Parsing

Parsing rules

When songs are scanned by kutr, the following algorithm applies:

1. Each song is searched for tags (ID3v1, ID3v2, etc...). ID3v2 is preferred other ID3v1.
2. Each tag that's being used is converted from HTML entities (like & > etc...) to their respective UTF-8 encoding
3. A compilation tag is set if it does exists already, or if a tag part_of_a_compilation exists, or if a albumartist tag exists and is different from artist tag.
4. Then, a file called .virtual-album is searched in the current songs folder. If found, the folder name is replacing the album tag (explaination below)
5. Finally, if both album tag and artist tag exist, an album with the same name is looked up in the database. If this album's path is the same as the current song, and its artist tag differs, then the album is marked as a compilation automatically.

What does it mean ?

Typically, the rules above ensure that the following case appears good:

1. You have a "compilation of different artist songs" in a single folder (think of "Best classical music compilation of all time" kind of albums). Your song are not tagged with compilation or part_of_compilation, they will still appear as a compilation in kutr, instead of being spread in numerous albums for each different artist.
2. You have a folder full of cool music for a party. Each song was carefully selected, and you don't intend to modify their album tag to make it appear as a "single" album. You simply need to create a .virtual-album file in the folder, and kutr will create an album named after the folder they are in. Your other option would have been to create a playlist, but kutr would have created a zillions albums for each song. Please notice that this happens before "compilation" merging, so if you have different artists in the folder, then the virtual album will be marked as a compilation.
3. You like an artist but not all songs from an album (in fact, you have few of them from many different albums). You don't want to clutter the album list with many albums with 1 or 2 songs in them. Create a .virtual-album in your artist folder, and kutr will create a virtual album merging all different albums for each song for this artist (provided the artist tag is the same for all songs).