2018-04-24, 16:53
I can tell you about what core can do in v18, we will need @rmrector to confirm where Artwork Beef is with those changes, and Skin Helper Service and the skin used may have a contribution too. If you are having trouble getting something to work it could well be that we just have not all caught up with each other.
Artists
I would recommend from v18 onwards keeping artist artwork (and nfo files) separate from your music files. This liberates you from trying to keep all music by an artist, and only that artist, all under a unique folder - there is music that just does not fit that hierarchy. Instead nominate an Artist Information Folder, and under that all the artist art can be stored with a folder for each artist. You can use the export facility to create the individual artist folders (correctly named) for you.
Kodi will pick up artist thumb and fanart from that nominated location automatically as part of scanning or scraping. Other art types, like logos or extra fanart, can be manually selected from the artist info dialog now. Otherwise they can also be added using appropriate addons or JSON API calls.
Albums
Local album art is still best placed with the music files themselves (putting all the music for an album in a folder, or subfolders beneath a unique folder, is an obvious way to organise music). Kodi only automatically finds album covers (thumbs), or cover art for parts of a boxed set release that has been put into subfolders. But you can manually add other types of art e.g. CD artwork (round images), inserts, spines and back covers etc. from the album info dialog. Again addons could do this too.
I would encourage addon and skin authors to use a standard naming convention for this additional artist and album art, maybe there already is one I don't know. In the future core may be able to pick up more art types automatically from local folders, a consensus would help.
Artists
I would recommend from v18 onwards keeping artist artwork (and nfo files) separate from your music files. This liberates you from trying to keep all music by an artist, and only that artist, all under a unique folder - there is music that just does not fit that hierarchy. Instead nominate an Artist Information Folder, and under that all the artist art can be stored with a folder for each artist. You can use the export facility to create the individual artist folders (correctly named) for you.
Kodi will pick up artist thumb and fanart from that nominated location automatically as part of scanning or scraping. Other art types, like logos or extra fanart, can be manually selected from the artist info dialog now. Otherwise they can also be added using appropriate addons or JSON API calls.
Albums
Local album art is still best placed with the music files themselves (putting all the music for an album in a folder, or subfolders beneath a unique folder, is an obvious way to organise music). Kodi only automatically finds album covers (thumbs), or cover art for parts of a boxed set release that has been put into subfolders. But you can manually add other types of art e.g. CD artwork (round images), inserts, spines and back covers etc. from the album info dialog. Again addons could do this too.
I would encourage addon and skin authors to use a standard naming convention for this additional artist and album art, maybe there already is one I don't know. In the future core may be able to pick up more art types automatically from local folders, a consensus would help.
