2018-04-22, 18:12
A feature I have been asked for, and happened to have my head into the right part of the code to be able to implement quickly (don't fall over in shock) is the option to prefer scraped album art over that embedded in music files.
While some of us embed high resolution album covers into our music files, and would not want the scraper to replace them, others have old poor quality art in there and would rather see the new pretty art that the scraper can fetch. In v17 and below that means manually selecting the album art from the list of scraped possibilities to replace the embedded art that Kodi uses by default.
To recap, in v17 and below the album thumb (cover) art is automtically allocated in the following priority:
The song thumb (seen on player OSD and song lists) art is automtically allocated in the following priority:
With the new setting "Prefer scraped album art" enabled (it will be disabled by default), the automatic way album art is allocated will be:
If you follow the above logic you will notice that what gets seen on the player OSD is can also be effected by the "Prefer scraped album art" setting. The implicit fallback behaviour that happens when all the embedded music file art is the same AND there is no local album folder art, means that the album art is shown. Initially this album art would be that common embedded art from the music file, but with "Prefer scraped album art" enabled it could be automatically replaced with scraped art.
You will also realise that the the player OSD will contnue to show the embedded song art when it varies between songs on the album. You might say "but my embedded art is a mess, I don't want to see it ever". Well my immediate response is fix your tags - if you tag it then Kodi will use it! It is better to have that art than nothing, so I do not skip scanning embedded images, nor do I want to come up with a convoluted algorthim to decide when to use it and when not. Another sensible solution for those that don't want to ever see embedded art is for the skin to optionally show album.thumb on the OSD explicitly (rather than use the implicit fallback of song thumb to album thumb), so ask your friendly skinner
I have done the work and am ready to PR it, but comments welcome
While some of us embed high resolution album covers into our music files, and would not want the scraper to replace them, others have old poor quality art in there and would rather see the new pretty art that the scraper can fetch. In v17 and below that means manually selecting the album art from the list of scraped possibilities to replace the embedded art that Kodi uses by default.
To recap, in v17 and below the album thumb (cover) art is automtically allocated in the following priority:
- Local folder art e.g. folder.jpg in album folder, or however named in <musicthumbs> in advanced settings
- 1st embedded art found while processing the music files for that album
- 1st remotely scraped artwork
The song thumb (seen on player OSD and song lists) art is automtically allocated in the following priority:
- Art embedded in that music files provided that all songs on an album do not have the same embedded art
- Falls back to local album folder art e.g. folder.jpg
- Falls back to common embedded art that is the same in every music file in the album
- Falls back to 1st remotely scraped album artwork
With the new setting "Prefer scraped album art" enabled (it will be disabled by default), the automatic way album art is allocated will be:
- Local folder art e.g. folder.jpg in album folder, or however named in <musicthumbs> in advanced settings
- 1st remotely scraped artwork
- 1st embedded art found while processing the music files for that album
If you follow the above logic you will notice that what gets seen on the player OSD is can also be effected by the "Prefer scraped album art" setting. The implicit fallback behaviour that happens when all the embedded music file art is the same AND there is no local album folder art, means that the album art is shown. Initially this album art would be that common embedded art from the music file, but with "Prefer scraped album art" enabled it could be automatically replaced with scraped art.
You will also realise that the the player OSD will contnue to show the embedded song art when it varies between songs on the album. You might say "but my embedded art is a mess, I don't want to see it ever". Well my immediate response is fix your tags - if you tag it then Kodi will use it! It is better to have that art than nothing, so I do not skip scanning embedded images, nor do I want to come up with a convoluted algorthim to decide when to use it and when not. Another sensible solution for those that don't want to ever see embedded art is for the skin to optionally show album.thumb on the OSD explicitly (rather than use the implicit fallback of song thumb to album thumb), so ask your friendly skinner
I have done the work and am ready to PR it, but comments welcome