Setup support for custom tags

Overview

This example show how you can add information in a custom tag to SlimServer, the information will be added in the Song Info page in the web interface, the sub menu to the right of Now Playing and to the right of the track level in all other browse menus. We till finally also as a browse menu making it possible to browse music by performers in same way as you normally can browse artists. This example is applicable to other types of custom tags, performer is just an example.

The idea with this description is mainly to provide a bit more details regarding setup of Custom Scan and Custom Browse and this configuration is just used as an example to show the possibilities.

Installation

To setup this you will have to install the following plugins

• Custom Browse plugin (At least version 1.21)
• Custom Scan plugin (At least version 1.17)

Scanning custom tag

The first thing to do is to make sure the custom tag PERFORMER is actually scanned into the SlimServer database. Before this we have of course used a taggning software to put the tags in our music files. We have stored the tag as a single value with a semicolon character separating the different perfomers:

PERFORMER="Performer1;Performer2;Performer3"

Custom Scan will use the standard MULTIPLE ITEMS IN TAGS setting found under Server Settings/Behavior for the separator character, so make sure this is set to the semicolon character or use the separator characters you have configured when setting the tags in the music files.

1. Goto Custom Scan in the web interface
2. Click the Custom Tag scanning module to change it settings as
   • Enable in automatic and full scans: Selected
   • Tags to scan: PERFORMER
3. Click Save and then click the Scan link beside the Custom Scan scanning module

The performer information has now been scanned into the SlimServer database, it will still not be shown anywhere though.

Adding a browse menu

We now want to add a browse menu beside the Browse/Artists menu that instead is called Browse/Performers and works the same way as the artists browsing mechanism.

1. Goto Custom Browse in the web interface
2. Click Settings and then Edit menus and finally Create new menu
3. Select the Custom Tags Albums menu type
4. Change menu parameters
   • Menu name: Performers
   • Tag name: PERFORMER
5. Click Next and enter filename: performers.cb.values.xml
6. Click Save to save the menu

You should now have a Performers menu under the Custom Browse menu, we now wan't to move this inside the standard Browse menu so it can be found in the same way as the standard Browse/Artists menu.

1. Goto Custom Browse in the web interface
2. Click Settings and then Enable/Disable menus/mixers
3. Find the Performers menu in the list and make sure both the Show in browse and home menu and Select enabled menus checkboxes are selected
4. Click Save to save the changes

You should now have a Browse/Performers menu that works in similar way as the standard Browse/Artists menu but browse by performers instead.

Adding to Now Playing right menu

We now want to add a he performers to the Now Playing right menu, here we want to be able to see performers of a track in same way as artists normally are shown. We would also like to be able to right click on a performer and browse its albums and songs.

1. Goto Custom Browse in the web interface
2. Click Settings and then Edit context menus/headers/footers and finally Create new menu
3. Select the Custom Tags Albums for song menu type
4. Edit menu parameters
   • Menu name: Performers
   • Menu prefix: Performer
   • Level 1 tag name: PERFORMER
   • Object type: track
5. Click Next and change the filename to: trackperformers.cb.context.values.xml
6. Click Save to save the changes

The performers of a track when right clicking on a track on the SqueezeBox/Transporter will now be shown as:

Performer: Performer1

You will also be able to right click on the performer to browse the albums of the performer. This will work in Now Playing menu but also in all the browse menus.

Adding to Song Info page in web interface

The next step is to add the performers to the Song Info page shown when selecting a song in the web interface.

1. Goto Custom Browse in the web interface
2. Click Settings and then Edit context menus/headers/footers and finally Create new menu
3. Select the Custom Tags Albums for song menu type
4. Edit menu parameters
   • Menu name: Performers
   • Menu prefix: Performer
   • Level 1 tag name: PERFORMER
   • Object type: trackheader
5. Click Next and change the filename to: trackheaderperformers.cb.context.values.xml
6. Click Save to save the changes

The performers will now be shown in the Song Info page when clicking on any song in a menu created by Custom Browse, it will be shown as:

Performer: Performer1 , Performer2 , Performer3

However, when you click on a song in one of the standard browse menus or in the current playlist window you will still see the old Song Info page without performers.

Showing customized Song Info page in all places

We obviously want our customized Song Info page to be shown independent if we click on a song in a Custom Browse menu or on a song in the current playlist window or standard browse menus. To accomplish this we will need to change the skin in SlimServer to one of the skins provided with Custom Browse.

1. Goto Server Settings/Interface in the web interface
2. For the WEB INTERFACE parameter select either DefaultCB or FishboneCB skin
3. Click Change to save the changes

The customized Song Info page which contains performers should now be shown when you click on a song in the web interface.