Problems with Gallery creation

[Eric]

Peter,
when I select all albums in a folder that also includes subfolders starting with "(Various)", and next I move selection to gallery in order to create a gallery from the folder, the result is a mess.
Could you please look into it and fix it?
Thanks.
Eric

[PeterSt]

Hi Eric,

Do you mean creating Galleries via XX functions, or do you (also) do things manually via (Embedded) Explorer ?

Anyway, "various" is treated separately, so I sure can imagine something. However, I really need to have explicit examples and how it exactly results. So, can you provide me with some more info please ?
And never interfere with manual activities !

Thanks,
Peter

[Eric]

Peter,
here is an example that I created to show you when it goes wrong.

Top gallery folder name = "Galleries".
I create a subfolder name = "Nice Music".

I create a data folder name = "Nice Music"
I create a subfolder name = "(Various) STS Digital"
In this subfolder I put 2 albums:
name = "(Various) STS Digital - 9th Edition"
name =  "Eline - Marching In [STS] (2006)"

Now I am ready to create the gallery content. So I start XXHE and select my data folder. The 2 albums appear both. So I select them both, right click and Move selection to gallery, select. And I choose the Gallery subfolder name = "Nice Music".   

When I look at the result in the Gallery folder, I see the 2nd album moved up in the hierarchy. Not Good.

I can show you another example where XXHE is creating a subfolder named "various" out of the blue.

I hope this helps to understand and fix the problem.
Thanks!

Cheers, Eric.

[PeterSt]

Thank you Eric.

I am not sure I can avoid this, but it also looks "wrong-ish" to me;
Think about this example :

Music\Deep Purple\Deep Purple - Made in Japan\

This is what you are actually doing, although it goes a bit unnoticed. So, I would put your example like this :

I create a data folder name = "Nice Music"
I create a subfolder name = "(Various) STS Digital"
In this subfolder I put 2 albums:
name = "9th Edition"
name =  "Eline - Marching In [STS] (2006)"

I think now it will go OK. But again better would be this I think :

I create a data folder name = "Nice Music"
I create a subfolder name = "Various"
In this subfolder I put 2 albums (ehm, notice that these are both individual subfolders again, as you probably meant to say all the time)
name = "STS Digital - 9th Edition"
name =  "Eline - Marching In [STS] (2006)"

If this doesn't work, call again ...
(but still known quirks with "various" exist !!)

Also think about the balance in the structure, and that something like this for sure will be bad :

I create a data folder name = "Nice Music"
I create a subfolder name = "Deep Purple"
In there I create a subfolder name = "Made in Japan"
Back to Nice Music, I create a subfolder name = "Various"
In there I create a subfolder name = "STS Digital"
In this subfolder I put 2 albums:
name = "9th Edition"
name =  "Eline - Marching In [STS] (2006)"

because this will look like :

(1)\Nice Music\Deep Purple\Made in Japan\
(2)\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital\
(3)\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital\9th Edition\                               
(4)\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital\Eline - Marching In [STS] (2006)\

Ad 3/4 : There's an additional level compared to (1).
Ad 4 : Eline will be regarded as the artist name, whereas in 3 STS Digital will be the artist name.
(just look at the Coverart Wallpaper, and I guess I am right).

So, with the last example you are creating mixed levels, and at determining what the actual "plain Gallery" is (\Nice Music\ in your case), it will go wrong at points. So, the last list again how I would try to solve it :

(1)\Nice Music\Deep Purple\Made in Japan\
(2)\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital\
(3)\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital\9th Edition\                               
(4)\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital\Eline ~ Marching In [STS] (2006)\   (the tilde won't do a thing, whereas the earlier dash will)

In the end this keeps on looking awkward, with the (most) logical explanation that Eline doesn't belong in the Various structure at all, hence you try to mix a group of certain albums (STS Digital in this case) while you also want to group in artists (which you denoted officially as Various). Which brings me to this final solution (I think) :

(1)\Nice Music\Deep Purple\Made in Japan\
(2)\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital - 1st edition\   (or something else you make up for this general (first) of the series)
(3)\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital - 9th Edition\                               
(4)\Nice Music\Eline - Marching In [STS] (2006)\

Notice that :

Levels are still mixed regarding the dash vs. the subfolders (but it will manage);
Same will count for 1 vs. 4, but this time it will confuse you.

