Display Artist testing

[mikeysas]

Here are my test albums which I tagged purposely to test some different scenarios. This is by no means exhaustive, but I thought a good starting point. As always I am testing from a UX perspective.

Test data:

(1)--------------------------------------
ALBUM: Miles Smiles
ALBUMARTIST: Miles Davis Quintet
ALBUMARTISTS: Miles Davis
ARTIST: Miles Davis Quintet
ARTISTS: [ Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams ]

(2)--------------------------------------
ALBUM: Relaxin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet
ALBUMARTIST: Miles Davis Quintet
ALBUMARTISTS: Miles Davis
ARTIST: [ Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones ]
[[ *Note I purposely left off the ARTISTS tag ]]

(3)--------------------------------------
ALBUM: Waltz for Debby
ALBUMARTIST: [ Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro & Paul Motian, Bill Evans ]
[[ *Note I purposely left off the ALBUMARTISTS tag ]]
ARTIST: Bill Evans Trio
ARTISTS: [ Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, Paul Motian ]

(4)--------------------------------------
ALBUM: Cattin’ with Coltrane and Quinichette
ALBUMARTIST: John Coltrane/Paul Quinichette
ALBUMARTISTS: [ John Coltrane, Paul Quinichette ]
ARTIST: John Coltrane/Paul Quinichette
ARTISTS: [ John Coltrane, Paul Quinichette, Julian Euell, Ed Thigpen, Mal Waldron ]
/ -----------------------------------------

Additions (May 23):

(5)--------------------------------------
ALBUM: Undercurrent
*** Note I purposely left off the ALBUMARTIST & ALBUMARTISTS tags
ARTIST: Bill Evans & Jim Hall
ARTISTS: [ Bill Evans, Jim Hall ]

(6)--------------------------------------
ALBUM: Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
ALBUMARTIST: Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
*** Note I purposely left off the ALBUMARTISTS and ARTIST tags
ARTISTS: [ Duke Ellington, John Coltrane ]

(7)--------------------------------------
ALBUM: Lush Life
ALBUMARTIST: John Coltrane
ALBUMARTISTS: John Coltrane
ARTIST: [ John Coltrane, Earl May, Art Taylor ]
ARTISTS: John Coltrane (w/o the others)
/ -----------------------------------------

Observations:

Here is the first and then I will post additional as separate comments.

I still see the playlist queue swap between display names and contributor values when the queue is changed (adds and removes)
Before:

After removing a release:

EDIT:
Corrected the Artist tag in (4) which I had changed when testing

[mikeysas]

• When the plural tag is missing and there are multiple values in the singular tag (2,3), it is taking the first value as the display name and subsequent values as contributors, but notice the difference is the results when you click a name.
  (3) note the display name is included in the list

(4) note the display name is excluded from the list

This got me wondering which is the better answer and although it may not have been the original intent, I think since the display name is included in FTS, it feels like it makes sense to include in the pop up list here like (3).

I need to take care of something else now, but will have some more for you too.

[Rouzax]

Any chance you could create empty audio files with the tags and attach them here?

[mikeysas]

stripped_test.zip

Let me know if this works for you.

[Rouzax]

Scanned the four albums. Two display strings come out with raw semicolons:

• Album (2) display_artist = Miles Davis;John Coltrane;Red Garland;Paul Chambers;Philly Joe Jones
• Album (3) display_albumartist = Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro & Paul Motian;Bill Evans

Both are scalar strings (single Vorbis comment with semicolons). The array path already takes [0], which is correct. The scalar path doesn't split.

Fix: when the singular tag is a scalar containing splitList separators and no plural tag exists, call splitTag and take the first element. When the plural exists, the singular is the display name, keep as-is.

After fix: (2) display_artist = Miles Davis, (3) display_albumartist = Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro & Paul Motian.

[mikeysas]

What the tags look like

All multi-value fields in these files are single Vorbis comments with semicolons inside, not separate Vorbis comment entries. This is the classic LMS tagging style (the only way to get multi-value before the plural tags existed). For reference:

Not that it should matter as we need to handle both, but I think that was a side effect of the way I stripped the audio as my original file had separate tags for each value. I used the following to strip the audio:

ffmpeg -v error -y -i "$src_file" -f lavfi -i anullsrc=d=0.1 -map 1:a -map_metadata 0 -c:a flac "$dest_file"

Here is an updated set of files with the multivalues separated like my original test. It is good to test both ways as it should be the same.
stripped_test2.zip

[mikeysas]

This would give:

Album Field Current Fixed
(1) Miles Smiles display_albumartist Miles Davis Quintet unchanged
(1) Miles Smiles display_artist Miles Davis Quintet unchanged (ARTISTS exists, singular is display)
(2) Relaxin' display_artist Miles Davis;John Coltrane;... Miles Davis
(3) Waltz for Debby display_albumartist ...Scott LaFaro & Paul Motian;Bill Evans Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro & Paul Motian
(4) Cattin' display_albumartist John Coltrane/Paul Quinichette unchanged (ALBUMARTISTS exists)
Album (2)'s display_artist becoming just "Miles Davis" is the same tradeoff the array path already makes: the full contributor list is available through contributor links, so the display field only needs the primary name.

