2017-01-04, 20:51
Going to try and avoid a "super wall" of nested quotes in case we scare everyone away, but I have taken on board the rest of what was said @Rusendusen.
Q: How can Kodi (or a remote app interface to Kodi) be flexible enough to provide the music in a way that corresponds to the user's taste, given these tastes are different from user to user, vary from day to day and with the kind music you are currently listening to.
The idea @Rusendusen and I are homing in on is of supplimenting the current user configurable but static node UI approach with a more dynamic filtering facility that lets the user choose:
a) the current filter criteria including mix of artist, album and song rules and IDs, and custom properties.
b) the content type being viewed e.g. artists, albums, songs or property sets e.g genres, years, custom property values etc.
and I think also more skin options under user control
c) what fields are shown, e.g. if genre = classical then display composer. Flexible multiple field ordering including use of custom properties (not a hard coded limited list of sort orders).
*A way to save any set of filter criteria for reuse.
*The option for the music main screen to be a user chosen/designed node rather than the music library node menu.
*A music serach option for when you know what you want to play, of course.
The often hidden navigation choice I what to expose and discuss is this:
Say I list those artists that have composed songs with "guitar" in the song file path. When I navigate off that list for a selected artist do I keep the other criteria and what content type do I show?
Keeping criteria -
1) albums that has songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path
2) songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path
3) genres (or other custom song properties) of songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path
4) custom album property values of albums that have songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path
5) custom artist property values of artists that have composed songs with "guitar" in the song file path
Dropping all criteria except artist selection
6) albums by that artist, or with songs by that artist, or with songs they contribute to in some way e.g. backgroud vocals etc.
7) songs by that artist or album artist, or that they contribute to in some way.
8) genres (or other custom song properties) of songs by that artist or album artist, or that they contribute to in some way.
9) custom album property values of albums by that artist, or with songs by that artist, or with songs they contribute to in some way
10) custom artist property values of that artist
Changing criteria (role = album artist, no path rule)
11) albums by that artist (there may be none if they are just a composer of songs performed by others).
12) songs by that artist (again there may be none or they may be different from 2)
13) genres (or other custom song properties) of songs by that artist
14) custom album property values of albums by that artist
If artists, albums and songs can all have different values of the same property, for example mood, do we optionally combine those too e.g.
show custom common properties of songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path or
of albums that have songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path or
of artists that have composed songs with "guitar" in the song file path
I took from the "artist-genre-title" chain example given by @Rusendusen the wish to be able to select an artist, navigate to artist filtered genres 3), 8) or 13), and from there to the songs or albums (title of what?) for that genre and artist and optionally the other criteria.
How do we offer the user that rich flexibilty in an accessible and configurable way?
Again maybe the "10ft interface" driven by TV remote isn't up to it?
It sounds horrible written out like I just did but it is how I would like to access my music collection sometimes. It could possibly be reduced to some basic choices maybe?
I think what @Rusendusen is saying is that he finds his way around his folder hierarchy easily enough (as do many other people), so couldn't the UI learn from that. Well maybe... :p
Dare I say some (not me) even doubt the need for fileview at all, I may have trouble selling the idea of a link to the team.
I know that what you dream is possible in data, and as a user myself the flexibilty is enticing. Creating the UI or API to support it, that's the challenge.
Others welcome to join this dialog (if they can penetrate the wall of words).
Q: How can Kodi (or a remote app interface to Kodi) be flexible enough to provide the music in a way that corresponds to the user's taste, given these tastes are different from user to user, vary from day to day and with the kind music you are currently listening to.
The idea @Rusendusen and I are homing in on is of supplimenting the current user configurable but static node UI approach with a more dynamic filtering facility that lets the user choose:
a) the current filter criteria including mix of artist, album and song rules and IDs, and custom properties.
b) the content type being viewed e.g. artists, albums, songs or property sets e.g genres, years, custom property values etc.
and I think also more skin options under user control
c) what fields are shown, e.g. if genre = classical then display composer. Flexible multiple field ordering including use of custom properties (not a hard coded limited list of sort orders).
*A way to save any set of filter criteria for reuse.
*The option for the music main screen to be a user chosen/designed node rather than the music library node menu.
*A music serach option for when you know what you want to play, of course.
(2017-01-03, 20:41)Rusendusen Wrote: So it needs simply 1 thing (and I don't talk about easy here :-):Still not sure about the "chains" thing (I know there was more explanation later), it will help me to rephrase. Do you mean let the user define and then save what the default nagivation action is when an item is selected? What "chains" brings to my mind is navigation choices.
