[manfeed]

@DaveBlake

Only want let you know that your work in this topic is highly appreciated, already enjoying it while working in my new mod!

Thank you!

[docwra]

Can we get the latest PR merged or a test build? Itching to try out the GUI artwork selection.

I also noticed the new universal artist scraper option to download clear-art. Does anyone know if that can be extended with other artwork now?

Also how do I show the clearart in the skin?

[Angelinas]

Can we get the latest PR merged or a test build? Itching to try out the GUI artwork selection.

I also noticed the new universal artist scraper option to download clear-art. Does anyone know if that can be extended with other artwork now?

Also how do I show the clearart in the skin?

I testDaveTBlake PR#13533 http://mirrors.kodi.tv/test-builds/windows/win32/
http://mirrors.kodi.tv/test-builds/windows/win64/

And not workig as should....only work on song level...this working good but I dont want to change every song Art one by one.This is ok when user have single song.
I will use just for that kind of content (Single).
But this PR also have problem, if I browse "item folder" that is usuly album level I dont have art for Artist.Can't just up one folder to go on artist level...
I need to go from root manual to find Artist level.
Dave better add in your PR changes for all music content(Artist & Album).

In music visualisation I use Art from Album if missing use from Artist lavel and this working.But adding this kind of art need to use some Script.
I Want to kodi have this function like you add for song level.

Here is image from MyMusic70.db add from Music info dialog old button with new function (add art type)




Here is Image from Music Visualisation...All art is vissible.

[DaveBlake]

@Angelinas that PR is only for song level, the artist/album info dalogs will follow. Patience

@docwra there is a test build, but I figure you really want the album/artist info dialog stuff too.

A small issue propagating song info art changes onto songs on the the music lib window has reveled a bigger long standing issue with setting rating if the song is currently playing. Trying to come up with a solution that fits the generally better design the team wants has taken a bit of time. I want to get that all into the song info dialog PR. I'm pretty much their now (I hope), then I can get back to album/artist art stuff.

I need to do some more work to handle the scraper changes and store the clear-art in the library, Olympia got ahead of me, but I will get there eventually.

Thank you all for your interest and good wishes

[DaveBlake]

OK, another test build for the song info dialog refactoring a8c70ff2-PR13533  (win64, I can set a build for other platforms if required).

This fixes it so the art shows immediately on the main library window when it has been changed by from song info dialog. It also does so efficiently, only rebuilding the complete song list when user rating has changed and the list is sorted by user rating.

It also fixes some odd behaviour when setting the user rating for the currently playing song from either OSD or song info dialog. Cancelling the rating selection no longer wipes the original value, and the initial selected value matches the current user rating as shown elsewhere on the OSD (in Estuary).

I had to do some more fundamental reworking to achieve these fixes to long standing issues, so really could do with some user testing to ensure I haven't made mistakes.

Now I can get on with the album/artist info dialog rework

[docwra]

Just gave it a quick test, and seemed to work as expected. I added a back cover to a single and a Spine, CDart just as a test...



I still find it a bit weird adding art then clicking cancel though. It just doesnt feel right to me. Cancel means to roll back the operation in my mind.

"OK" would be better in my opinion.

Some other comments

- Is there a way to delete art?
- It would be great in the future to have Back cover, Spine, CDart as available options. I can already see the problems with people not knowing how to name things.

[docwra]

Actually I think I found a bug. When I change the thumbnail to a new image, then click cancel it seems to get stuck in a loop. The popup just appears again each time i click cancel.

EDIT: Hmm can't reproduce, maybe that was just user error!

[DaveBlake]

I still find it a bit weird adding art then clicking cancel though. It just doesnt feel right to me. Cancel means to roll back the operation in my mind. "OK" would be better in my opinion.

This is discussed further up the thread. Unfortunately it is a silly amount of work to make "ok" available in the standard dialog this uses. Using "Cancel" is consistent with video, so hopefully users can live with it while I put the effort into more worthwhile areas.

- Is there a way to delete art?

Yes. Click on the art type and then choose "no art" as the art.
Once none of your songs have that type of art the type disappears too (except thumbs).

- It would be great in the future to have Back cover, Spine, CDart as available options. I can already see the problems with people not knowing how to name things.

In reality users won't be manually adding art types, it will be the addons that do that. The good thing is now Kodi doesn't care what types of art there are or what they are called, it is just down to the art addons and skins to work together naming things consistently.

Until everything is all joined up and working this feature looks a bit odd, but managing art manually from the info dialogs will be just a rarely used fallback. It is there for completeness, but also makes it possible to test the extended art feature small scale before the addons are there to fill up the art.

[scott967]

OK, another test build for the song info dialog refactoring a8c70ff2-PR13533  (win64, I can set a build for other platforms if required).

 

 Should we hold off on this as it sounds like some design work is required on the refactor?

scott s.
.

