Altering the music template

[stigzler]

Forgive me if this is answered elsewhere, but can't find it!

Bit of a newb to xlobby. Using Colby's excellent skin to learn the ropes. Here's what essentialy I'd like to achieve:

1. In the music database, a 'favourites' field on each level (artist, album and song) - ideally checkbox type, but text 'y' or null would do.

2. Display the present filter on the music screen. Present setup - lists artists first, then select artisits - get all the albums of that artist. Altered display so albums only have album name on them to prevent clutter. Is there any variable that I can use outside of the 'catagory' item (i.e. elsewhere on the screen). Surley the filter is stored 'outside' of the catagory item, centrally in the app?

3. The ability to display favourite artists, albums and songs - sub-filtering. Is this possible?

Here's what I've done:

1. Managed to add 'favourite field' to existing music import using databases>edit>add field (to all). However, when I add a new folder to my existing import path and import that data, misses off creating a 'favourite' field for this new addition. I presume it is impoting to the template music db structure (i.e. minus the favourite field).

2. Messed around with all sorts of variables in all sorts of places using colby's variable list. Can't crack it!

3. Haven't even tackled this yet!


Q's:

1. Is it possible to change the default format of the music database. If so, where? Looked in templates folder and one seems to be params for import (eg. file extensions etc) and the other the actual data. Also - xml - bit wierd to me - familiar with realtional db's like access and mysql, but this all seems a bit weird.

2. Is it possible to change db fields whilst using the app? i.e. I would like a symbol on the pictures of the arstists, albums and near the now playing which will toggle favourite on/off. How would I do this?

3. Is it possible to 'translate' one db into xlobby's? (e.g. an app matching fields). Presently have a db for both my music and off-line movie collection, just need to get the data from those into xlobby.

4. When importing via id tags, do all the songs in an album need to be tagged with the album picture or just one of them (have I read somewhere that there are spearate tags for album picture and song picture)?

Apols for long post, but I'm stumped![/list]

[Colby]

#1 I have read what you are trying to do, I suppose I will add favorites, at all three music levels to my skin. I dont think it would be that hard. And then one could sort via favorite artist, album or song.

#2 I think that this is a matter of how your database is built. The category displays a variable. Generally %display% variable. This display variable is set per category and cant change upon filtering or hierachy navigation. So level 1 =display as level 2, 3 etc. You could change the display variable to something like %name% and it would show that way. You cant have 1=display 2=name 3=title. There are no commands for that.

#3 once your database recieves the favorite "tags" it will be a matter of filtering the database, or custom searching commands. I will include this in my skin.

#4 I dont know the answer definitly, try and see. But I suppose you only need one cover at the album level to work for the whole thing. You would only need individual song covers if there were no albums, (individual mp3)

[stigzler]

Hi Colby, thanks again for the response.

Managed to display present filter by grabbing the variable from xlobby's default skin (it's a peculiar format something like '%music>filter%' - can't get it as xlobby is now failing to startup! - see below)

On favourite field - dl'd stephen's most recent build which imports more tags and used the 'comments' field to store details. fun and games with tagging artists, albums and songs. Managed to tag albums by having button and event on the tracklisting overlay, event being setvariable on music catagory and comments field. This sets the album to a fave.

However, faveing individual songs seems more complex. Two possible gui routes - do it in tracklistings overlay or just a button to fave the playing now song. However, I can find no way to apply a setvariable to the nowplaying song. Tried 'audioplayer>now>comments' and other permutations, but this doesn't work! Struggling with this one.

To top it all, can't start xlobby up now! Getting the error:

************** Exception Text **************
System.Xml.XmlException: The '&' character, hexadecimal value 0x26, cannot be included in a name. Line 2382, position 17.
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, String[] args)....

guessing that theres an '&' in one of the song tags which xml doesn't like? that could be a pain for 100G of songs!

--- EDIT ----

Since found the prob - somehow illegal expression got into xml:

"<album&gt;comments>FAVE!</album&gt;comments>"

all removed and back up n running.

----------------

A couple of things:

1. For future development - would it be worth including the actual favourites and rating id tags in the music databse rather than rely on 'comments' - this way any previously tagged up favourites would be preserved.

2. I see that the movies db (not attempted that yet) has a star rating system - this may be useful to examine to apply to the music system.

- i'll keep on truckin with this one!

[Colby]

1. For future development - would it be worth including the actual favourites and rating id tags in the music databse rather than rely on 'comments' - this way any previously tagged up favourites would be preserved.

2. I see that the movies db (not attempted that yet) has a star rating system - this may be useful to examine to apply to the music system.

1. I dont know why people always want to include favorites tags. Do people not actually use Xlobby? Or do they use someone elses favorites? At some point in time we have to tag an mp3 as favorite. Why import from another program where we tagged them? Why not do it in xlobby?

2. This is actually very easy. I dont think it would take much to convert it to music.

[stigzler]

I think the benefit of tagging the actual song file is that if I ever choose to play my files via a different front end (e.g. in-car mp3 player) the favourite tag on tracks will be preserved on the file and not specific to the front end.

Glad to hear the rating system's easy. As for my adventures into Xlobby, I'm thinking of sticking to my present music front end as I'm really struggling with getting to grips with the programming system of Xlobby. Although the variable list is helpful, struggling to find any detailed documentation around syntax and db functioning. Shame though, as this feels to have so much potential and massive credits to it's creator and supporters.