extrafanart

xbmc17 Wrote:Thanks for the explanation ronie!

Wouldn't it make more sense to pull the "Artist" ID3 tag though? Say a compilation album features 12 artists. If I played that album from beginning to end I'd like the fanart of each artist to display rather than some generic "Various Artists" fanart. I can't think of any way to alter the folder structure to accommodate this either.

both ways have their pros and cons.
neither one will work 100% in all cases.

extrafanart is not natively supported by xbmc, it's a skin 'hack' to make it possible anyway.
those workarounds will never be perfect :-)

i prefer the current way, as it will work out-of-the-box.
if i use the artist tag way, the user would need to set up the path to their music folder first.

xbmc17,

I'm pretty sure you can get the functionality you want by using the difference between "artist" and "album artist" within tags and your filenaming.

I use MediaMonkey (which I love) and if you use the "album artist" as "various" to identify the compilation....but name the files directory structure using the "artist" then you will be able to play a compilation with the extrafanart properly updating as each new track and artist is played.

The key is not naming all the tracks under a single "various artists" folder. (The downside is your album is spread across a bunch of different directories if you ever try to actually browse to individual tracks without mediamonkey.)

Hope that makes some sense.

Now if I can just get the extra-fanart-downloader addon to support Music. It looks fantastic for TV/Video...but I confess my xbmc is primarily music-only right now.

Knopfler Wrote:Now if I can just get the extra-fanart-downloader addon to support Music. It looks fantastic for TV/Video...but I confess my xbmc is primarily music-only right now.

That won't happen
Extrafanart Downloader should be marked broken by now (haven't checked it though).

For music you need cdArt manager

ronie Wrote:both ways have their pros and cons.
neither one will work 100% in all cases.

extrafanart is not natively supported by xbmc, it's a skin 'hack' to make it possible anyway.
those workarounds will never be perfect :-)

i prefer the current way, as it will work out-of-the-box.
if i use the artist tag way, the user would need to set up the path to their music folder first.

What are the cons of using the Artist tag of the MP3? If you are using library mode your music should be tagged correctly so what would be the con?

Why would a user need to set the path to their music folder? Why would you need that to read the Artist tag of the currently playing track?

Knopfler Wrote:xbmc17,

I'm pretty sure you can get the functionality you want by using the difference between "artist" and "album artist" within tags and your filenaming.

I use MediaMonkey (which I love) and if you use the "album artist" as "various" to identify the compilation....but name the files directory structure using the "artist" then you will be able to play a compilation with the extrafanart properly updating as each new track and artist is played.

The key is not naming all the tracks under a single "various artists" folder. (The downside is your album is spread across a bunch of different directories if you ever try to actually browse to individual tracks without mediamonkey.)

Hope that makes some sense.

Now if I can just get the extra-fanart-downloader addon to support Music. It looks fantastic for TV/Video...but I confess my xbmc is primarily music-only right now.

Thanks for the suggestion, and yes, I agree it would probably work but that's quite a disorganized mess of folders/files to have compilation albums spread out everywhere

xbmc17 Wrote:What are the cons of using the Artist tag of the MP3? If you are using library mode your music should be tagged correctly so what would be the con?

Why would a user need to set the path to their music folder? Why would you need that to read the Artist tag of the currently playing track?

it's beacause xbmc does not provide the skin with the path to the artist folder where your extrafanart is stored.

so, if i'm gonna use the artist tag, the skin has to construct the path in a way like this:
'user supplied music folder' / 'artist tag' / 'extrafanart'

ronie Wrote:it's beacause xbmc does not provide the skin with the path to the artist folder where your extrafanart is stored.

so, if i'm gonna use the artist tag, the skin has to construct the path in a way like this:
'user supplied music folder' / 'artist tag' / 'extrafanart'

I tried Aeon Nox and it somehow pulls the correct extrafanart for the artist even if it's a compilation album. There is a different option in settings where you specify your music path, I guess they are pulling the path from there or do they have a method for determining the path?

xbmc17 Wrote:I tried Aeon Nox and it somehow pulls the correct extrafanart for the artist even if it's a compilation album. There is a different option in settings where you specify your music path, I guess they are pulling the path from there

yup, that's what they do.
they use the method i referred to in my previous reply:
'user supplied music folder' / 'artist tag' / 'extrafanart'

Does Aeon Nox need any particular filename for the extra fan art?

telemark7 Wrote:Does Aeon Nox need any particular filename for the extra fan art?

not that i'm aware, but you're better ask in the aeon nox support thread.

ronie Wrote:not that i'm aware, but you're better ask in the aeon nox support thread.

Nope