The code change is small, only touching the display extraction block in Schema.pm. Happy to put together a patch if this approach makes sense.

I think we need to settle this whole question of how to process singular tags with multiple values. (2) and (3) are each missing one of the plural tags. But even if the plural did exist, I still believe the correct answer anytime there is multiple tags in a singular tag is to display all the individual values the same way it would look as if the option was turned off for that tag. I do not think it is right to assume the first tag is the Display value. Although it is the correct assumption in (3), it is not in (2).

[Rouzax]

The corrected files have proper separate Vorbis entries, so the array [0] path handles them already. The semicolon fix is only needed for users with legacy single-field tagging.

Separate question from @mikeysas's point: when singular is an array with no plural, should display show [0] or all values joined? [0] works for (3) (group name + individual) but loses info for (2) (all individuals). One option: join all elements with ", " when no plural exists.

Fix for the semicolon case: Rouzax/slimserver@pr/1576-semicolon-fix (diff).

[mikeysas]

I am wondering what should display on the Now Playing screen when the ARTIST and ALBUMARTIST tags are different like in (3). What I have observed, but should be verified is that Now Playing seems to just be showing the Artist Display Name.

The current LMS logic in Material is to display of all the unique Artist / Track Artist contributors followed by Album Artist contributors that are unique. Granted in my (3) example, to display is not good example, but I do have some recordings where it would be logical to display both but it is admittedly a real edge case. However, we have to deal with what displays for Album (2) as I think here all of the values should display (to be consistent with my previous comments).

[mikeysas]

Your point about album (2) is valid and worth discussing: when ARTIST has multiple separate Vorbis entries and no ARTISTS tag exists, is [0] ("Miles Davis") the right display, or should it show all values? The current logic treats the first entry as the "display name" and the rest as additional contributors. That works well for album (3) where the first entry is the full group name and the second is an individual. But for album (2) all five entries are individuals, so taking only the first one loses information in the display.

I don't think it is just limited to when the plural tag is missing. I think it is safer to consider that anytime multiple values exist in a singular tag it should be treated as an exception and displayed as though the tag was scanned with the option turned off (current 9.1 logic). This does mean that the values in a plural tag would be ignored. I think that is okay as this situation could be considered not valid for processing of singular tag as a display name and plural tag as contributors. Alternatively if you are uncomfortable with dropping the values in the plural tag the unique ones could be added as additional contributors creating a list of contributors with no display name just like v9.1 is today.

[darrell-k]

I am wondering what should display on the Now Playing screen when the ARTIST and ALBUMARTIST tags are different like in (3). What I have observed, but should be verified is that Now Playing seems to just be showing the Artist Display Name.

The current LMS logic in Material is to display of all the unique Artist / Track Artist contributors followed by Album Artist contributors that are unique. Granted in my (3) example, to display is not good example, but I do have some recordings where it would be logical to display both but it is admittedly a real edge case. However, we have to deal with what displays for Album (2) as I think here all of the values should display (to be consistent with my previous comments).

I already added a separate display_artist_album element in the response from LMS, in order to handle the "toggled" grouped queue with album headings, so it will be simple to add.

But depending on tagging, there could be repetition, even if strings which are exactly the same are catered for. What's the answer?

And should this also be done for tracks when shown in the queue?

[mikeysas]

A possible approach: when the singular tag is an array and no plural tag exists, join all elements with ", " for the display name (e.g., "Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones"). This preserves the full list for display while still having the individual contributor links in the database. When the plural tag does exist, the singular [0] is the intended display name as before.

If it better to force a display name for each, this approach could work, but it becomes more complicated when the singular tag has values that are not in the plural tag. Those would need to be added as contributors also for consistency. I think it could create more confusing results then just dropping the plural tag anytime there is multiple values in the singular tag. I would treat the values from the singular tag as the contributors and if needed you can still concatenate for display but I would fine if it just displays like it does today with separate clickable values. I am good either way and equal arguments for either approach.

[darrell-k]

@Rouzax I know you're using AI in your analysis, and that's fine. But please extract and summarise the relevant information rather than posting AI ouput: it's too wordy and in particular echoing back things that have already been said, for example how Mike created his test files, is pure noise.

[Rouzax]

@darrell-k I have the semicolon fix on a branch (Rouzax/slimserver@pr/1576-semicolon-fix). Want me to open a PR against your display_artist branch, or would you prefer to cherry-pick the commit?

[Rouzax]

@darrell-k Fair point, I'll keep it tighter. Trimmed the two earlier comments.

[darrell-k]

@darrell-k I have the semicolon fix on a branch (Rouzax/slimserver@pr/1576-semicolon-fix). Want me to open a PR against your display_artist branch, or would you prefer to cherry-pick the commit?

Please open a PR. I have some thoughts but we should discuss as part of the PR.