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[javidan]

Hi all,

Just wanted to check if anyone here is already using JRiver MC for document management?
As in, totally nothing to do with playing music or videos, but purely leveraging on the incredible tag database system of MC to manage your PDFs, DOCs, XLSs, PPTs and probably image scans.

Obviously since MC is natively able to play media it serves as a massive bonus if the document library also consist of media.

Would any of you consider using it as opposed to any other method of managing?

[mwillems]

Hi all,

Just wanted to check if anyone here is already using JRiver MC for document management?
As in, totally nothing to do with playing music or videos, but purely leveraging on the incredible tag database system of MC to manage your PDFs, DOCs, XLSs, PPTs and probably image scans.

Obviously since MC is natively able to play media it serves as a massive bonus if the document library also consist of media.

Would any of you consider using it as opposed to any other method of managing?

I currently use MC as a front end for ebooks and pdfs. I use it primarily for browsing and consumption, not so much actual tag management (which I still prefer calibre for because it has built in scraping can read DRMed ebooks, etc.). 

You might want to have a look at this thread for some ideas: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,87545.0.html

[javidan]

Absolutely incredible. Thanks!

I totally missed that post.
But yes, I was thinking of using MC for managing those sort of files too! [Didn't occur to me that CBZ would be a perfect fit for document management as well]

[mwillems]

MC recently made some improvements to the Data file handling as well, so it works more robustly in a client/server scenario.  So now I can browse books or pdfs in theater view on any pc in my house and automatically open them externally.  It's super convenient on a windows tablet or even a HTPC if you don't mind reading on your Tv.

The big rate limiting factor for using JRiver for total management is getting decent book/document data into JRiver.  There's no native scraper, no sidecar files that one could programmatically edit, and JRiver can't read tags inside data files.  So there's no off the shelf way to ingest tags written inside ebooks or calibre-style .opf sidecar files, you're essentially left with either manual entry or trying to script direct manipulations of the JRiver library (which is non-trivial).  If all your docs are self-generated this is less of a big deal, but most of my docs are published books of one variety or another, and initial data population has been a stumbling block for using JRiver as a total document manager, especially since I already have nice detailed per-book data from calibre.  I've got about 2k e-books and growing, so manual entry isn't an option.

The good news is that JRiver can populate tags on import based on filename and directory structure, so if you're pulling from something like a calibre library you can easily populate author and title, which is all that's really needed for general browsing.

[javidan]

Thanks for the heads up about improvements in Data file handling.

I use Calibre myself for all my ebooks and would be thrilled if MC starts having the ability to read tags in the data file as you mentioned. [Scraping is nice too but would be something I'd like next on the list]

When you said "No sidecar files ... edit" could you elaborate on that? I have found MC's sidecar infinitely superior to so many other file/media management solutions out there when I want to create and save non-native tags.

[mwillems]

Thanks for the heads up about improvements in Data file handling.

I use Calibre myself for all my ebooks and would be thrilled if MC starts having the ability to read tags in the data file as you mentioned. [Scrapping is nice too but would be something I'd like next on the list]

When you said "No sidecar files ... edit" could you elaborate on that? I have found MC's sidecar infinitely superior to so many other file/media management solutions out there when I wan to create and save non-native tags.

MC's sidecars are great I agree, but MC supports sidecars for video, but not for generic data files.  So information you enter about files with [media type] data is only accessible through MCs database, MC doesn't store it in the file or write it out as a sidecar.  If MC wrote (or even read) sidecars for data files, one could edit the sidecars with an external utility to put in data derived from other sources (or just write a script that translates calibre .opfs to JRiver sidecars, their syntax isn't night-and-day different).  But with the status quo data files don't get sidecars.

[javidan]

MC's sidecars are great I agree, but MC supports sidecars for video, but not for generic data files.  So information you enter about files with [media type] data is only accessible through MCs database ...  But with the status quo data files don't get sidecars.

Okay. I missed that out. This totally makes MC *far* less useful than I thought. I must have hit this snag a few times when fiddling around with it but I keep forgetting.

[Matt]

MC's sidecars are great I agree, but MC supports sidecars for video, but not for generic data files.

The "View Extras" menu will certainly show up for data files if there are sidecars.

[mwillems]

The "View Extras" menu will certainly show up for data files if there are sidecars.

I haven't tried the "extras" function with data files, and it could be useful to be able to browse, say, an .xml sidecar written out by calibre, but MC wouldn't be able to search or setup views based on the info in the "extra" sidecars, right?  MC doesn't write it's own sidecars for data files, or read metadata from existing sidecars into the tags for data files (unless that's changed?), but it's nice to know one could at least view them.

I think the issue is not as much about being able to see metadata, so much as it is about being able to migrate metadata for data files into MC's database somehow so that one could search, edit the metadata, and create useful view schemes.   The user-friendliest way to do that would be to allow for direct import of info from files or from a few standard sidecar formats, or for some kind of database scraping, but I understand that's a significant investment of developer time for a niche interest (and potentially out of scope in some cases). 

What seems like it might be a lighter lift (and what I've advocated for previously: see 2) in https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,103267.msg717180.html#msg717180) would be to just have an option for MC to write sidecars for data files the same way it does for video files.  Once MC writes (and reads) its own sidecars for data files, it would be relatively easy for a user (i.e. me) to script a "conversion" from other software's sidecars to MC sidecars.  Presto, instant import of existing metadata.

EDIT:  Come to think of it, I wonder what would happen if I just put a jriver formatted sidecar next to a data file, changed it's media type to video and issued an "import from file" command?  It's a hack, but for a one-time data migration it might work.  A native solution would certainly be better, but it's something to tinker with when I get home ;-)