Also notice that there are some options you can ask for on the Embedded Explorer (just try them all), and they will show you rather quickly how things internally work out, already on the original data folders. Not all can be covered for (so rarities *will* show), but it will teach you how you actually do wrong (or rather not consistent !) yourself.

Lastly, once you have created the Galleries, it's a tough job to undo or repair. However, repair options exist, but they are not covering for all situations yet, and I know that exactly the "various" stuff will go wrong. But if it's a mess already, just try it.
This is under Add to Gallery - Re-do Selection (at your own risk, but IIRC it will never delete original files ).

HTH !
Peter

[PeterSt]

While we're at it anyway ...

I notice that more Coverart is missing than is showing in the Gallery Area. I'm fairly sure this is since 0.9z-5 and some changes I applied. So please notice this won't be you (anyone) doing wrong. It's me ...

Peter

[Eric]

Peter,
the current implementation of the Library creation does not match with my setup (which I created with the same function). I believe it used to be different in the past (before the z-series?) because my whole library structure was created without any problem. So I guess something has changed in the way it works. E.g. I have this folder "Buddha-Bar Collection" containing the albums Buddha-Bar I, ... etc. Now if I add the latest album, XXHE creates a folder named "various" and puts it in there. So, if I want to get it right, I would need to rename most of my albums and folders. Especially classical albums are going to be disastrous.
So, please can you rollback the changes to the Library creation function? I hope it can be done.
Cheers,
Eric 

[Calibrator]

Hi Eric,

I understand the changes to the gallery creation methodology came about when Peter introduced the album renaming function. A most valuable feature that is also.

I also have been having difficulties coming to terms with the new "rules" for gallery creation, and as a result have fired up an earlier version of XXHE when time comes to add new albums. Over time I will work my way through my albums and try and put things into the "official" naming convention, but it's a daunting task for me, so I've put it in the "too hard" basket for the moment. I would rather spend the time listening to music that re-arranging/re-naming folder structures.

Most, if not all, the issues I have arise when albums contain more than one disc and characters are added after the usual CD01, CD02 etc. Boxsets in particular are problematic, and I haven't figured out a foolproof method of describing each album in full, and still allow conformity. Invariably I end up with the rogue "various" folder being created.

Having the option to choose the old or new method of gallery creation (via a tick box) would be very beneficial at the moment for me also.

I have been meaning to bring these issues up myself but never quite got around to it. I can imagine the task of trying to code all the different variants to be a hair pulling experience, so I thought it best to avoid premature baldness for Peter

Peter, perhaps if you could lay out the "rules" the folder naming needs to adhere to it in your coding it might help in our understanding. As I said before, single albums are generally not an issue, it's the multi volume albums where things sometimes go awry.

Cheers,

Russ

[PeterSt]

Yes, it seems that this needs some roll back activity on my side. The things you mention work here though, but other things do not (anymore).

Notice that the re-do function has been extended largely (but this was somewhere in the 0.9z-4 series) to cover from going to the new method while the old one has been applied, but that too for sure doesn't do what it's supposed to.
Don't use it (opposed to my earlier half-advise).

The testing of this is VERY time consuming, especially when knowing that all which doesn't work out during testing, actually has to be undone manually while all must be made clean (in the original folders for Reference Files) or otherwise it may do nasty things to begin with.

Yes, all still works without a database, but I'm vastly loosing time on that decision by at least now (if not already for years).
Why I ever decided it all could do without database I don't know. I guess I saw it as a "sport", being in the middle of database design all my IT life ...

[Eric]

I also have been having difficulties coming to terms with the new "rules" for gallery creation, and as a result have fired up an earlier version of XXHE when time comes to add new albums.
...........
Cheers,

Russ

Thanks Russs for this great idea!
It solves all my problems with the libraries when I want to add albums. Super!
BTW which XXHE version are you using for gallery creation?

Cheers,
Eric.

[Calibrator]

Thanks Russs for this great idea!

Glad the idea has been helpful

I've been using 0.9z-2, but only because it was still sitting on my harddrive. That version has the issue of not having the progress bar working though, which comes in handy when adding more that a few albums at a time. I may get around to going further back in versions for the interim, but hopefully Peter can sort things out a little better soon.

Cheers,

Russ 

[PeterSt]

When I look at the result in the Gallery folder, I see the 2nd album moved up in the hierarchy. Not Good.

