v18 New Artist Information Folder - Questions
#1
I’m about to use the new Artist Information Folder (AIF).

The recommended method, as I understand it,is to Export my current Music info to the AIF. This won’t include my existing extrafanart or cdart.

Based on the stickied thread and it’s links it seems there is only one method to refresh extra fan art, discart etc: Use the Refresh command on a Artist by Artist basis. Is this correct?

Does a Scan find any additional files or refresh the Kodi music db from NFOs in the Artist Information Folder.

I want to move all my current extrafanart and cdart to a new AIF. With many artists it’s going to be painful Refreshing each one in Kodi.

Over time I may well add new extrafanart or new cdart on an ad-hoc basis so without a global Refresh this could be painful again.

Have I missed something?

Is there a JSON-RPC command to Refresh an artist’s information?

THX
Garry
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#2
@HomerJau

Section 4 of the Artist information folder (wiki)
Quote:However if you are concerned about what is going to be created you can choose Separate files for each item as the kind of export output. This will create the artist folders (and album folders for each artist) in a destination of your choice. Use this as a harmless test to see what is going to be produced without impacting your music files or Artist Information Folder.
Give that a try. Have a look at what gets exported and then just delete it when you are finished. There will be no consequence to Kodi when you do.

In the dummies guide, post 3, note 4
Quote:4. The Universal Artist Scraper does not download extra fanart. The extra fanart must be manually sourced.
Not sure if you meant you wanted to scrape extra fanart, or if you have local extra fanart that you want cached.

(2019-02-28, 07:39)HomerJau Wrote: Based on the stickied thread and it’s links it seems there is only one method to refresh extra fan art, discart etc: Use the Refresh command on a Artist by Artist basis. Is this correct?
Artwork Beef will add the missing artwork.
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Links to : Official:Forum rules (wiki) | Official:Forum rules/Banned add-ons (wiki) | Debug Log (wiki)
Links to : HOW-TO:Create Music Library (wiki) | HOW-TO:Create_Video_Library (wiki)  ||  Artwork (wiki) | Basic controls (wiki) | Import-export library (wiki) | Movie sets (wiki) | Movie universe (wiki) | NFO files (wiki) | Quick start guide (wiki)
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#3
Thinking about your questions a bit more, I am assuming that you have upgraded to v18 not started fresh.

Once you run the export, your library is now in nfo files. Fix up your artwork naming and move to the correct artist folder, then start fresh, add the advancedsettings.xml tags according to the dummies guide, and rescan your library. You should then have all artwork and original metadata in the library.
My Signature
Links to : Official:Forum rules (wiki) | Official:Forum rules/Banned add-ons (wiki) | Debug Log (wiki)
Links to : HOW-TO:Create Music Library (wiki) | HOW-TO:Create_Video_Library (wiki)  ||  Artwork (wiki) | Basic controls (wiki) | Import-export library (wiki) | Movie sets (wiki) | Movie universe (wiki) | NFO files (wiki) | Quick start guide (wiki)
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#4
Thanks Karellen!

I’ll give it a go and see what happens.

I have a bit of renaming to do too. Cdart to discart and I have hundreds of extrafanart images not named with a ‘fanart’ prefix, numeric suffix. (The ArtistSlideShow add-on only looks for jpgs in the old extrafanart folder)
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#5
(2019-02-28, 08:30)HomerJau Wrote: I have a bit of renaming to do too. Cdart to discart and I have hundreds of extrafanart images not named with a ‘fanart’ prefix, numeric suffix. (The ArtistSlideShow add-on only looks for jpgs in the old extrafanart folder)
I had the same. Did cdart to discart in a couple of minutes. The extrafanart took a bit more time. Try Bulk Rename Utility... https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

Also, Aeon Nox:Silvo does support the Artist information folder. I am using it.
My Signature
Links to : Official:Forum rules (wiki) | Official:Forum rules/Banned add-ons (wiki) | Debug Log (wiki)
Links to : HOW-TO:Create Music Library (wiki) | HOW-TO:Create_Video_Library (wiki)  ||  Artwork (wiki) | Basic controls (wiki) | Import-export library (wiki) | Movie sets (wiki) | Movie universe (wiki) | NFO files (wiki) | Quick start guide (wiki)
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#6
Thanks again!

I’ll probably write some code to move and rename the extrafanart.
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#7
I think the latest artwork beef can rename your extrafanarts for you (haven't tried it as in my skin I still only provide for /extrafanart/ folder and multiimage controls).

scott s.
.
maintainer of skin  Aeon MQ5 mods for post-Gotham Kodi releases:
Matrix see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Matrix release thread
Nexus see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Nexus release thread
Aeon MQ 5 skin and addon repo 11.1.0
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#8
Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.
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#9
Hello people,
Two things...

1/ I have just started building a Kodi based library for my Flac files and am interested in this Artist Information Folder. I was reading/trying to understand the Wiki, and it struck me that (for me) it would be a lot simpler if you could just put a folder, say called "Artist Information" within the folder containing the tracks, and that would be that. No need to deal with exact naming of folders to match artists etc.

2/ I really got onto this quest because I've had a lot of snags trying to add folder.jpg files to the folder containing the flac files and finding the ARTIST for those files in the library does not show the artwork of that album... so for example, I have a folder D:\music\Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder - Talking Timbuktu and have a folder.jpg file in that folder, but when I do a re-scan, the artist "Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder" does not have any artwork associated with it. Is there a different jpeg file name one must give to apply to the artist of that containing folder?

