OK, I've been doing some more testing and configuration, and here is what I've found.
Summary ------- Firstly, there seems to be a bug in the SlimServer web interface, in that it doesn't display the "Various Artist" list for compilations correctly when you browse by artist or genre. Secondly, in order to get compilation behaviour to work at all, you must have the <Compilation> tag set to 1 for each track in the compilation. This may seem obvious but its not documented in the behaviour settings, and its not helpful if you don't know that tag exists! Testing ------- Test 1: o Create a new test library for Slim - completely empty of any albums. Stop Slim and delete the slimserver database. o Check that group compilation albums behaviour is set, and set the various artists name to "COMPILATION" (just so that it stands out). o Rip a compilation album to FLAC using dbPowerAmp, writing Vorbis Comments. Only Album, Artist, Genre, Track number, Year tags are written. o Make Slim completely re-scan the library. o Using the WEB INTERFACE (not Softsqueeze or SB) Browse by artist. Each individual artist for that one album is list separately - not the behaviour I wanted. Test 2: o Edit the tags on all the tracks in the compilation album, and add the tag "Compilation" and set its value to "1", for each track. o Tell SlimServer to clear the library and completely re-scan. NOTE: there is still only one album in the library - this compilation. o WEb interface -> Browse artists: Oh. No artist listed at all. The total heading claims I have 24 tracks in 1 album by 0 (zero) artists. I would expect to see "COMPILATIONS" listed. o Web interface -> Browse Genres: One available - click that, nothing is listed (as you would expect with the behaviour shown above). o Web interface -> Browse Albums: Ah - my album is listed, by artist "COMPILATION"...which is correct. Test 3: o Start SoftSqueeze (2.3), and Browse Artists. COMPILATION is correctly listed. o SoftSqueeze -> Browse Genres: The genre is listed, and from genre I can get to COMPILATION. Test 4: o Add another album to the library - NOT a compilation, just a regular single-artist album. o Tell SlimServer to clear and re-scan the library. o Web interface -> Browse Artists: Hey Presto! Both the new artist and COMPILATION are now listed. HOWEVER: the total heading sais that I have one artist in the library. Conlusions: The behaviour shown in the last test in test 4 I think gives a clue to the problem - COMPILATION is not really an artist of course. Its Slim's attempt, through using the "Compilation" tag to collect songs together under a convenient and tidy artist heading. This probably explains why COMPILATION is not listed when you browse by artist when there are no other albums available (and you have group by compilation switched on). When you add another album which does have an actual single artist to list, this must trigger Slim to show the "COMPILATION" heading as well. This is a logical, but minor bug in the web interface. This bug does not affect SoftSqueeze, and I would expect Squeezebox - only the web interface. AS noted in the tests, even with one compilation album in the library, SoftS was able to correctly show that category. I hope this long rambling post is of some help. I'm trying to explain what seems to be slightly quirky behaviour. One note of caution to help avoid confusion - make sure you change the default compilation album artist from Various Artists to something else as I did (at least for testing). Many compilation albums have tracks with arists tagged as "Various Artists". Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions which emabled me to do this testing and reach a conclusion, and actually get it all working! Thanks, Chris. -- chris.mason ------------------------------------------------------------------------ chris.mason's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3323 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=20595 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
