Printing alternatives on tagFormat

[Donuk]

I hope this heading makes sense - I am not good perhaps at describing what I want - simply:
I normally use Lumin, although sometimes the Linn control apps.

On my streamer playlists and on the listing on the streamer, I like to see other information besides just the Title and artist. To that end I have evolved this:
Title.displayFormat={$title^$date^ ~ ^$comment^~ ^$composer^ [^]}

In my comment field I put things like HD for High definition.

This works fine so that, as an example I get:

Across the Universe ~ 1968 HD [John Lennon ~ Paul McCartney]

I like to keep my FLAC files reasonably up to date in metadata with Composer information &c. I use Tag Editor on my Mac.

Now I am wondering if it is possible to put some sort of if-then statement and print something other than the contents of the field.
For example, I would like to put in my Titel.displayFormat expression something like

If comment="HD" then print "*", and for the icing on the cake: If comment is not equal to "HD" then print "" (nothing).

In other words, if I have HD in the comments field I get this
Across the Universe ~ 1968 * [John Lennon ~ Paul McCartney]
If I have nothing or something else in the comments field I get
Across the Universe ~ 1968 [John Lennon ~ Paul McCartney]

Sorry if I am not making sense. I could have written what I want in BASIC 40 years ago, but done nothing since!

Any thoughts?? Yes I know it is not a life or death issue, but would be fun.

donuk, sunny downtown York

[simbun]

(04-03-2025 21:24)Donuk Wrote:  If comment="HD" then print "*", and for the icing on the cake: If comment is not equal to "HD" then print "" (nothing).

Couldn't you just use tagUpdate to create a temporary tag, then add it to itemTags and your displayFormat?

Code:

@COMMENT=HD
+LABEL=*

[Donuk]

[/quote]
Couldn't you just use tagUpdate to create a temporary tag, then add it to itemTags and your displayFormat?

Code:

@COMMENT=HD
+LABEL=*

[/quote]

Hi Simbun
You have got me tantalisingly near to understanding and solving this one.
I do understand your idea but not to clear about where it might go....

so under tagUpdate I effectively say "when comment = HD, Label=*" How exactly?

And then I put the Label tag in this lot, presumably replacing comment with label.

Title.displayFormat={$title^$date^ ~ ^$comment^~ ^$composer^ [^]}

Could you find it in your heart to lead this simpleton just the last few steps please.....

donuk, sunny downtown York

[simbun]

(05-03-2025 12:58)Donuk Wrote:  I do understand your idea but not to clear about where it might go....

Paste this code into a text file and store it somewhere on your server e.g. /path1/path2/tagUpdate.txt

Code:

@COMMENT=HD
+HDLABEL=*

NOTE: I used Label in first example which is a common tag, so let's call it something else.

This code create a new tag (in MinimServer) called hdlabel with a value of * for every track that has a comment tag equal to HD.

Put the full path of your tagUpdate.txt file in the tagUpdate property of your MinimServer configuration.
You'll also need to tell MinimServer that you want to reference this new tag by adding it to itemTags.

Code:

itemTags: hdlabel
tagFormat: Title.displayFormat={$title^$date^ ~ ^$hdlabel^^ ^$composer^ [^]}
tagUpdate: /path1/path2/tagUpdate.txt

I'm not at home to test at the moment, but I think that's right.

[simoncn]

Another option would be to use the special tag #AudioQuality to detect HD files. The tag update file would contain this:

@#AUDIOQUALITY=HD
+HDLABEL=*

and you would need to add #AudioQuailty to either indexTags or itemTags. Everything else would be the same.

[Donuk]

Dear simbun
I have tried your instructions exactly as above, but I cannot get it to work.
I am sure I have enabled it to find the tagUpdate.txt file OK - I put it in the minimserver directory.

If I then rescan it goes through everything OK (Minimwatch, verbose)
But at the end of the routine is says Minimserver is running and then prints this:

MinimServerMelco is running
Browse request from 192.168.0.15: 0$=AlbumArtist$27607 isn't a valid object
Browse request from 192.168.0.15: 0$=AlbumArtist$27607 isn't a valid object
Browse request from 192.168.0.15: 0$=AlbumArtist$27607 isn't a valid object
Browse request from 192.168.0.15: 0$=AlbumArtist$27607 isn't a valid object
Browse request from 192.168.0.15: 0$=AlbumArtist$27607 isn't a valid object
Browse request from 192.168.0.15: 0$=AlbumArtist$27607 isn't a valid object

Then I find that Linn Kazoo control app will not find the music library at all!

Then if I remove the link to the tagUpdate.txt file and rescan, all is fine, but of course no asterisks appear.

So it suggests to me the that coding inside the tagUpdate.txt file in not quite right. Could you please re-ponder this one and suggest something.

I hate giving up on these little exercises besides this might be of use to somebody else.....

Cheers Donuk York

[simbun]

(06-03-2025 21:21)Donuk Wrote:  I have tried your instructions exactly as above, but I cannot get it to work.
I am sure I have enabled it to find the tagUpdate.txt file OK - I put it in the minimserver directory.

So it suggests to me the that coding inside the tagUpdate.txt file in not quite right. Could you please re-ponder this one and suggest something.

I've just tried this on Windows, and apart from fine-tuning the title.displayFormat to match your original request, everything worked as expected.

Code:

itemTags: comment, hdlabel
tagFormat: Title.displayFormat={$title^$date^ ~ ^$hdlabel^ ^ ^$composer^ [^]^ ~ }
tagUpdate: /path/to/tagUpdate.txt

Code:

@COMMENT=HD
+HDLABEL=*

To view the changes made by tagUpdate enter a valid path and filename in the writeTagChanges property.

How did you transfer the tagUpdate.txt file to the Melco? Try replacing it with an empty file to see if the errors remain.

[Donuk]

Thanks for persisting with this simbun. If you ever come to York I will buy you a pint.....

Now I tried it all again - and still exactly the same result - and surprising that I again get all the "isn't a valid object" warnings.
And again Kazoo will not find the library.

I open tagUpdate.txt and remove everything - and it scans and Kazoo works fine.
I put tagUpdate.txt into my minimserver folder using Mac Finder. I use Finder for putting all my files on my Melco (or an RSync routine). My Minim packages are all up to date. I have checked that Mac Textedit (with which I make the text file is saving at Unicode utf 16.)

I also have tried creating the tagUpdate.txt file using LibreOffice and saving as txt file - still brings on the same bizarre behaviour.

So what can it be?

Donuk

[simbun]

I have neither a mac nor a Melco so I don't think I'm going to be able to help with this, but it must be the format of the tagUpdate file.

My assumption is that the file is being created in the mac standard (no idea what that is) and Finder/rsync is performing a binary transfer, causing the incompatibility.

Can you sftp to the Melco?

Hopefully @simoncn will know how to fix it.

[simoncn]

To clear these messages, close the Kazoo app and restart it. The messages are caused by Kazoo having out of date information in its cache.