A way to make query chain creation dynamic (filtering) with being able to save chains created as nodes (for to add to menu) or schemes/views (for to have them lying handy and easy accessible).
The often hidden navigation choice I what to expose and discuss is this:
Say I list those artists that have composed songs with "guitar" in the song file path. When I navigate off that list for a selected artist do I keep the other criteria and what content type do I show?
Keeping criteria -
1) albums that has songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path
2) songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path
3) genres (or other custom song properties) of songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path
4) custom album property values of albums that have songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path
5) custom artist property values of artists that have composed songs with "guitar" in the song file path
Dropping all criteria except artist selection
6) albums by that artist, or with songs by that artist, or with songs they contribute to in some way e.g. backgroud vocals etc.
7) songs by that artist or album artist, or that they contribute to in some way.
8) genres (or other custom song properties) of songs by that artist or album artist, or that they contribute to in some way.
9) custom album property values of albums by that artist, or with songs by that artist, or with songs they contribute to in some way
10) custom artist property values of that artist
Changing criteria (role = album artist, no path rule)
11) albums by that artist (there may be none if they are just a composer of songs performed by others).
12) songs by that artist (again there may be none or they may be different from 2)
13) genres (or other custom song properties) of songs by that artist
14) custom album property values of albums by that artist
If artists, albums and songs can all have different values of the same property, for example mood, do we optionally combine those too e.g.
show custom common properties of songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path or
of albums that have songs composed by that artist with "guitar" in the song file path or
of artists that have composed songs with "guitar" in the song file path
I took from the "artist-genre-title" chain example given by @Rusendusen the wish to be able to select an artist, navigate to artist filtered genres 3), 8) or 13), and from there to the songs or albums (title of what?) for that genre and artist and optionally the other criteria.
How do we offer the user that rich flexibilty in an accessible and configurable way?
Again maybe the "10ft interface" driven by TV remote isn't up to it?
It sounds horrible written out like I just did but it is how I would like to access my music collection sometimes. It could possibly be reduced to some basic choices maybe?
I think what @Rusendusen is saying is that he finds his way around his folder hierarchy easily enough (as do many other people), so couldn't the UI learn from that. Well maybe... :p
Rusendusen Wrote:...If folder names would be part of db they would be additional data...Just to clear that up: path is held as data, and can be queried. Path rules could be a filter criteria.
Rusendusen Wrote:A library has its books ordered, a music store is the same. I'm able to pick up a book or an album and look it up in the catalogue, the db. A "show title in query chain" could be another way to mix up file view and db. Switch around the hierarchy for a specific item. Making it possible to use file view to find a song (because I maybe know where to find what I'm looking for, but not how it's called) and once I found it, switch hierarchy to query chain genre-year-title showing all titles of the specific year and genre. Or within chain albumartist-album-title switch chain around albumartist to artist-title for to see all titles this artist is listed in.Linking between fileview where you can navigate your folder structure, and library view (where you can navigate your library), at song level could work - evey song as a unique location. It would be a great tool for sorting out tagging mistakes too. Most albums have a unique location but kodi does not need that to be true, so a link from album to a meaningful folder is often possible but not always. Moving from arbitrary folder to somewhere in the library could be tricky too. What won't work is trying to do a simple link at artist level. The relationship between artist and path is many to many, an artist may have a relationship with many disparate folders e.g. no common folder other than the music source root level. I also believe that if we get the custom property facility right there is unlikely to be a need.
That's where predefined chains come in handy. Like 'open with' for movies.
Dare I say some (not me) even doubt the need for fileview at all, I may have trouble selling the idea of a link to the team.
Rusendusen Wrote:Maybe it's simply nonsense I'm talking here and maybe it's overdose for just listening to music. :-)It is fine to have a vision
But being able to switch around hierarchies around items on the fly... being able to view track info, click on John Deacon with role drummer and view all tracks he's drumming, but also the tracks he's singing (I'm in love with my car)... start a shuffle from my folder "smooth" for to read a book or chill and jump to the playing title's artist, switch hierarchy around and listen to more he has composed, played guitar, is singer or just producer as I have chosen the chain artist-role-title as new hierarchy...
Just dreaming of possibilities :-)
I know that what you dream is possible in data, and as a user myself the flexibilty is enticing. Creating the UI or API to support it, that's the challenge.
Others welcome to join this dialog (if they can penetrate the wall of words).
