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[LeoH]

Is there a way to export a list of just artists or a list of just album names? I can get at this by exporting a playlist but the redunancies need to be filtered out. It would be useful to just get a list of artists or albums outside of the MediaCenter environment. I am using MC11. Thanks.

[Jaguu]

You may download the MC XML Export plugin by Scott_R at:

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~scottray/MC/xmlexport/

It will do exactly what you want!

[LeoH]

Scott's XML Export is excellent and comes close to what I was requesting in my post. However, what I need is to be able to get a list of unique artist names and unique album names from my database. XML Export seems to be a highly configurable playlist export in XML instead of the ASCII, MPL, and M3U formats found in Media Center. So, one can export just Arist Name, for instance, but the name will appear as many times as there are tracks by that artist. Of course, one can write a parser that removes redundancies, but I was hoping to find something already coded. The XML Export plug-in is very well thought out and complete so I very likely am just overlooking something. If so, I would be grateful to be pointed in the right direction. Thanks.

[IlPadrino]

Scott's XML Export is excellent and comes close to what I was requesting in my post. However, what I need is to be able to get a list of unique artist names and unique album names from my database. XML Export seems to be a highly configurable playlist export in XML instead of the ASCII, MPL, and M3U formats found in Media Center. So, one can export just Arist Name, for instance, but the name will appear as many times as there are tracks by that artist. Of course, one can write a parser that removes redundancies, but I was hoping to find something already coded. The XML Export plug-in is very well thought out and complete so I very likely am just overlooking something. If so, I would be grateful to be pointed in the right direction. Thanks.

LeoH,

You're on the right track.  Scott_r's MC XML Export plubin will produce precisely what you want, but you need the appropriate XSLT to do what you're asking.  Have you checked the presets at http://pages.sbcglobal.net/scottraymond/Presets.htm for one that's already done?

[Alex B]

No plugins are needed. E.g. a list of all albums:

1. Search: ~nodup=[Album]
2. Select all and send to a new playlist. Go to that playlist. You can sort and update the list order if you wish.
3. In "Customize Current View" select only "Album Artist (auto)" and "Album".
4. Export the playlist in HTML or ASCII Delimited format (Only Visible Fields).

You can open an ASCII Delimited playlist with a spreadsheet program (Excel or similar). Use the | character as a column delimiter when opening.

[IlPadrino]

No plugins are needed. E.g. a list of all albums:

1. Search: ~nodup=[Album]
2. Select all and send to a new playlist. Go to that playlist. You can sort and update the list order if you wish.
3. In "Customize Current View" select only "Album Artist (auto)" and "Album".
4. Export the playlist in HTML or ASCII Delimited format (Only Visible Fields).

You can open an ASCII Delimited playlist with a spreadsheet program (Excel or similar). Use the | character as a column delimiter when opening.

Granted...  but this isn't as elegant as the MC XML Export solution which is one-click.  Wouldn't you need to recreate the playlist each time changes to the database where made.  How about with a smartlist instead?

[Alex B]

You cannot export smartlists. You can of course make a smartlist with that search expression so the list is always ready for a quick playlist creation.

[LeoH]

Alex,

I have been creating scheme views for a long time and just overlooked ~nodup, oh well. Thanks very much for the tip, you saved me much time!

-Leo