Library Nomenclature

lamp

Am confused as to what a Library is in Funkwhale.

There are always exceptions, but perhaps normally:

• Channel = container for Artist
• Album = container for Album
• Playlist = customized list of any audio chosen to be grouped

...But what is a Library?

The documentation usually says 'you can', rather than 'this is'.

Is it true that audio files must be uploaded to a Library before they can be designated to a Channel, Album or Playlist?

Thanks for your help.

Sporiff

lamp Libraries and Channels are both containers that contain collections of tracks. You can think of a library as equivalent to a CD collection, where it can contain multiple artists/albums/tracks grouped together by theme or simply by privacy level.

All tracks need to be in either a library or a channel. If you're publishing your own work to share across federation, a channel is the way to go. If you're uploading a collection of other people's tracks, a library is best. Channels are always public, while libraries can be public, private, or limited to the server they're hosted on.

Libraries have caused a lot of confusion in the past (see this forum thread for a good overview). We plan to replace them with a new mechanism called "collections" in the future. This should simplify things by:

Removing the confusing naming
Removing the need to choose a library when uploading tracks

lamp

Thanks Sporiff for your clear reply. 🙂