[DaveBlake]

Thanks for testing @scott967 

It seems like the "music folder" is treated as the default "artist info folder"  so if artist-X folder exists in the "music folder" tree it will be searched for nfo.  It seems like the album parent folder (regardless of name) is still searched for artist art?  So I have album with multiple album artist, and one of the artists gets assigned the art.

For backwards compatibility v18 will pick up artist art from the album parent folder, providing that folder is unique to that artist and only that artist. But no, it is not treating it as the default AIF. If you have an album with multiple album artist then none of the artists gets assigned any art from the album parent folder or any where else in the music source tree.

For example
- if you only have one album by Beethoven/LPO/ Charles Mackerras, no other music related to those artists, and put that album below a parent folder with some art files, Kodi will not pick up that art.
- if you have albums by Alison Krauss all under one folder, albums by Robert Plant under another, and put the collaboration album "Raising Sand" by both of them either in one of their folders or even in a folder of its own, then Kodi will not pick up any art for either artist from the music source tree.

But if you have all the albums by ABBA in a folder, no other albums by ABBA anywhere else and no collaborations (I don't think there are any?) or random albums by other album artists in that folder, then Kodi will pick up art from the parent album folder regardless of how it is named, just like it has done before.
 

However, there's no option to "include items that have not been scraped".  Is there some reason for this?

Yes. The aim is to minimise confusion for the novice by reducing the options. Once you have added these unscraped NFO files to the Artist Information Folder they prevent bulk rescraping from filling any gaps (NFO is found and applied), and they are hard to spot amongst all the ones with previously scraped data. If done accidentally it is a mess that is difficult to correct.
 

I still see a need to export "template nfo files" when doing an export to library folders.  If I had that I wouldn't have any need to do a separate file export.

I don't understand this, can you explain more? I actually find separate file exports are superior in many ways, and see the ability to create templates as a minority/expert use editing aid which would be better if worked for just one selected artist at a time.

An expert user is able to send NFO files for unscraped artists using "Separate files for each item" and either selecting the same path as their AIF as the destination, or putting the output somewhere else and then moving the files they want. The functionality is still there but slightly less obvious. But I don't understand the use, why would you want to send NFO files for unscraped artists to the AIF on mass? I assume that if making a "template" NFO file it is because you want to edit it in some way, hence it is going to be worked on and locating it in the AIF when completed is no difficulty.

To single file export does not include unscraped artists or albums - no scraped data means nothing to export/import
 

I then repeated export to library this time just selecting "include art work" and that seemed to work as expected, though I did have one anomaly (art not exported to artist). Then I created an empty artist info folder and repeated and agin it seems to work logically.

I will check on that.