Cascade Media Type "MULTIARTIST (Sorting on Title)" ?

[MediocreFred]

Hello,

Have been using Madsonic for a few weeks now and am generally happy with it (donated too). I have a question that I am hoping, has an easy answer.

I've been a Subsonic user for years and am now trying to adapt to the new indexing, sorting, browsing order changes introduced with 4.7 (and the corresponding Madsonic builds).

I have a pretty large collection of music (~ 3.5 TB). About 5% of it has the correct ID3 tags. The rest have none or incorrect tags that should not be relied on. The only accurate information is in the folder and file names. Updating all ID3 tags is beyond what I can undertake any time soon. Playing around with Madsonic, I find that forcing the MediaType of a folder to "MULTIARTIST (Sorting on Title)", lets me browse the albums/folders within it in the correct order. However, I have thousands of folders and subfolders and it's not practical to change the MediaType of each of them manually. Is there a way to set this at the top and force it to get cascaded to the subfolders?

Also, I would have expected setting the MediaType to "DIRECTORY" to give me the desired result - force Madsonic to use file names and folder names for browsing and sorting, but, it doesn't do that. Only "MULTIARTIST" appears to use the subfolder names and sort by the names. So, what is the purpose of the "DIRECTORY" MediaType setting?

Thanks,
MediocreFred,

[pemholder]

The only accurate information is in the folder and file names. Updating all ID3 tags is beyond what I can undertake any time soon.

If you're filenames and folders have correct and consistant informations it is very easy to fill the tags automatically with a suitable tagging-software i.e. like MP3Tag
http://mp3tag.de/

[MediocreFred]

Sadly, that is not the case. The folders and subfolders denote various music and non-music related categories/groupings and there is no consistency between various folder trees - some are relatively flat (2 levels or so; the others are much deeper and are fairly arbitrary in how they are grouped).

Subsonic's earlier behavior (pre 4.7) worked fine for me - it let me browse folders and locate and play albums - folder names and file names were used to sort the contents of each folder. Is there a global switch in Madsonic (and if there isn't can I please request the addition of one) that gives the option of using folders and files for browsing, but uses folder names, file names as well as ID3 tags to index and search. If this feature doesn't exist, I will gladly donate again to add it in. As a comparison, MediaMonkey (v3 and now, v4) does exactly this - allow browsing by folder structure, but, index based on id3 tags in addition to names of folders and files.

Thanks.

[MadEvil]

hi,

I think cascading the Mediatype will break the logic of Mediatype scanning.

But you have other options, you can also use filetags -> viewtopic.php?f=15&t=10673
or you use the new Build 3206, i add a new feature to Sort albums by foldernames -> General Settings
I hope this help you with your folder structure.



best regards

[MediocreFred]

Hi MadEvil,

Wow! I am blown away by your responsiveness!!!

A new build within a day of making a feature request! Amazing. Thanks very much. I will try this out over the next couple of days and let you know.

Thanks,
MediocreFred.

[MediocreFred]

Hi MadEvil,

Installed the newest beta build. Disabled media folders, cleaned DB, re-enabled media folders and did a rescan.

When browsing, only the last 2 levels ("songs in a folder" and the folder immediately above) are sorted alphabetically by file/folder name.

As an example, one of the folder structures is like this:

Code: Select all

Collection 1                                 - This is defined as one of the media folders
|_
    SubCollection 1                          - Multiple folders at this level - generally, names of people that provided the media files
    |_
        Genre 1                              - Multiple Genres at this level
        |_
            Audio                            - Denotes type of media file - multiple folders at this level - audio, video, podcast, etc
            |_
                Group 1                      - Multiple folders at this level - denotes an albumset (say 200 albums in each folder)
                |_
                    Album 1                  - Multiple folders at this level - one folder per album
                    |_
                        Songs                - Multiple songs


The last two levels (Album and Song) almost always have a numeric prefix as part of the file/folder name.

The Group folders are generally of the format "Albums 001-200" or similar.

With build 3206 (and "Sort albums by foldernames" checked), the Albums (in a group) and Songs (in an album) are sorted alphabetically (Previously, the songs would use the Title attribute and not the filename - creating a mess). However, the Groups and levels above are not sorted alphabetically. At the topmost level (Subcollections within a Collection), the folders are only sorted alphabetically if I force the MediaType to "MULTIARTIST". The same is true as I drill down until I hit Albums in a Group - the Albums are all sorted as desired.

I have numerous SubCollections and the folder structure within each one is kinda similar to the layout above (some are shallower and a few are deeper). It is really hard to change the MediaType manually for all of them. Will it be possible for you to force the "use foldernames" behavior to the top levels too?

Thanks,
MediocreFred.

[MadEvil]

Hi,
i tried to rebuild your folder structure but i can't see that folders are not right sorted.
Do you have a screenshot for me of this?
best regards

[MediocreFred]

Hi,

OK, I just browsed through the folders again and it all looks OK now!!! I have no idea how it got fixed automagically. Before I posted the previous message, I refreshed the browser multiple times and even restarted it - just to make sure it wasn't caching anything.

Anyway, it all looks good now. I apologize for wasting your time (with having to replicate my folder structure). Thank you very much!

As promised, I will donate again in a few minutes .

Thanks,
MediocreFred.

Hi,
i tried to rebuild your folder structure but i can't see that folders are not right sorted.
Do you have a screenshot for me of this?
best regards

[MadEvil]

Hi,
OK, I just browsed through the folders again and it all looks OK now!!! I have no idea how it got fixed automagically. Before I posted the previous message, I refreshed the browser multiple times and even restarted it - just to make sure it wasn't caching anything.
Anyway, it all looks good now. I apologize for wasting your time (with having to replicate my folder structure). Thank you very much!
As promised, I will donate again in a few minutes .
Thanks,
MediocreFred.

Hi,
i tried to rebuild your folder structure but i can't see that folders are not right sorted.
Do you have a screenshot for me of this?
best regards

Hi,
Thanks again for your support and donate!!
sounds strange, but with the new Build 3210 i expand this to the Mediatype Artist, so now the sorting hopefully work on all your folders.

best regards