Minimserver & Jplay

[alfonso]

Hello, my name is Alfonso. This is my first post on the forum, although I’ve been following it for various topics, even if I have to admit that technically some of them are beyond my understanding. I apologize in advance if my questions have already been answered before.

These questions basically relate to how MinimServer works with JPLAY. The first one concerns the MinimServer icon that appears on each album in JPLAY. As far as I understand, if JPLAY works with other UPnP servers, the application should take the icon directly from MinimServer itself. If that is the case, would it be possible for MinimServer to transmit an icon with a transparent background? That way it would blend into the album artwork, in a similar way to what happens with Roon.

In my case, 99% of my library consists of local files, with the occasional album added from Qobuz. This leads to my second question, which is about the order in which JPLAY displays artists in the library. For example, in the case of Frank Zappa, it appears listed under “F”. In my case, the metadata for one of his albums would be as follows:
Artist: Frank Zappa & The Mothers (or Frank Zappa)
AlbumArtist: Frank Zappa
AlbumArtistSort: Zappa, Frank

Previously, the AlbumArtist field was set to “Zappa, Frank”, but any album added from Qobuz appeared incorrectly placed. I believe this is impossible to correct, as it depends on Qobuz. Nevertheless, is it possible to get JPLAY to sort Frank Zappa under “Z” with my current metadata? If that’s not possible, could I use “reverse” in some way so that it would be sorted as “Zappa, Frank” (AlbumArtist) but displayed as “Frank Zappa”?

Many thanks in advance for the reply.

Kind regards.

Alfonso

[simoncn]

Welcome to the MinimServer forum!

Regarding the icon background, MinimServer sends exactly what is in your library. If you convert the icons in your library to have a transparent background, this is what MinimServer will send to JPLAY.

Regarding the artist sort order, this depends on your MinimServer property settings and also on how you are browsing your library in JPLAY. Do you select Artists from the JPLAY home screen or My Library, or do you select By Folder under Local Network and then select Artist or AlbumArtist? The former uses a sort order controlled by JPLAY and the latter uses a sort order controlled by MinimServer.

[alfonso]

Thank you very much for your answer.

In Jplay browsing is usually from Home screen, not by folders. I've checked and in the "By Folders" screen the artists appears sorted perfectly. Zappa appears under Z but displayed as Frank Zappa, so pertfecly fine for me. There's some errors but I'm taking advantage of your appreciation to fix the metadata. Maybe Jplay will implement a different sort system in the near future. I hope so.

And regarding the Minimserver icon, could you please tell me how to do it on Mac?

Thank you very much in advance.

Best regards.

[simoncn]

If you do a web search for Transparent Icon Maker, you will find some solutions for how do do this. I haven't tried any of them myself.