Index Artwork

[DavidHB]

Update 173 has been out two whole days and we haven't had any comments on the new Index Artwork feature (details here) yet. Shame on us!

I'm experimenting with this (IMO) important new feature, just with the auto setting as yet, on my test instance of MinimServer. I can report that the feature works with BubbleDS (and therefore presumably also with BubbleUPnP), Linn Kazoo and Asset Control. The first two of these helpfully lay out browsing indexes with artwork in grid form, greatly improving the use of screen real estate on my tablet and computer screen. Control point responsiveness is acceptable on my devices (and my gigabit/ AC wifi network).

A question. Can artwork be specified for all index entries? On auto, I note that the nnn Albums and nnn Items lines are populated with artwork, but not the remainder of the entries in the top level index. Can the remainder of this menu, and also the 'letter' menus generated by alphaGroup, be populated in some way? If not, could these ideas be added to the list of possible enhancements?

Another idea would be, when IndexArtwork is set to "folder", to allow the user to specify a default.jpg or default.png image to populate entries that have no image specified? Control points usually provide some sort of default image, but they are typically pretty boring.

You will gather that I am quite enthusiastic about this new feature, because I think that it can greatly improve the look and feel of a compatible control point working with MinimServer. If this is an example of the enhancements we can expect in future, I'm very glad I bought my MinimServer 2 licence!

David