Support Multiple Music Paths

[Tolriq]

The return :)

Now that OpenSubsonic moves and LMS have nearly everything, it would be nice to support multiple music path and expose them via the API and support in search3 of course :)

I have a very large library but it's actually 2 library a classical music one, and a more general music. Having all mixed is not always wanted. And the ability to quickly filter between the 2 is a really nice addition.

[epoupon]

I just thought about it again. Why not using the grouping tag and make OS filter by grouping tags? (This is already how LMS filters for artists, albums and tracks)

[Tolriq]

I have 300 000 songs ;) The API already handle the case properly, all other providers support this.

This allows to quickly change from all libraries to just one library or all but one library.

People have different kind of audio files that they want served by the same server but still allowing library separation.

Like classical vs non classical, audio books, and many other possible needs.

[epoupon]

But then we need to add an extra column for each track, album, artist to specify the media folder id? And handle this in many places... That looks very redundant with tags filtering. For me, there is nothing you show that can't be achieved with tags? I strongly believe in tags, that's why I am challenging this :)

[Tolriq]

This is how all providers support that, with the concept of libraries.

Tags requires that every single user retag all their songs with data that does not really serve a real purpose, then require the server to expose the tags, then have the clients to gather the tags somehow and guess that the tags are for library splitting then try to rebuild that and all the side effects.

And the most important part Subsonic API already properly handle this and other Subsonic servers do support this. There's no need to reinvent the wheel in this case, this is a standard need and practice already handled in the API.

[epoupon]

Yes I understand this is already handled in the API and other servers already implement this (btw for me this does not mean this is a "good" solution). But Subsonic API is purely optional in LMS and adding multiple media folders is not just a Subsonic API improvement. Next people will ask to filter by folder in the UI... (btw this is related to #334) But fine, will think about all this :)

[Tolriq]

Even if you handle by tags you have the exact same constraints. (And by other servers, there's the subsonic ones, but also all the other media providers like plex, kodi, emby, ..... The concept of library for a media server is very common and users are used to it)

The other solution would be to start another instance of LMS, but that's not efficient as some artist might be duplicated and ton of wasted resources.