[scott967]

I have a skinning question on getting art for the now-playing song.  The skin has the option of setting a path to find artist art.  With the K18 option of setting an artist and album data source path in settings, the logical solution is to use this as the art path.  The problem is how to get the artist(s) for the now-playing song?  MusicPlayer.Artist returns the song artist credit string, so you have to parse it to find multi-artists (I guess this is what Artist Slideshow does, with option to use just the first artist found in string).  You also need to do the character sub/ mb association if needed. It would be nice to be able to get the song artists as artist1, artist2, etc. in artist library format.  Same I guess for MusicPlayer.Album.

scott s.
.

[DaveBlake]

 Should we hold off on this as it sounds like some design work is required on the refactor?

Yes, wait a bit. Fernet is unhappy, so there will more work once I understand how to achieve what he wants. The end result should behave exactly the same for the user, but may as well get there before testing.

The art question, try Player.Art(Artist) etc.

[rmrector]

The joys of working on a big project with an even bigger history; pull at one thread and maybe end up re-wiring the garage . Thanks for your ongoing work on this, all the different places it leads.

There is something new about the dialog that makes the "Cancel" button feel different than it did in the video library: after new artwork is set, the "Choose art type" dialog opens back up, but it didn't before. It does feel like there could be something to cancel at this point. Can you keep that dialog closed if a value was selected?


For the artwork names, I'm using fanart, banner, clearlogo, clearart, landscape, and discart that match the names in the video library, back and spine for that special album art, and thumb as has already been in use for artists (portrait), albums (front cover), and songs (single cover). I like the more generic "discart" over cdart because it may not be from a CD but vinyl, DVD, or Bluray (the new Atmos music is quite interesting). All lowercase to match the convention in the video library, though all usages should be case insensitive; Thumbnail, Poster, Banner, and Fanart are translated in that dialog while the rest are just the text as stored in the "art" table, so they display capitalized but are generally stored lowercase (and "thumb" is spelled out but stored and referenced as just "thumb").

[DaveBlake]

The joys of working on a big project with an even bigger history; pull at one thread and maybe end up re-wiring the garage . 

Tell me about it. Hopefully there now, but see what Fernet says.

There is something new about the dialog that makes the "Cancel" button feel different than it did in the video library: after new artwork is set, the "Choose art type" dialog opens back up, but it didn't before. It does feel like there could be something to cancel at this point. Can you keep that dialog closed if a value was selected?

The behaviour is same in video lib - after new artwork is set the "Choose art type" dialog opens back up - can't say how long it has been like that though. It makes sense because if there is more than one type of art to edit, or you want to add some new ones, you don't want that dialog to close every time.

Even though is was me that started the discussion, can I suggest that we live with a cancel button rather than "OK", or really "close" because that is what it is doing (not cancelling or confirming changes). It is something that can be dealt with separately, and video and music kept consistent. If I start trying to modify the standard dialog it is based on now, to allow for more button options (I can't just change a lable), I may never get to the end of this "extended art" task. I have many more essential things to do!!

[DaveBlake]

There are times I wonder if I will ever get to the end of this....
Thinking aloud again.

Song Thumb
If a song has no thumb specified the album thumb is used as a fallback. This is very common, most users do not have song art at all (yet). So far when it comes to settting song art via the Song Info Dialog, the art type "Thumb" is always shown and the fallback album thumb image is shown if the song doesn't have a specifc thumb, after all that is what they are seeing everywhere for that song. It seemed a nice idea.

But having that fallback album thumb in the list of art types brings issues:

• For example, pick "no art" as the new song thumb, although it actually it already has no art. The art type list will show a blank, as will the song info dialog, but back at the list of songs on the library screen it will still be showing the album thumb. And repeat the song info dialog, there is that album thumb again.
  
• Or having picked a specific thumb for the song, say you go back and set it to "no art".  Again the art type list will show a blank, as will the song info dialog, but back at the list of songs on the library screen it will still be showing the song image, as will the OSD and playlist. Once the screen refreshes the song will finally show the album thumb as the song has no specfic art.
  

Messey I feel.
Remembering that manually editing song thumbs is not something many users will ever do anyway, what is the best way forwards?

The simple route looks like NOT showing the fallback album thumb as if it was the specific song thumb. The art types will initially come up blank (no song art), but I would still have the default "thumb" in the type list just to give users the hint. However the art fallback mechanism will automatically still show the album thumb  on the song info dialog. Will users think "what is that art and why can't I get rid of it?"

The nice design would be to make the album art fallback a clear part of the song art selection facility - showing what you get when there is no specific song art both as you leave or return to that situation. But how to make it "clear" and can I achieve that in a timely manner?

[docwra]

I debated this as well on theaudiodb, and decided not to show the album thumb as a fallback for tracks missing artwork.

This has the advantage of encouraging people to upload track covers to the site.