Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AndreaT]

SEE FINAL SOLUTION POSTED ON 3RD FEB 2022
Cheers, Andrea


Hello,

I am new with MC 23 (testing the trial version). I come from Foobar2000 (user since 2012) and I would like to have a consolidated (distributed file system) view as by default provided by Foobar2000.

I have already arranged my library over 5 HDDs having similar directory structure and I am used to navigate through all at once as these should be a single large HDD.

I see that MC 23 has a File View of All HDDs connected, but the original directory structure is lost. The view provided is like a flat "Excel sheet" almost impossible (for me) to navigate.

Is there any option to customize it and to get such a kind of legacy and easy browsing structure I am used to have in Foobar?

Thanks and regards
Andrea

[Spike1000]

For me the great benefit of MC is that once your media files have been imported into a single database you no longer need to care/worry about the physical location of your files. The metadata (tags) provides the information used to create the customisable views. This is much more powerful and flexible than browsing based on a file structure but does require accurate metadata.

The topic of a 'file structure based' view came up only a few weeks ago. Search the forum for that discussion it may answer your question but I don't know if the options given would work with multiple drives or match Foobar2000 but it's a good place to start at least.

Spike

[astromo]

I see that MC 23 has a File View of All HDDs connected, but the original directory structure is lost. The view provided is like a flat "Excel sheet" almost impossible (for me) to navigate.

I don't follow you. Using standard view I navigate to Audio > Files and I can click on:
- All Locations
- Drive 1
- Drive 2
- Drive ...

Picking each drive in turn, I can the drill down to the various sub folders where, in this case, audio files are located. No audio then nothing to show.

If I'm after everything, then I head to Drives & Devices where an Explorer emulation is provided. This is important because any cut-paste/move of files is kept track of by the MC library. If you do this sort of thing outside in Windows Explorer, MC will display a "not found" "equivalent" indication (a no through road sign) because it used to have a file in a location but now it has lost track of it.

Regardless, as far as I can tell you've got what you're after and have more to hand than you're asking for.

[AndreaT]

Dear All,

in attachment a view of a portion of my library from Foobar2000 as "view by folder structure".

As you can see, my library is NOT organized by artists or by albums only. As well as you can see (figure out) that it is linked to any physical HDD, it is just a global logica view of all my 5 hdds).

My library has a complex structure sometimes headed by artist/author, other times by executor, other times by publisher (recording label) and other times by other special entry label.

Because I spent 5 years organizing my library in this way, it is so far the best and logical "structure" for my use.

With the default MC organization/structure, I cannot find my records.

Is it possible to have something similar in MC 23?

Thanks and regards
Andrea

[RoderickGI]

Is it possible to have something similar in MC 23?

Yes. In fact, I would think you could create something exactly the same, if that was the best solution for you.

As I understand it, you have multiple drives, each with the same directory structure or a directory structure based on the same rules, which is based on some attributes of the music. I don't understand from your image what attributes you are using for the structuring, but if you do, and can write the rules down for it, then someone will be able to help you create what you want.

i.e. You have some structure like;

"D:\Attribute01\Attribute02\Album\Track"

and that is repeated on various drives;

"E:\Attribute01\Attribute02\Album\Track" 
"G:\Attribute01\Attribute02\Album\Track" 
"W:\Attribute01\Attribute02\Album\Track" 

Within MC, all you would need to do to recreate what you are using now is a create a View that looks at the path to the files, ignores the drive letter, and groups all your music by the Attributes you want. MC has a comprehensive Expression Language that could do that, and there a quite a few good Expression Language experts around here who could help you define the correct Expression. I'm not really one of them though. 

Something like;

removeleft([filename (path)], 3)

would be close though, to select the file and group them across drives. Yep, that simple. Because now MC would just select the audio to display based on the "Attribute01\Attribute02\Album\Track" component of the location on disk. I just built such a View, and it worked fine for my data. But I don't have your multiple drive setup, nor do I know what attributes you want to group audio within. So my simple example just selected all the files based on the Expression above, and then Grouped them by [Album] and sorted within [Album] by [Track #], which is the default but is customisable.

If you then wanted to Group and Sort using the Attributes buried in the directory structure and file name, there would be quite a bit more work, but not impossible.

A better solution is to take those Attributes that you are using and get them into Tags in the MC Library. MC then wouldn't care where the files are located, on which drive. It would just display the files by the Attributes stored in tags for each file. Each of your Attributes would probably map to existing Tags in MC, and if not, new Custom Tags can be created. MC will still be able to manage the directory and file structure as you want into the future when you add new files. It has a great tool for doing that. MC also has tools to read your existing directory structure and file name, using a Template you define based on your rules, and update Tags in the library from that information. So you won't have to manually key in all the Tags for your collection.

You may need help with deciding how to move forward. You need to provide more information so that people can help. Specifically, your structuring rules. You will also need to help yourself by learning about Creating and Customising Views, Tagging and Custom Tags, the Expression Language (although as above, if you can define what you want to do, usually people here will help you with Expressions), the "Fill Properties from Filename" function, the "Rename, Move, & Copy Files" function, and so on.

