Difference in Sonos Actions - "Link" and "AddGroup"

[ScottAtlanta]

I've tried searching for an answer to this, but haven't found much. Can somebody tell me the difference between the two Sonos Actions - Link and AddGroup? I'm curious as to when you might use one action over the other. Any thoughts are appreciated!

[dcorsus]

Took me a little to find it again .....

If you use LINK you are going to connect the slave player to a master player, example: group the bedroom player to the kitchen player and both players should be playing what the kitchen player was playing. IF however, the master player (kitchen in our example) you selected is already part of another grouping AND it is not the master of that group, this command will fail. All players of a group play what the master (groupcoordinator) is playing and ONLY the master will accept commands. The Pi has all the intelligence to route your commands to the masters of a group EXCEPT is you want to link. In that case I asssume you know what you are doing and I remove that player from a group.

If you use the ADDGROUP command, the player will be grouped to the master of the group even if you specified a wrong player.

Clear as mud?

[ScottAtlanta]

Took me a little to find it again .....

If you use LINK you are going to connect the slave player to a master player, example: group the bedroom player to the kitchen player and both players should be playing what the kitchen player was playing. IF however, the master player (kitchen in our example) you selected is already part of another grouping AND it is not the master of that group, this command will fail. All players of a group play what the master (groupcoordinator) is playing and ONLY the master will accept commands. The Pi has all the intelligence to route your commands to the masters of a group EXCEPT is you want to link. In that case I asssume you know what you are doing and I remove that player from a group.

If you use the ADDGROUP command, the player will be grouped to the master of the group even if you specified a wrong player.

Clear as mud?

Thanks decorous for taking the time to do a little research on it. I had to re-read the info about 4 times, but I think I actually understand it...at least mostly understand it.

A follow-up question for you though, if I may....is there any way to add "IsGrouped" as a Sonos Condition for event? For example, if I want to check to see if a specific sonos speaker is already linked/grouped before I do some Event action, I don't think there's any current way to check for that condition first. Is that correct? I didn't see it in the Event condition drop down box, but I'm wondering if there's some hidden code that could be used in a script to check for it.

[dcorsus]

Thanks decorous for taking the time to do a little research on it. I had to re-read the info about 4 times, but I think I actually understand it...at least mostly understand it.

A follow-up question for you though, if I may....is there any way to add "IsGrouped" as a Sonos Condition for event? For example, if I want to check to see if a specific sonos speaker is already linked/grouped before I do some Event action, I don't think there's any current way to check for that condition first. Is that correct? I didn't see it in the Event condition drop down box, but I'm wondering if there's some hidden code that could be used in a script to check for it.

There indeed isn't a condition, just a few are interested in this and if I add ,I need to add isNot and one that is is it slave, master, stereo or part of 5.1 home theater setup, this never ends.
I believe some users have written a little script and they process the status string of the player device, it shows if the player is "paired with" or "paired to", you may want to search this forum and see who they are and contact them. Having that said, even if you know grouped status, not sure how you would now code up your events unless again you want things quite complicated. The users I'm thinking off, actually have big scripts with all their very specific functions, some directly modify the .ini file and do direct calls to specific functions in the PI, not something I would recommend to anyone.

Dirk