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Author Topic: Media Server customisation  (Read 1349 times)

Orac

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Media Server customisation
« on: July 09, 2014, 02:54:51 am »

Hi All,

I'm relatively new to all this media server stuff so please bear with me if my questions seem vague ..  :-[

I am using MC 19.0.146 and enabled the DLNA server which I can see OK on my Pioneer N-50 network player (it appears as 'Zen (MC on Zen)', where Zen is the name of the PC on the network). I can select on this and then I'm presented with 2 folders, Playlists and FLAC. If I select FLAC I then get a load more folders (Artist, Album, Recent, Genre etc.) and so I select Artist and I then get a long list of all the artists in alphabetical order. It takes a long time to scroll down to 'Yes' for example.

I was wondering if it's possible to customise the view sent to the Pioneer? By that I mean I would like to have another level under Artist i.e. A, B, C etc. (which is how they are physically organised on the PC)

If I go to 'Options/Media Network/Advanced' there doesn't seem to be anything other than an enable/disable checkbox. Is it possible to do what I'm asking or am I way off the mark in my understanding of how this DLNA server works.

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6233638

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Re: Media Server customisation
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2014, 07:41:00 am »

Tools → Options → Media Network → Add or configure DLNA servers → Customize Views

Add a new category to the pane in the right using this expression, and drag it to the top of the list.

Code: (A-Z) [Select]
If(!IsRange([Album Artist (auto)], a-z),#,FixCase(Left([Album Artist (auto)],1),3))
You might have to restart Media Center (and Media Server, if it's running) for the changes to take effect.
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6233638

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Re: Media Server customisation
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2014, 07:48:34 am »

Oh, I just realized that the expression above does not remove articles before grouping, so any artist which starts with "The" will always end up grouped under "T".

This expression should fix it:
Code: (A-Z, ignoring articles) [Select]
If(!IsRange([Album Artist (auto)], a-z),#,FixCase(Left(Clean([Album Artist (auto)],2),1),3))
Changing the 2 near the end of the expression will set the mode for Clean()
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glynor

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Re: Media Server customisation
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2014, 08:21:17 am »

You might have to restart Media Center (and Media Server, if it's running) for the changes to take effect.

Not might, you do need to restart MC for changes to take effect.

It'd probably also work to disable/re-enable Media Network entirely, though I haven't tried.  It has to restart the HTTP daemon.
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Orac

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Re: Media Server customisation
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2014, 09:18:22 am »

Thank you for putting me on the right track 6233638    :)

It's almost there. I put your expression in and I now get the folders A .. Z so I just need to add some more code to get separate folders for each artist.
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6233638

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Re: Media Server customisation
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2014, 09:32:52 am »

Thank you for putting me on the right track 6233638    :)

It's almost there. I put your expression in and I now get the folders A .. Z so I just need to add some more code to get separate folders for each artist.
Just add an [Album Artist (auto)] item as the next category below the A-Z one.
(click "add" on the right, and select it from the list)


Not might, you do need to restart MC for changes to take effect.

It'd probably also work to disable/re-enable Media Network entirely, though I haven't tried.  It has to restart the HTTP daemon.
I really wish there was a command to restart this without having to restart Media Center entirely.
I am often listening to music or watching a video locally, while editing my views for DLNA/Gizmo, and it's a real pain having to interrupt playback all the time, or wait for a track to finish before I can see the changes.
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Orac

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Re: Media Server customisation
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2014, 09:34:36 am »

I figured out how to add the extra filtering .. I just added two more categories Artist and Album. It works exactly as I was wanting now  :)

Thanks again for the help.

EDIT: I must have been typing this as you were replying !!
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6233638

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Re: Media Server customisation
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2014, 09:36:06 am »

I would suggest using [Album Artist (auto)] rather than [Artist] but I'm glad that things are displaying as you wanted now. :)
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