Hi Eric,

First of all I won't say it all works glitchlessly (there are performance problems with this to begin with), but now I'm working to get it all more right, I thought to start with your example. Well, I'm afraid you don't understand a few things ! So, with the above in mind, look at the result of your example (from your earlier post) below;

Also referring to my earlier explanations, you see (wonder ogh wonder) that exactly happened what I put forward to you as being logic;
1. Your Eline is an Artist, while you wanted "(Various) STS Digital" to be the Artist, ehm, at the same time.
2. So XX is smarter, recognizes Eline to be the Artist, and denoted that as an artist folder.
3. The "9th Edition" as you denoted it, can't have anything else than "STS Digital" as the artist (there's just nothing else there), and so it formally creates a funfolder for that.

Ad  3.
While creating the sub folder is a choice out of two possibilities (the other one being having the "Artist - Albumname" structure in one and the same folder), you see a duality here, because in the album folder the artist is repeated again (the "STS Digital -" part). So, if there's anything wrong with it, it would be this. But it can't harm much.
Notice that all your STS Editions would appear under the one created sub folder "STS Digital", would you have had them all.

Notice that my choice of creating a sub folder for the artist instead of having all in one folder (which the "-" in between Artist and Album) may or will create the both structures in one system. In fact like you see it happening here. Technically this does not harm (both can exist together), but whether this is the best to have it mixed, is something else (not of course). Currently I have two reasons why not to bother much : One is that we ourselves undoubtedly have these mixes in the original data already, Two is that when having to create stuff like this under the hood (like it happened here), the separate sub folder for Artist is more formal ("structured", like in programming).

At judging this yourself to all the merits there are or might me (!!), you must not look at this one "direct" example only, but instead look at the large result of your similar activities from 10 disks or so. Because remember, practice will denote that your STS Digital editions emerged over that number of disks (or so of course), assuming you won't have one 2TB disk which is half full only (allowing you to add the STS Digital editions to the same structure always). This will mean that the structures may vary over the disks (it's quite out of control), while *here* in the Galleries all comes together again. Now, while it is clear that you make a mess of it already with the clear overview of that one little piece of structure, XX tries to improve on your activities which clearly helps. Let's add to this : hahaha, because I'm not telling you that you made a mess of it, but only want to make clear that in this specific example you should not say that XX makes the mess (your quote above). So, I only *need* to tell you that it is really you who starts the mess, and the only thing what happens here is that you don't understand the changes (or the why of it).

Similar happens to the "Various" which appears out of the blue, as you say. It does not at all appear out of the blue, because it appears when you forgot to denote an Artist. Literal Example would be :

\Nice Music\STS Digital\

If you see an Artist here, you sure won't see an Album Name. And if you see an Album Name, there's no Artist. Right ? Well, since albums always have names, it is the artist which will be lacking, and thus it is denoted "Various". And thus in the Galleries it will appear as :

\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital\

That the Various appears out of the blue, is because you forgot to add it. If you would have had something like

\Nice Music\Various Artists\STS Digital\

nothing would have changed to the structure. BUT :
To make all more nice or better, my hard coded "Various" really should be a setting for its name, so you can name that "Various Artists". When not (like how it is now) you will end up with both

\Nice Music\Various\STS Digital\
\Nice Music\Various Artists\STS Digital\

when the latter was corretcly denoted by you like that, and while the former was not correctly denoted, so XX does it.
Since now you have two structures for "Various Artists" it is not the best, but also not your fault (rather mine).
But before it becomes law that it really is my fault, could you please look on your disks how many of "Various Artists" names you use, and in what kind of structures. So, mine just adds one, *if* it didn't exist already because of your own creations.


Peter

[PeterSt]

Continueing on my last post ...

It is logic too, that Russ is your partner in crime regarding this all, because he is an official master of chaos. Well, not really maybe, but overthere in the Outback he managed to rip more albums on his single own than maybe any of us, and since this has been a project of (my guess) more than 10 years, ideas change and so do structures. So, it is him who has the combined structures to begin with, and this time because of all the good ideas emerging over time. Of course he tries to manage it well, and regularly moves old structures to the better new ones, which is exactly why the Rename with the Mask functionality emerged. Btw, this too is an unfinished project at this time, just because it needs feedback on all the various (strange) structures people have, Russ being a first candidate for that.

So here, in fact, we see some of this feedback, although it's the first I see as a response to the creating of Galleries, which is just part of it all (what's still no quite right in the original data, may pop up for the little better in the Galleries).

