Here are Twonky 5/6 trees to suit larger music collections

[Cash]

Hi,

great work but i´m only a dummy user. I don´t know how i use the downlaod file.

I have Twnkony 6.030 installed on my qnap 259 pro.

What must i do to copy file?

Must i use telnet? How it works?

It would be nice if anyone can help me. My Mediathek ist really big an the twonky treee is not good for me

Best regards

Thomas

[Briain]

Hello

It's very easy; you can find some info about how to do it in my post here

I'll eventually also port that post over to this forum (I'm out of time at the moment)

Bri

[a94andwi]

Hello Brian.

I am doing all I can to use your excellent trees and changing them so that my pictures and videos are organized in a good way too. Of course there are now tags available for these what I know of so I need to use file name instead.

What is my concern is that I do not have a clue of the upnp syntax. There are lots of upnp-code in your trees and I wonder if you can help me where I can find more info about this syntax so I can get closer to your upnp-class (you're the master).

Where can I learn this syntax?

/Anders

[Briain]

Hi

I just reverse engineered it from the original Twonky trees and used Notepad++ to build my own ones (it shows everything in sensible 'modular' blocks). I set it to save in Unix format which is the correct end of line syntax for Linux NAS's, but the trees saved that way also work fine for Windows versions of Twonky. The best way to develop trees is to install Twonky on a PC and point it to only a few media; that way a database rebuild takes only a few seconds and thus any changes/experiments can be seen very quickly. I'm not sure if there is yet a Twonky 6 tree document available. I have one for Twonky 5.0, but it changed for 5.1 and I'm not sure if the changed version was published. Maybe have a look at the Twonky forum as I think Rick (the TMM Product Manager) published the 5.1 tree document on the forum. The changes from 5.1 to 6.0 are only in the first couple of lines (and the additional mobile trees etc) which are already in my own trees. If you find the 5.1 doc, it'll be ideal for experimenting with 6.0 trees as it will contain all the info you need to design the containers.

Bri

[klm]

Also a big thank you from me for all the work that went into these view definitions, Bri -- really impressive. I mainly used the holidays to upgrade my 119 to the newest 3.3.8 firmware level, then didn't like the behavior (in particular: sort order) of the updated Twonky, and was really happy to find your trees as a way out that delivers many additional features. Of course this generates more work, I am now in the process of retagging my music to ensure proper Album Artist and Composer tags are used.

For those on a 119 considering to use Brian's trees:
* the Twonky 6.0.30 QPKG install on a 119 has its configuration files at /share/HDA_DATA/.qpkg/TwonkyMedia/resources/views,
* and the really good news is that on the 119, same as the 219, they appear to survive a reboot, as well as a QPKG disable/enable (so far I can guarantee it survives a disable/reboot/enable sequence because that's what I did).

Happy New Year to everyone!

[simoncn]

I just installed the ArtistOnly custom trees on my TS-109 with the 6.0.30 QPKG. They seem to be working fine, but they require rather more navigation steps than I was expecting. With the standard iPod-like view, the path to select an album is:
Music->Albums->[AlbumName]
and with the custom trees I need to do:
Music->Albums->Browse All (or choose an initial letter)->[AlbumName]
so it's one extra step with the custom trees.

I'd also like to select albums by composer. The shortest path would be:
Music->Composers->[ComposerName]->[AlbumName]
and with the custom trees I need to do:
Music->Composers->[ComposerInitialLetter]->[ComposerName]->Albums->[AlbumName]
so it's two extra steps with the custom trees.

I tried all the different views (iPod-like, Classic and Advanced) and they didn't seem to make any difference for the above paths.

Is there any way to shorten the navigation paths for these cases?

[Briain]

Hi

Yes, I'd have to design trees without alpha grouping (I actually do intend doing that when I have some free time). The current trees were designed for large collections and have alpha grouping to get over the problems of list size limits on certain control point devices. I think iPod/iPhone used to have a list size of 2,000 and iPad used to have a limit of 20,000 (but the new OS might have increased this) and my WM6.5 PDA has a limit of 100 artworks before Windows Mobile stops showing any art, so the trees were made to be usable on all devices (and the -Browse All- feature added for use on things like the iPad). Even though I use an iPad myself, I still like the alpha grouped option to save me having to scroll through massive lists to get to where I wish, but I fully appreciate that that's certainly not desirable for smaller collections.