Thanks!
Mark.
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#10
For backwards compatibility v18 will still find album artist art located with the music files in a suitable folder structure.  This approach is simple in that the folder names do not matter, however there are important limitations.
  • The folder containing the artist art must contain all the music files (in album subfolders) by that album artist and only that abum artist.
  • Art for artists that art not album artists e.g. only appear as guest artists or on various artist compilations, can not be provided.
  • Art for artists that are involved with collaboration albums (those with more than one album artist e.g.  composer, conductor, orchestra), can not be provided.
So the traditional mixed music and art folder structure is still supported

Music
----->Artist1Stuff
---------->folder.jpg Art for artist1
---------->fanart.jpg
---------->Album1 by Artist1 and only artist1
--------------->song1.mp3 Music files for album1.
...
--------------->album.nfo
--------------->folder.jpg Cover art for album1
---------->Album2 by Artist1 and only artist1
--------------->song1.mp3 Music files for album2.
...
--------------->album.nfo
--------------->folder.jpg Cover art for album2
...
----->ArtistNStuff
---------->folder.jpg Art for artistN
---------->fanart.jpg
---------->Album1 by ArtistN and only artistN
--------------->song1.mp3 Music files for album1.
...
--------------->album.nfo
--------------->folder.jpg Cover art for album1
---------->Album2 by Artist1 and only artist1
--------------->song1.mp3 Music files for album2.
...
--------------->album.nfo
--------------->folder.jpg Cover art for album2
...

As for 2) well "Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder" is not an artist, it is two individual artists collaborating. If you have tagged your music files with Picard it will have Musicbrainz id tags or if you have an ARTISTS tag, Kodi will know there are two individual artists.  This means two things

a) The music files can not be arranged in a folder structure with one folder that contains all music by one artist and only that artist, hence you can not put art for those artists in some folder above it and expect Kodi to fetch it.

b) You can provide art for "Ali Farka Touré" and "Ry Cooder" (both, either or none) using the Artist Information Folder. Within that folder create subfolders named "Ali Farka Touré" and "Ry Cooder".
Quote:I have a folder D:\music\Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder - Talking Timbuktu and have a folder.jpg file in that folder, but when I do a re-scan, the artist "Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder" does not have any artwork associated with it.
Since "Talking Timbuktu" is a collaboration album between album artists "Ali Farka Touré" and "Ry Cooder", I would expect that folder named "D:\music\Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder - Talking Timbuktu" contains the music files for that album. Hence and folder.jpg in that folder will have been picked up as the album cover art. Even if you have made D:\music your Artist Information Folder, as "Ali Farka Touré with Ry Coode" is not the name of an artist Kodi will not pick it up.

I hope that has made things a little clearer.
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#11
(2019-03-20, 16:26)fredphoesh Wrote: Hello people,
Two things...

1/ I have just started building a Kodi based library for my Flac files and am interested in this Artist Information Folder. I was reading/trying to understand the Wiki, and it struck me that (for me) it would be a lot simpler if you could just put a folder, say called "Artist Information" within the folder containing the tracks, and that would be that. No need to deal with exact naming of folders to match artists etc.

2/ I really got onto this quest because I've had a lot of snags trying to add folder.jpg files to the folder containing the flac files and finding the ARTIST for those files in the library does not show the artwork of that album... so for example, I have a folder D:\music\Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder - Talking Timbuktu and have a folder.jpg file in that folder, but when I do a re-scan, the artist "Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder" does not have any artwork associated with it. Is there a different jpeg file name one must give to apply to the artist of that containing folder?

Thanks!
Mark.
 Local (i.e., located as a file with a file path Kodi can find) artwork for music has been defined using a convention of using a filename that describes an "arttype" (except for art that is embedded within a music file).  So Kodi needs some way to associate a file of some arttype with a song, artist, album (primarily, but the concept could be extended to other types of music entities).  It does this by using the path to the file to determine the association after first identifying the entity (song, artist, album) as a unique item.  That does result in a limitation on how path names can be constructed and how the entities are defined.

scott s.
.
maintainer of skin  Aeon MQ5 mods for post-Gotham Kodi releases:
Matrix see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Matrix release thread
Nexus see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Nexus release thread
Aeon MQ 5 skin and addon repo 11.1.0
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#12
(2019-03-20, 17:23)DaveBlake Wrote: For backwards compatibility v18 will still find album artist art located with the music files in a suitable folder structure.  This approach is simple in that the folder names do not matter, however there are important limitations.

 Hi David, thanks for the detailed explanations and tips. I have a bad cold and my brain is on about 15% power... so I will re-read/experiment more when I re-animate!

Quote:As for 2) well "Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder" is not an artist, it is two individual artists collaborating. If you have tagged your music files with Picard it will have Musicbrainz id tags or if you have an ARTISTS tag, Kodi will know there are two individual artists. 

Interesting. I have tried Picard but find the interface very ugly/unfriendy and far, far prefer Tag&Rename (intuitive and superb app!) but something caught my eye here, that Picard will tag the file with two artists?

Quote:b) You can provide art for "Ali Farka Touré" and "Ry Cooder" (both, either or none) using the Artist Information Folder. Within that folder create subfolders named "Ali Farka Touré" and "Ry Cooder".
//////
Even if you have made D:\music your Artist Information Folder, as "Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder" is not the name of an artist Kodi will not pick it up.

Also interesting... so if I made D:\music my Artist Information Folder and named the folders in my Music directory with the exact artist's name, then I could populate those folders with album art of all sorts, names, sizes and they would show up as a slideshow/background during playback? Using Artist Slideshow or...?

thanks again,
Mark.
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