For me it is enormously complex to take into account those unknown structures, and then specifically the change of it and reflect it back in the already existing Galleries. So it is there where things are unfinished, while for 100% sure it's just part of the job. For example, if I right now pull a Gallery from something which implies a "Various" to be created, and I "Re-do" that, it ends up as \Various\Various\. Not good.

Indeed it is so (Russ) that most of the problems emerge from multi volume albums, or worse : the box sets. This all with in mind the album (think Box) specific data (could be anything, but think booklet) combined with the volume specific data (could be liner notes per volume). IMO this should all work fully automatically, meaning without you denoting stuff specifically, and all you should do is putting the stuff in a logic structure, with that meaning that you'd feel that otherwise it won't work anyway. And to indicate that things really can be worse that our examples in here :

There's also people who really think that all will work automatically at putting all the coverart of all the albums into one folder, change the tracks from the albums into cue files so all become "one track albums", to next think that all those one tracks can be in one folder all the same ... to next tell me it doesn't work.

The latter example (which really exists) is to the extreme, but clearly does not let work my assumption of "your logic" and apply that in the program. So what it seems to come down to, is that indeed it needs to be the other way around : I determine what logic is regarding this, put that into XX, and next put it out as a rule to you.
This is not what happened thus far because it's really a bad idea to let someone like Russ or anyone change his structure onto those rules I dictate, and so the Rename functionality is a kind of in between solution because now my rules can be applied in automated fashion. Still it can only be used when all fully works hence is approved, and until that time the problems of at least understanding remain.

Russ, since I don't recall any specific feedback on the latest versions (but let's take 0.9z-5) on the multi volume thing, maybe you can prepare something for me. We know there's this other topic where it was worked out (what are the rules, how to apply them), and I don't know better than that I applied the changes on my side. Apparently you still have the problems - but which are they ?
Here too, I'm not saying all will work. It's only that I can't test your or anyone's situation, so I just don't know and need the feedback.

Lastly, it very well might be that the changes I applied are exactly in those Release Notes I never put up so far. So you wouldn't even know about the changes ... (but they sure are there). But since you refer to 0.9z-5 as creating the problem ... which are they *for you* ?

In the mean time I will try to improve on things, mainly in the area of "Re-do", *that* being needed to re-generate existing Galleries only because I changed some logic (and really no manual activity being available nor allowed).

Peter

[PeterSt]

Lastly, it very well might be that the changes I applied are exactly in those Release Notes I never put up so far.

I just looked it up, and indeed no Release Notes were put up about this. The changes appeared in 0.9z-4-0 (so with specific current problems, use an earlier version than that).

[Eric]

Hi Peter,
thanks for looking into this.

What I liked so much about the earlier version is that it was simple and quick.
When I selected all albums in my "Jazz" datafolder, XXHE would simply create the "Jazz" gallery, and the total underlying folder structure (my choice). It goes so fast that I never had a requirement to UNDO something. When something went wrong (e.g. tracknames too long or pathname too long), I would simply, delete the result, correct the problem and create the library again. All goes very fast. Take this as a compliment!      

For sure I can understand your ideas about the ideal structure, using various, how handle BOX etcetera. However, the way I organized my library is how I used to do it for over 40 years now. My music is organized in Categories like Jazz, Pop, World, etc. And also Audiophile is a category. The way I organize the subfolders very much depends on the catergory. For example, for Classical music, I define Opera, Pianoconcertos etc. And next comes the level of composer and so on. For Jazz or Pop music, this would look different. And within the subfolders, there are BOXes and Various.
Just go to a CD shop and you see a similar kind of ordering.

I believe that there is no "right" or "wrong" way of doing it. Everybody does it the way he/she feels comfortable with. For me it has been very helpful that the folder structure was respected, no matter how it looked like. For me, XXHE only has to look at the folder structure and copy it.

 :offtopic:A few years back, I asked you a question on this forum about avoiding duplicates in the Galleries view. Sticking to the previous example, the Eline album could appear in more than 1 gallery: "Audiophile", "Ladies" and "Nice Music". However, the effect of this approach would be that the album shows up several times in the (all) Galleries view. So, I decided to stop going that route. When you mentioned that you were considering a Database-like approach last week, this might really take it a step further IMHO.

Anyway, for now, I happily stick with the 0.9z-2 version (for library creation only!!!).   
 

Cheers,
Eric

[PeterSt]

Thank you for clarifying Eric. That too (really) helps.

