[scott967]

1.  The issue I see here is the need to manage multiple locations.

2.. The artwork is supposed to be fetched from the userdata/thumbnails.  It shouldn't matter if the thumbnail source is a local file or URL.  Kodi should only recache if the thumbnail is missing.

3.  Duplicating art in the music and video library seems inefficient.  If Music Videos could access the music library art better that might be an alternative solution.

scott s.
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[Powerhouse]

While I agree with what you are saying scott967, I was just pointing out what others have said (multiple times) in previous threads.

[DaveBlake]

My preference is to keep all the Music artwork in a separate folder, so it would be great if there was an option for this.

Yes @Mr. V v18 has this - the Artist Information folder, you can set it in settings and Kodi looks there for artist art and NFO files
I hope that SHS will in time be modified to make use of it too.

[DaveBlake]

Having all art in a separate location
I know some users prefer not to have art mixed with music files, I too started that way, but when it came to implementing it as the music art strategy could see the disadvanatges. I list the many benefits of a separate Artist Info Folder for artists art here (all those cases that don't fit a unique artist/album layout), but @Powerhouse has listed some other interesting ideas for having all art separately. Let's examine that:

1. To keep my Music folders clean of junk
Yes, I can see that. The downside is identifying the individual album location. Kodi can find the music whatever you call the album folder and that avoids having to name folder accurately etc. Do album art folders go under the primary album artist art folder (helps when you have many called "Greatest Hits")? Or does the folder get named <artists>-<album>-<year> or use MBid for unqiueness (but not nice for humans)? Also, like Scott says, the need for the user to manage multiple locations.

You may notice that the export facility will create such a structure for exported results - a way to see what you have without splattering nfo and art throughout your music files. I have not implmented automatic album art lookup from such a structure, I wanted to see what users made of separate art folders first, but you can import from it and set art that way.

2. Reduce hard drive access
Some people complain about their NAS drives spinning up when they are just browsing, and this probably happens because of the default texture cache checking. All images in Kod are cached, and when showing an image if it has not been checked for changes in the last 24 hours then the hash of the image is checked (Kodi only recaches if the image is changed or missing, but checks after a day and that wakes the drive). So yes having art on a different drive could avoid waking up all the drives etc., but I have not tested this to be sure.

3. Benefits for Music Video
Yes would be good for Music Videos to access the music library art - someone implement that!
  

Inevitably Kodi will need to continue to support lookup of art mixed in with music files. I could be talked into implementing automatic art lookup of totally separate art, but I need a break from art just now. With the work I did for export/import we are part way there, I would like to have more user input before I leap off that cliff!

[gibxxi]

The only divergence I see so far is the question of what file name/art type name (I would like that to be same) to use for the round CD images - "discart" or "cdart"? 

 CDart.png is what was used by the CDArt manager Addon. For Movies and TV Shows, it is just called disc.png (also used in Artwork Downloader as seen here https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:Artwork_Downloader).

Moving forward, I guess support for CDArt.png would be nice, but disc.png should be the default going forward, as it will mesh with Movies and TV Shows, and is the same used by the Artwork Downloader addon in the past (and now replaced with ArtworkBeef addon, but I am unsure what ArtworkBeef calls it).  

I completely agree with this. What we have to remember, is that cdART Manager started life a long time ago. I don't mind what 'the name' of the artwork to be standardised as, is, as long as it's standardised. having cdart.png AND disc.png files in the same album folder is just the kind of clutter / crosstalk I was attempting to address with my previous post.

@DavidBlake: I have nothing but complete respect for the work you've done up until this point on the music library for Kodi. Before you took this monumentus task on, and it is monumentus, the music library was a poor relation to the video library. It was neglected and behind the curve. You saw that, and did something proactive to turn that around. Kudos to you for doing so. I don't have a problem with anything you've done so far, all I was trying to say with my post, was that I would like to see some logical thinking, some consistency from addons that have overlap when concerned with the music library. There's no need to re-invent the wheel here. Other than that, carry on innovating and you'll have a thumbs-up from me.



Gib.