As I say, when I get some time I'll publish a non-grouped version of each tree, but the ones here are really needed for collections like mine (30,777 FLAC files). My thinking was that the standard Twonky trees would suit smaller collections for now, and that I'll publish non grouped versions of my ones when time permits; hopefully quite soon, but I'm bogged down with other stuff at the moment.

Bri

[simoncn]

Bri,
Thanks for the quick response. I've removed a few container levels from your trees to get the views that I want. The standard Twonky trees don't meet my needs because the Composer container has individual tracks rather than albums. With Twonky 6.0.30 + your trees + my small changes, at last I have a music server that does what I need. Many thanks for your help with getting this working.

Simon

[Briain]

Hi Simon

I have added an -All Composers- container to the top of the A~Z of both sets of trees. I have published these along with the existing ones (here) so folks have the option to choose the best one for their needs. The additional -All Composers- menu item adds about 10% to the database rebuild times, so that's why I've left the original trees there too.

When I get some time, I'll make up versions without any alpha-grouping as these will be far better for small to medium music collections. This will be done pretty soon (I'm frantically trying to sort out my self-assessment tax return and thus have no time at the moment).

Bri

[armlehne]

Hi Briain,

Nice job!
Just wanted to let you (and other interested readers) know that the trees actually work fine with a ps3.

Simon

[Briain]

Hi

Thanks very much for posting that info; I thought the PS3 might need the Twonky original trees so that's very interesting to know.

Bri

PS Whilst sitting pondering things over a glass of wine (well, a whole bottle) I've just realised that I've missed out the album artists subcontainer in the new -All Composers- container of the ACAlbumArtists tree (it's still available in the A~Z ones below the -All Composer- container). I'll add it tomorrow morning and re-post an updated ACAlbumArtist tree pack. Oops!

[Briain]

Hi

Having realised that I missed a bit, it was bugging me so I fixed it right away; I've now reposted the ACAlbumArtist version to correct the above omission.

Bri

[a94andwi]

Hello all.

I've searched everywhere to find how to write your own tree and to understand the database properties.
Finally I found this.

Now we all can now how to do pretty advanced changes.

See the uploaded file.

TMS-5-1-View Configuration.rar

/A

[a94andwi]

Hi.

Anyone got a clue on how you could get Twonky to write this structure?
Music
Album
ABC
DEF
AlbumName-AlbumArtist

Is it possible to use 2 containers and combine them in the output?
'upnp:album'+'upnp:albumArtist'

Wonder if I should try and see.....
/A

[kgrosser]

Hi Bri,

might be a little OT here, but this is your most recent post and I didn't dare to PM you. First of all:
Huge thanks for your Twonky trees! Finally someone who seems to sharte my understanding of efficient music library browsing. Not being a coder myself, I have taken your trees and played with it to suit my taste even better, not to full success. What I was trying to achieve is a break down of a container, say album artis to 3 letters as in T9 then to 1 then to albums. So far so good. Now I want my albums sorted chronologically. I tried "+pv:year" and "+dc:date" int the album container with no avail, also I would like to see the album art on the album itself as well as the first albumart for each artist instead of a plain folder and can't get this to work either. I feel there is something needed to be added to the class definition. Any hint? I am browsing now for several days and am too blind to find the obvious... the documentation is a little bit too thin for my poor skills. If you want to continue this elsewhere just let me know-.


Thanks

Klaus

Here's my attempt:

Code: Select all

<container buildon='upnp:albumArtist[3]' class='object.container' createClass='object.item.audioItem.musicTrack'>
		<container buildon='upnp:albumArtist[1]' class='object.container' createClass='object.item.audioItem.musicTrack'>
			<container buildon='upnp:albumArtist' albumart='1'
class='object.container.person.musicArtist' createClass='object.item.audioItem.musicTrack'>
				<container buildon='upnp:album' albumart='1' sortcriteria='+dc:date,+pv:numberOfThisDisc,+upnp:originalTrackNumber' createClass='object.item.audioItem.musicTrack' class='object.container.album.musicAlbum'/>
			</container>
		</container>
		</container>
	</container>