In between lines : the (by uou implied) more slowyness of it at this moment, is exactly about "response problems" I mentioned. This is not an inherent thing, but merely something wrong somewhere. So, let's count this out for a reason not to want it ...

I thought about adding the below text, but left it be at first. But now you challenge for it, so ... :

The *reason* this is all necessary is a technical one. Or maybe even functional. And the fun is, by now I can explain it better - just because of your own last post;

When duplicates are to be eliminated, I have to know what is which. Thus, that Eline is Eline, no matter where you put her, and how the structure at *that* point is. I touched it by referring to the several disks though, so it's just a matter of thinking this over carefully, and you see the WHY of this all. This is totally unrelated to being ignorant and improving on YOUR defined structure or something.
All goes (most probably) way beyond your imagination, because it is also related to the ever so (100%) important of being able to compare albums (which is an explicit function), which means that things first have to be normalized. Just think about jow Eline with her albums can be put into the various structures, and what would be my means to normalized this to an internal compareable structure. And since these kind of functions preferrable are not made redundantly (hence exist one time in code), it exhibits everywhere automatically. So, for example it is also related to the artist and album you see appear in the OSD stuff. Think about how this worked out in the earlier versions ... it was wrong (depending on what your structure was).

Then there's - I think ! - the misconception about exactly your last given examples : you seem to expect to see "opera" etc. in the Gallery structure, biut it really can't and never did. It would be the opposite of what you want for the best reason there is : eliminate duplicates. Why ? well, because your proposed (but I'm sure you don't mean to propose that really) structure would make it unique, implying exactly that Eline appears as many times as it occurs in the original structure. There would be now way out. This is why "Opera" etc. does NOT appear in the Library Area - no matter what version. But ... if you *make* it appear there (which IS possible) you are doing it wrongly. It also GOES wrong, and you can see it by wrongly cut texts at hopping from one Gallery to the other (or something like that). What I mean is : It is NOT allowed to even ask for ORIGINAL structures which include subjective information like "opera". Thus, it is not allowed to ask for Ogriganal Data like this :

\Music\Opera\

WHILE THE REAL STRUCTURE YOU CREATED IS :

\Music\Opera\Ladies

and create a Gallery from *that*. Why ? because the Ladies would be in the Gallery data just the same, nothing is made for that, but merely, it would invalidate your own ideas about it all (IOW : please try to get this, because it is really important, already for making your problems clear to me, and for me to make clear why I think all (??) is as should be). What is allowed is aksing for original data like this :

\Music\Opera\ (so, the same as before)

while the real structure is

\Music\Opera\

and now you create a Gallery from this like

\Music\Opera\Ladies
and (!) / or
\Music\Ladies
and (!) / or
Music\Opera
and (!) / or
Music\Nice Stuff\
etc. etc.

... And all 'n all we see the same problem arise again : you try to mix reality with subjective information by creating the "Ladies" already in the original (which by itself is allowed) but now use the Galleries for your subjective ideas AGAIN.
What would be allowed indeed in this case is ask for the original data :

\Music\Opera\Ladies\ (so, now I assume you applied your subjective ideas in the original data)

and now again create a Gallery from that like you want. Could be \Rock\Ladies.
But notice the important difference : at asking for this original data, the subjective part is left out (which is Opera\Ladies). Look at the results and the paths under it, and you will see NO PATHs. It is exactly this which allows for re-arranging everything, without dragging the subjectiveness with you. You'd apply the reason for Galleries being there wrongly ...

To proove I'm right ... look at your most objective "Nice Music" which is in your original data. This *is* allowed perfectly, but it is NOT allowed to ask for anything higherup in the structure (like \Music) and pull a Gallery from that. Again the \Nice Music will be dragged with it, and it counterattacks your own good idea about it all.

I think you have the hunch now ...

Now we are this far ... Only when I can normalize the Artist Name, I can recognize doublures in whatever asked for Gallery Structure - and depending on the level you ask for it (which can just as well be the top level) you'd have more doublures or none. In either case, only when *I* can make a structured whole of it, this eliminating can be done.
So you see, you'd want me to continue on this, instead of revert it all. In the mean time you yourself may need to adapt your means of Gallery-making (not how the originals are stowed away which really is unimportant), and in the end all will work.

But keep on shooting, because I can only learn what to cover for more, and since I'm into it now anyway ...

Thanks !
Peter