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SOLVED How to have a consolidated view of multiple hard disks like Foobar2000

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ferday:
right click Audio > Add Library View
in the window that pops up, choose Panes

now right click that view (it will appear under Audio) > Customise View
in the window that pops up, UNCHECK "use parent scheme rules for file display"
CHECK "support tree browsing"
on the left side, click Add... and in the window that pops up check "File Path"
when you press OK you'll see Location in the window

if you click on ...set rules for file display, there you can select which drive letters you want to see / not see

that's the basics, there is a bunch of stuff you can do from there to customise further.  for example, i use Location and Year panes on top, so i can quickly sort by year before browsing by location.  I have mostly abandoned my folder views now, as i've spent years tagging my files.  tagging is a much better way to do it but it is a process.

blgentry:
I think what Andrea is asking for, is a top level folder view for ALL DRIVES AT THE SAME TIME, without any drive letters.

For example, if Andrea has drives and folders like this:

X:\AC DC
X:\Pink Floyd
X:\ZZ Top

Y:\Allman Brothers
Y:\The Cure

Z:\50 Operas
Z:\Classical Box Set

Then what he wants to see is:

50 Operas
AC DC
Allman Brothers
Classical Box Set
Pink Floyd
The Cure
ZZ Top

All in one view, no drive letters.

I think this can be done, but I'm not sure.

I might also be wrong about what Andrea is asking for.  Maybe he/she will comment on this.

Brian.

ferday:
no you can't do that (i'm reasonably sure)

technically if ALL your files are in the same order (i.e. Drive:\Artist\Album) you could show all the Artists, but you can't Tree View an expression (that i know of - indeed you can only tree view Location AFAIK).  and of course the only use for a folder view is tree viewing

as a former obsessive folder structure guy, i would stress to AndreaT:

the real power to access your collection is NOT in folder structure.  no matter how good your folders are (indeed, mine are flawless).  metadata is faster and more functional in every single way

let's go with an incredibly simple Artist - Album view (and i'm sure your artist and albums are tagged!)

i find this view to be as functional as a tree view, no drive letters, and faster.  but to each their own :)

AndreaT:
Hi All! First of all many thanks for the tips and ideas you are giving to me.

Regarding what I would like to have, "blgentry" is on the right way, I want that or any kind of simple folder/file mane consolidate view of all my 5 hdds in one directory browsing pane have a layout similar to MS Explore tool.

Unfortunately, so far, I have no other choice because many "items" in my library are without tagging or with wrong or partial tagging or not coherent tagging.

My current library is organized by 1st level directory, 2nd level dir, and so on down to group of audio files usually named as track number + track name.

I spent hours getting familiar with the default Audio views of MC23 and, really, I cannot get out what I want easily.
Frequently I found the files mixed up, I also get Album with the tracks duplicated or triplicated (I have collected different editions of the same album that I keep apart by folder structure. Here are all mixed together).

Again, fully understood that the best is to have perfect tagging, but I don't have actually and it will takes too long for me to make.

Thanks again to all and ... looking forward for new tips and tricks... and MC improvements as well.
I think it should not be difficult for expert developer to just implement a directory browser as done in Foobar... why not to add it even if deprecated and used only by few "new comers" like me?

Kind regards, Andrea

Awesome Donkey:
If you have a very large library (like 80,000+) I can see doing something like metadata would be a massive, time consuming undertaking so it's likely not worth trying to add it in now.

But to anyone else with a medium sized library (like 15,000 or less) doing a setup like this, it's VERY worth the effort adding/modifying/maintaining the metadata because it allows things using a folder names/filename setup won't allow (e.g. characters the host operating system, Windows in a case like this, doesn't allow in folder names and filenames). Also you're not limited to 255~ amount of characters on Windows when using metadata unlike folder names/filenames - of course Windows 10 supports longer than 255 characters now, but still, there's a limit.

Hopefully you'll be able to set up MC to your satisfaction. :)

P.S. To anyone else interested in using metadata, here's an example of a large library (nearly 90,000 lossless FLAC/DSF files) with all files having proper metadata: http://i.imgur.com/RSye5rs.png

With metadata you can use characters like front slashes, backslashes, etc. so for example having a folder called AC DC with the folder name/filenames setup could use AC/DC within the metadata. :D

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