Suggestion/dream: "Artistplayer", "My TVSeries-oid plugin for music" (1 Viewer)

datja

Portal Pro
March 3, 2007
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Stockholm
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Dear developers and users,

Having had a love-affair with MP for around three years, MP and I have had our ups and downs (you know how relations are). Recently, however, with the addition of this lovely My TVSeries (and also Moving Pictures which in a good way imitates TVSeries), things are at the best ever with MP and me. Even my wife participates now, and spends some time alone with MP.

Thank you.

(It's funny that the old remote button named "my movies" very seldom is pressed anymore, because these two abovementioned plugs do more and better.)

Here is my suggestion: What if I wouldn't have to press the "my music" button as well, but instead there was a plugin using TVSeries "machinery" to have a similar nice overview but of Artists. Like this:

TVSeries are sorted as Series/Season/Episode.avi (with all the lovely banners, artwork, information at the right places and fetched from the right places). Would it be possible -- without too much blood, sweat, toil and tears -- to make a similar "Artistplayer plugin" ("AP")?

AP would be directed to the right folder(s), then, provided the user has his collection well sorted with the following folder structure: Artistname/Albumname/Songname.mp3, it would be able to identify artists (from the folder name), then each album (from the folder name [allowing for minor variants like "remastered" and release year in the foldername]). AP would present an overview (similar to the TVSeries overview), with nice fanarts (of the artists) and artistinfo from allmusic.com (for example). Clicking an artist, one would enter the list of albums (similar to the list of seasons in TVSeries), also with appropriate info and pictures. One could here click an album and see the songs (although I am unsure if information exists pertaining to every song, maybe lyrics could be got from the MyLyrics plugin, I don't know). The only general difference between AP and TVSeries would be that the play button would be live in AP (pressing play on an artist would play all the artist's albums) and pressing play on an album would play the album.

Wouldn't that be something!
 

quixote23

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  • December 12, 2008
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    GREAT idea. I would heartily second this request - I've been fighting with MyMusic all week to get it to sort and display my music collection the way I like and I have to admit that it has some major shortcomings.

    Most of what you describe here could be done with parsing, I think - the user could configure the plugin to sort and display based on folder\filename to their own liking. Everyone has their own preferred style of folder\file naming and there doesn't seem to be a universal standard... Personally, I use a "(genre)\(artist)\(artist) - (year) - (album title)\(track #) - (artist) - (song title)" structure and I would LOVE to be able to have my music sorted accordingly in MediaPortal. Even if the overwhelming demand is to sort by ID3 tags, it would be nice to have this option available.

    As for thumbs, i have a folder.jpg in every one of my album folders so it should be a simple matter of grabbing that for the album thumb, and then implementing the Audioscrobble plugin (as MyMusic does) for the artist and genre thumbs - though it would be cool to have the option to manually select a genre\artist thumb as well. As for other data the plugin might grab - lyrics would be great, or info from allmusic.com (ratings\reviews\etc).

    I'm in full agreement regarding the "live" play button having different functions in artist\album sub-screens. I'd also suggest a very simple default visualisation (for those who don't want or need Milkdrop on all the time) which expands the album thumb and presents the ID3 tag data along with a progress bar for that particular track, album, disc, or whatever.

    If there's one huge criticism I have of MyMusic, it's that it handles compilations and multi-disc sets (like box sets) very poorly. This could be solved very simply by presenting a configuration option when importing (or after importing) one's collection, to categorise it as "single artist album", "compilation", "box set\multi-disc", "soundtrack" or what have you. This category could be automatically grabbed from the ID3 tag if it exists but it's a lot easier to go into a plugin's config and tick off a series of albums as "compilation" than it is to manually re-tag a slew of albums.

    I know you're appealing to the developers of MyTVSeries directly since they've done such fantastic work with that plugin, but this thread should probably be moved to the main Plugins forum - where, at very least, it may get the attention of other plugin deveopers who might not normally keep up with the goings-on of MyTVSeries. :D
     

    marvenius

    Portal Pro
    September 3, 2008
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    Belgium
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    GREAT idea. I would heartily second this request - I've been fighting with MyMusic all week to get it to sort and display my music collection the way I like and I have to admit that it has some major shortcomings.
    <snip>
    I know you're appealing to the developers of MyTVSeries directly since they've done such fantastic work with that plugin, but this thread should probably be moved to the main Plugins forum - where, at very least, it may get the attention of other plugin deveopers who might not normally keep up with the goings-on of MyTVSeries. :D
    There already is such a thread. Your input will probable be much appreciated:
    https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mediaportal-plugins-47/new-plugin-music-part-possible-52421/
     

    tourettes

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • January 7, 2005
    17,301
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    Most of what you describe here could be done with parsing, I think - the user could configure the plugin to sort and display based on folder\filename to their own liking. Everyone has their own preferred style of folder\file naming and there doesn't seem to be a universal standard... Personally, I use a "(genre)\(artist)\(artist) - (year) - (album title)\(track #) - (artist) - (song title)" structure and I would LOVE to be able to have my music sorted accordingly in MediaPortal. Even if the overwhelming demand is to sort by ID3 tags, it would be nice to have this option available.

    That should be already possible. Just use some sophisticated ID3 tagger that is able to generate the tags based on file names & folder structures (almost all should do it) and the configure a DB view to match the wanted layout in MP.
     

    datja

    Portal Pro
    March 3, 2007
    51
    2
    Stockholm
    Home Country
    Sweden Sweden
    Nice replies from y'all!

    marvenius, thank you for pointing me to that thread. I will post my thoughts there as well.
    (I searched for that kind of thread without luck for some time.) I realise that my suggestion in a way is off topic from the TVSeries plugin. However, I have fantasies that a kind TVSeries developer would pick up my thoughts and cook up an "artistplayer" reasonably painlessly and fast, using the TVSeries-programming skeleton.

    quixote23,
    I believe you and I have similar My Music setups, and it works, but without the fireworks you get from TVSeries. Of course, using ID3tags is not out of the question. (My collection is VERY anally tagged throughout.) But I think the folder-based solution is superior simply because of its simplicity. My own collection is based on file structure, because I get what I expect. Let's say there's an album where the albumartist shares credits with another guy on the last song: tag-based systems will then have problems, but the folder-based system is too simple to be bothered by it. I also use folder.jpgs as you, but wouldn't it be nice if "AP" could fetch huge fanart backdrops which could be randomly cycled according to your tastes. ID3tags would still find a lot of uses with the "AP" system, since tags can provide extra information, lyrics for example.

    tourettes,
    No matter how I tinker with the views in MP, I am unable to have (for example) the info about the artist popping when going through a list of artist names.
     

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