[bsoriano]

@DaveBlake, just to be sure I understand, before I go ahead and re-test the latest Kodi nightly with my 260,000+ tracks music collection:

Right now, I have an "Artist/Album" folder structure, and each artist in that structure is an album artist and all of the music for that artist is underneath the artist folder, in each of the album folders for that artist.  In each artist folder is an NFO for the artist, and art (thumb, logo, etc.).  In each album folder there is an NFO for the album and art (folder.jpg, disc, etc.).  A lot of my collection has NFOs for artists and albums, but not all of them do.  I embed album art in the files themselves (mp3, flac) and for many albums, also have a folder.jpg.  While I use Artwork Beef for video art, I am not using it yet for music.

Given the above, is the following true?

1. I can import my collection, regardless of having an Artist Info Folder set, and Kodi Leia will find the information in the NFOs in the artist and album folders, as well as the basic art in those folders, and load that into the database.

2. I can change the information provider for one or several (or all) of the artists that I do not have info on, to UAS or other scraper, and Kodi will, if online info is found, load that into the database, but not create/modify any NFOs for artists/albums.

3. I can export my music library, and if I have the Artist Info Folder set, Kodi will create an artist folder structure under that folder, with NFO and art for each artist, which includes information from my original NFOs (which was loaded when I imported my music collection) and online information (which was loaded when I scraped information for artists for which I had none).

Please let me know if I missed anything or misrepresented anything in there, so I now how to proceed.  Thank you so much for all the work you are doing.

Regards,

Bart

[scott967]

That's pretty much correct.

In Kodi 18, when you scan your collection first all new/changed folders in the music source are scanned for tags and local art and added to the database.  AS PART OF THE SAME ACTION once the scan is complete it will scrape from local nfo and if not found use the assigned scraper if you have the setting FETCH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION DURING UPDATES enabled.  You can also specify BEFORE SCANNING what online scraper to use, or to use local info only.

Keep in mind that Kodi will add song artists / contribution artists, role artists, etc to the database if they are set in your tags.  With the "traditional" folder setup these additional artists won't be looked at for the "additional information" (nor artist art).

Any time after you have completed the scan, you can navigate within the music / artist node and on the context menu for any artist is the option to "Query info for all artists" which will run the scraping function for any artists that have not been previously scraped.  Likewise in the music / album node for albums.

At any time you can export your library data, with options of a single file containing the text (nfo) data or nfo + (optionally) art to the "traditional" (i.e., library folders as you have setup) or your specified music info export folder.  It's pretty flexible and it's possible (with additional exports) to export subsets such as albums only or artists only to different locations.

With such a large music collection I would strongly recommend creating a test source of a few artists/albums and scanning/exporting that to confirm how best to make it work for you, then you can delete the test source and remove the database data when you have your workflow figured out.  Alternatively if you have already a Kodi 17 database you could let Kodi update that to 18 version and see how it goes, but if you find the resulting data is not exactly what you expect it can be a bit of work to correct the data in the new Kodi 18 database.

scott s.
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[Karellen]

It should also be mentioned that work on the Music Library is not yet complete and there are more changes coming through. If you are not in a hurry, and considering you have such a large library that will require a lot of work, it would be best to commence your music library re-organisation at a later date.

Hate to see you have to modify your library again a few months down the track.

[bsoriano]

Thank you @scott967 and @Karellen

I will do, as you suggest, some tests with part of my library and see how it goes.  I will open a thread or reply in one of the existing ones with what I find.

Regards,

Bart

[jinux]

I have a  root folder with all my music artists.

in the root folder i have artist folders in the artist folders i have
Local NFO
folder.jpg
fanart.jpg
logo.png
etc
Then in the artis folder i have album folders with
Local NFO
Music files
folder.jpg poster.jpg
cdart.png

What if i set my root folder as the artist information folder in the media-settings music in kodi. Will that work ?
I know i;ll just try and screw up my library....

[Karellen]

@jinux

Yes that will work but if you Artist folder names do not match exactly the artist name Kodi has in its database, then Kodi will not see it. This is the reason daveblake has gone to so much effort to enable Kodi to create the Artist Folders for you.

For example you have named your folder Sting but Kodi has Sting and The Police, so this artist will not be scanned. Same for György Ligeti and Gyorgy Ligeti and the thousands of other possible examples.

