Multi-value tags

[John Glasson]

I've been a Twonky Server user for the past 5 years but have long been disappointed that they offer no support for multi-value ID3 tags.  I recently installed MediaTomb on my WD MBMW to see if this offered a solution.

I was most impressed at how easy it was to install the static binary and configure it.  Better still, I found that the scripting is very flexible; within a day I was able to customise the installation to do exactly what I'd been trying for so long to achieve on Twonky.

My requirement for multi-value tags is because I have a classical collection with multiple artists per track.  I delimit the artists with a '/' character.  My import.js file conains the following:

In the first section (reading in the data):

    var artist = obj.meta;
    var artists = artist.split("/")
    if (!artist)
    {
        artist = 'Unknown';
        artist_full = null;
    }
    else
    {
        artist_full = artist;
        desc = artists;
    }

In the second section (building the chains):

    var len=artists.length;
    for(var i=0; i<len; i++) {
chain = new Array('Audio', 'Artists', abcbox(artists_, 9, '-'), artists, composer, album);
obj.title = track + title;
addCdsObject(obj, createContainerChain(chain), UPNP_CLASS_CONTAINER_MUSIC_ALBUM);
   
chain = new Array('Audio', 'Composers', abcbox(composer,9,'-'), composer, genre, album, artists);
addCdsObject(obj, createContainerChain(chain), UPNP_CLASS_CONTAINER_MUSIC_ALBUM);
   }

This results in a tree which looks like this:

Database
    Audio
        Artists
         -A-
         -B-
         -C-
                CBC Radio Orchestra
                CBC Vancouver Orchestra
                Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra
                etc
        Composers
          -A-
          -B-
            Bach
                Chamber Music
                    Oboe Sonata in B minor, BWV.1030
                        All Tracks
                        Douglas Boyd:oboe
                        Knut Johannessen:harpsichord
                    Six Suites for Cello
                    Sonata in A major for 2 violins and harpsicord
                    etc

If this is of interest to other users I can provide more detail_