[Rhythmbox-devel] Ignoring Duplicates

[Mark Aitchison <M Aitchison chch PlaNET org NZ>]

Can Rhythmbox be made to ignore duplicate entries in the library (e.g. when the same 
track is found via links, or my laptop is sharing folders that have collections that 
overlap with my desktop computer)? Ideally it should recognise duplicate tracks or albums 
by comparing names with punctuation removed, not counting as a duplicate two tracks by 
different artists yet the same title; it shouldn't need the recording method to be the 
same (although an option could be given to be fussy about file size, so long as different 
tags don't mess up the comparison). There is also the situation where the same performer 
with the same track occurs in two different albums - I wonder if it could be possible to 
exclude the duplicate from searches for a track/song, yet include it when listing the 
contents of an album?

Slightly relating to this, I find that rhythmbox creates filenames and directory names 
with characters that really should be stripped out (e.g. ":" in a filename that is shared
with a Windows computer is not good). The external names should be a modified version of 
the displayed tracks/albums, with most punctuation removed.

I am interested in helping program some of the suggestions that come to mind, but I'd 
like to start with those that seasoned developers don't think are very difficult.

Mark