Like you said, give it a try. The scan won't screw anything up, at worst you will have artists that were not scanned which indicates a mis-match in name.

Run the Separate files for each item export to a temporary location and see what Kodi exports. Match it up with your actual music folders, then delete it once you have finished with it.

[the_other_guy]

the art work can be added by using
<visible>String.IsEmpty(Player.FolderPath(clearlogo.png))</visible>
<texture>$INFO[Player.FolderPath]cdart.png</texture>
<texture>$INFO[Player.FolderPath]banner.jpg</texture>
<texture>$INFO[Player.FolderPath]clearart.png</texture>
MusicVisualisation.xml

artist slide show can be risized to an image in the center

sic bo dice pattern

[jinux]

@Karellen  Yes i did try it, and i see about 90% of all artist is correct, some it does not know so i will have to add manually, i guess.

I try to figure out, what you mean by: Run the Separate files for each item export to a temporary location and see what Kodi exports. Match it up with your actual music folders, then delete it once you have finished with it.

Do you mean export the music library to a location? I have to go and see if i can tell it a location to save the files separate to. Normally if i do this, it will save the files in my music library, hey, there is a new option where i can tell it to save , ok i go try and see what it does. Thanks.

Well it exports more artists then i have in my folder music library. So now i need to compare each folder to the kodi export to see if there is a difference in names? And then change the name in my music folder, right ?

Well looking at it now, i have biohazard and kodi has Biohazard, so i changed it with a capital B in my folder. Then i have Bj"ork (with 2 dots on the o, which i can not do (yet) in linux, newbee, and kodi says it is Bjork, without the 2 dots, so i change my folder to Bjork. And so i have some more to go, then i will try again. Hope this works and hope i understand... :-)

[Karellen]

Well it exports more artists then i have in my folder music library. So now i need to compare each folder to the kodi export to see if there is a difference in names? And then change the name in my music folder, right ?

Right.

Depending on what options you chose, it exported all Album Artists and Song Artists, that is why you have so many more albums, and why we recommend using a separate location for Artists. You probably only had Album Artists created. In my library, 300 Albums turned into over 1,000 Artist folders. How many do you have?

I try to figure out, what you mean by: Run the Separate files for each item export to a temporary location and see what Kodi exports. Match it up with your actual music folders, then delete it once you have finished with it.

Do you mean export the music library to a location? I have to go and see if i can tell it a location to save the files separate to. Normally if i do this, it will save the files in my music library, hey, there is a new option where i can tell it to save , ok i go try and see what it does. Thanks.

Ok, looks like you figured this out.

[scott967]

@Karellen  Yes i did try it, and i see about 90% of all artist is correct, some it does not know so i will have to add manually, i guess.

I try to figure out, what you mean by: Run the Separate files for each item export to a temporary location and see what Kodi exports. Match it up with your actual music folders, then delete it once you have finished with it.

Do you mean export the music library to a location? I have to go and see if i can tell it a location to save the files separate to. Normally if i do this, it will save the files in my music library, hey, there is a new option where i can tell it to save , ok i go try and see what it does. Thanks.

Well it exports more artists then i have in my folder music library. So now i need to compare each folder to the kodi export to see if there is a difference in names? And then change the name in my music folder, right ?

Well looking at it now, i have biohazard and kodi has Biohazard, so i changed it with a capital B in my folder. Then i have Bj"ork (with 2 dots on the o, which i can not do (yet) in linux, newbee, and kodi says it is Bjork, without the 2 dots, so i change my folder to Bjork. And so i have some more to go, then i will try again. Hope this works and hope i understand... :-)

There's a code change in work for 18.2 that I've been testing.  I did what you want -- I set my "artist information folder" in the media/music settings to my music source folder.  What the change does, is that it will provide an option to add any missing artist folders (ones for artists whose name doesn't match the folder name you currently have).  The new folders of course won't have any music files in them.

After I did this, I could export my library to the "library folders" and all worked fine.  No need to do an "export to separate files" that I could see.  Note that for this to work you do need to have album folders and each of those folders only contain files from a single album.

scott s.
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