did a really good job.

Martin

[pz1]

Certainly to avoid surprises consider the noindex.txt file and norandom.txt file for the system collection.

But do leave sub's standard music player in your configuration to reward the inquisitive kid