alphabetical subfolder enhancements
Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 3:51 pmThere are a number of places in the navigation tree when I come in via DLNA or the CDS API (Media Browser or ServiiGO) where there are a whole bunch of artificially generated subfolders for the first character of the content. When there are a huge number of items that would otherwise appear, this is a good method of reducing amount of data to be transmitted for that portion of the navigation tree so that the client can display something more quickly -- but I invariably have a whole bunch of letters with something like one or two items, and then a few with dozens or scores of entries.
It appears that the 'alphabetical subfolders' feature already suppresses subfolders for letters where no content appears. This is good, but there are several ways this feature could be improved.
The following options would all be presented as enhancements to the options available for certain categories in the "presentation" tab of the console, and require the appropriate implementation in the server code that implements the navigation tree:
1. let me just turn alphabetical subfolders off for specific categories
2. let me set a threshold for the number of entries required in a given category before it gets split into alphabetical subfolders (even a global setting would be helpful, but per-category would be even better)
3. use dynamic grouping: as the navigation tree is built, group letters together to get up to a certain number of items -- that way there are no folders with only one item -- you may have a folder for A-R, then one for S, one for T-V, then one for W-Z
It appears that the 'alphabetical subfolders' feature already suppresses subfolders for letters where no content appears. This is good, but there are several ways this feature could be improved.
The following options would all be presented as enhancements to the options available for certain categories in the "presentation" tab of the console, and require the appropriate implementation in the server code that implements the navigation tree:
1. let me just turn alphabetical subfolders off for specific categories
2. let me set a threshold for the number of entries required in a given category before it gets split into alphabetical subfolders (even a global setting would be helpful, but per-category would be even better)
3. use dynamic grouping: as the navigation tree is built, group letters together to get up to a certain number of items -- that way there are no folders with only one item -- you may have a folder for A-R, then one for S, one for T-V, then one for W-Z