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Author Topic: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?  (Read 3170 times)

8139david

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First question:
I have created some stacks with three files (or more), for movies corresponding to several files to be played sequentially.
I'd like to be sure of the order of the files in the stack.
If I do "Expand", I easily see the top file in the stack.
But what about the others?
Does the order in which they are displayed correspond to stack order, or not necessarily?
In brief: How can I check the order of all the files in the stack?

Second question:
Is there a way to set the order of files properly from the beginning when creating a stack?
Does it correspond to selecting the files in reverse order, eg with Ctrl pressed, select last file, then second file, then first file, then 'Stack'?

And third question:
How can I calculate the total duration of the files in the stack, ie add their durations so that I can see the total duration of the movie?
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blgentry

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Re: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2016, 08:06:36 am »

This is not the answer you want:

Don't use stacks. Merge files instead.  Done.

I know this isn't the answer you wanted.  :)

Brian.
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8139david

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Re: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2016, 08:09:36 am »

Indeed :)

First, I don't want to spend the time to merge all these files.
Second, most of the time I can't do it because the overall file size would exceed the maximal size allowed on the hard disc.
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8139david

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Re: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2016, 05:18:23 pm »

Any suggestions concerning the 3 questions of my first post?
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ferday

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Re: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2016, 05:28:33 pm »

Indeed :)

First, I don't want to spend the time to merge all these files.
Second, most of the time I can't do it because the overall file size would exceed the maximal size allowed on the hard disc.

why are you using FAT?  do you switch between MAC and Windows with the drive? 

i haven't done a whole lot with stacks but IIRC there was some asking about this a while back.  i don't think you can specify stack order right now
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8139david

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Re: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2016, 05:35:27 pm »

Indeed, I have some hard discs in FAT.
I don't remember why.
But here they are and I don't want to copy them on NTFS and/or do the merging of files with makemkv.
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blgentry

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Re: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2016, 05:47:26 pm »

Is there a way to set the order of files properly from the beginning when creating a stack?
Does it correspond to selecting the files in reverse order, eg with Ctrl pressed, select last file, then second file, then first file, then 'Stack'?

This doesn't seem to work with any regularity.  I just did 5 minutes of tests by stacking up 5 files a bunch of times and then doing "play stack".  Their order was never the order I selected them in the stack.  I don't think you can specify anything for sure in a stack other than the top member.  I think play order is determined by something else, but I don't know what.

I'm not sure what to advise you.  Maybe use playlists?  Or just expand the stack and the highlight the files and play them?  They will play in the order shown in the view you are in.

Brian.
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8139david

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Re: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2016, 05:49:43 pm »

Thanks!
Maybe the playback order is the filename order?
If that's so, I'm saved (eg Movie_1.avi, Movie_2.avi, Movie_3.avi). But I guess I should do some tests.
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blgentry

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Re: How to see the order of files in a stack with 3 files (or more)?
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2016, 05:59:34 pm »

Maybe the playback order is the filename order?
If that's so, I'm saved (eg Movie_1.avi, Movie_2.avi, Movie_3.avi). But I guess I should do some tests.

I'm certain it's not.  My tests were done with the first 5 episodes of a TV series.  The file names of these are generated by MC (the RM&C tool), so they are in alphabetical order as TVShowName S01EXX .  But MC plays this stack out of order.  It's not badly out of order and I notice that the one episode that shows a watched status is the last one it tries to play, so that may have something to do with it.

This is one reason I don't use stacks anymore.  Too confusing and irregular.

Brian.
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