Hmmm, this could get tricky!
First, the database as it is... has many tables! But it has the
notion of a "contributor", with several possible "roles". So a track
can have many different contributors associated, and each contributor
can be any one of several different roles (artist, conductor, composer,
band - as far as I can see). This is wired into the current database
design. Adding an extra role doesn't look hard, if needed.
This means that code along the lines I was thinking of, allowing the
user to do queries on different roles, can be done without any changes
to the database (I think). I was trying to keep it relatively simple
(if we don't, it won't happen).
I suspect your completely general approach to using any tag in any way
you like just might be a step too far.
I was thinking more of a browse than a search model - and I was, BTW,
allowing for a multi-level selection, at least in the more advanced of
the options I described. You select, say, "conductor", and get a list
of all the conductors... choose Karajan, get a list of all albums that
match (this is the potentially long list you are worried about) BUT
with an added set of selectors at the top for each of the other valid
browse tags. So if you want to now specify a further value for
ENSEMBLE, you can. Properly coded, this would give you the flexibility
you want to specify selectors for any of the valid tags, in any order.
I don't think this is very different from what you described, except
that I am visualising a limited set of tags for which this will work
(trying to keep the changes simple).
Enough of that. Maybe I'll just have a go at writing it myself.
The other function, though, is "Search", which is quite different (I
think). The current standard Search functionality allows you to search
(in albums, artists and songs) by typing (mobile phone fashion) in on
the keypad. The new Lazy Search plugin makes this easier, by allowing
you to type in just one keypad number for each letter.
Clearly the standard Search could be extended to look for Conductor
etc, but I think the Lazy Search plugin would require more work and
possibly changes to the database, from what I recall of how it works.
Ideally I suppose you'd like to enter partial searches on each of
several different tags. I have a feeling that might be too difficult to
use using the remote UI, though of course easy to do with a web
interface. Maybe the right answer is to tell everyone that wants to do
this to go out and buy a wireless PDA to use as their remote!!
BTW, keeping the Album title really short ("Symphony 1") won't work -
it MUST contain enough information to make it unique vs all other
albums, otherwise Slimserver (and other music players) will merge the
tracks of the ambiguous albums.
Lets give it some more thought and see if anyone else will join in our
mad ramblings....
Ceejay.
--
ceejay
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