Back to you.

[AndreaT]

Dear RoderickGI, you perfectly got it.

I would like to try it.

How can I create my custom view "removeleft([filename (path)], 3)" as you did?
Can you provide me the script you made and some direction on how to "execute it"?

Regarding the matter of re-tag my library in order to match MC dBase indexing optimal ruling, it is something I can consider, but only in the long terms. Probably it takes me years (2 or 3) and I can do it only once very well understood how MC dBase works and if MC will really be my player for the next 10 years or more.

Many thanks and kind regards
Andrea

[~OHM~]

Dear Andrea

Regarding MC vs Foobar if nothing else convinces you to make the switch it should be the sound coming from your speakers providing your not listening from monitor/tv speakers!

[AndreaT]

Dear OM,

I don't want to disappoint you but both are "sounding" the same with my audio system (except for micro interruption in the audio streams when using MC 23).
 
My setup doesn't make use of any Foobar or MC own DSP processing, just the library management, file reading and decoding to bitstream.
The audio stream is upconverted to 96kHz and I use Thuneau Allocator and Voxegon PristineSpace for DXO and DRC (both are placed at the very end of the audio stream), and my MOTU DACs have a 2048 samples buffers to compensate for SW jitters (and to be honest, MC is worse than Foobar, having many breaks).

So, except bugs in the FLAC or APE decoders and the micro interruptions in the audio streams (MC 23 only)... I personally cannot detect any difference between the two.

I am now evaluating MC 23 because Foobar 1.3.16 has (in my particular configuration and with my very large libraries) stability issues and crashes too often.

Regards
Andrea

[ferday]

your view doesn't look that complex to me, unless i'm missing something (which is possible)

the screenshot is a folder structure based view that i have, it's also very simple.  on the surface it appears similar to yours...

[AndreaT]

Dear Ferday,

what you show is quite exactly what I need.

How can I configure my MC 23 to have that kind of view?
Can you provide me your script or instructions?

Thanks and regards
Andrea

[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.

[Spike1000]

Re-tagging of massive collections is not too onerous if done with some thought. Trust me I've done it. 
 
I found that a little bit of effort gained enough rewards/benefits to spur me to keep going. It's like the old adage "Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One spoonful at a time!"

How you do it is key. You also need to know when you want to end up so invest time in planning. I found multiple tools/approaches was the way forward. I started with MP3Tag as I've been using for years. I did some tests and found I could re-number my entire collection resetting the track count at each new folder with a very low error rate. Using the 'I can see all the tags at once for all tracks' in MP3tag could quickly spot blank areas of the screen so I could see where titles etc were missing. Sorting by multiple columns put all the albums missing tracks together so I began to tackle them a 'spoonful' at a time using the lookup tool in MP3Tag. I was never without enough music to play so I just kept going. Once done I used MP3Tag to rename the files from the tag information; again on mass. A bit scary, but I had a backup and the error rate was really low. A DBpoweramp tool helped fix artwork.

Clearly this took a while and needed some tweaking but as I said I was never without enough music to play. I did the final tweaking in MC (have a look here for some handy utilities I used https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,110589.msg764452.html#msg764452 and still fix the odd issue I see when I come across it. I'm really glad I did it as I benefit of tags is massive.

Would I do it again if I had to? Absolutely, 100%, I've never looked back or regretted it for a minute! I 'rediscovered' a lot of music on the way too!

Spike

[RoderickGI]

Wow. This has moved along since I posted.

AndreaT, please provide your rules for structuring your directories, sub-directories, and file names. Since you consolidate across drives, you must use the same rules for all audio. Correct?

As an example, you may structure your drives in this way;

[Drive Letter]:\Genre\Artist\Year\Album\Tracks


Then Track names may be structured in this way;

(Track number) - (Track name).(extension)

Which is what you said here:

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.

Also please confirm that you use the same structure on all drives, and for all audio file types. i.e. You don't have different rules for Rock vs Classical music.

If you provide the above, we may be able to help you get it working in the short term, and then you can consider tagging and more.



Note:
The image you posted looks like you just use;
[Drive Letter]:\Artist\Album\Tracks

In which case all the advice above is probably making it hard to see the wood for the trees.

[sheppaul]

Haha, I'm in the very same situation. Over the years tagging, I gave up and got used to something like the consolidated view structure of foobar like Andrea. There are many other things you should never get any tags from the internet. After ripping old items, you should type everything by yourself. Manual tagging is really exhaustive task though it is rather easy in foobar's tagging system if the track lists are able to be found from internet. The problem is everything must be properly tagged if you'd like to enjoy your collections with tagging system.

Besides, MC seems to scan the whole files in library from all the hard disks whenever MC is started. Is there any smarter way for startup scanning to check the changes during the offline of MC? When you have massive library, scanning never ends. :p  I really hope there is something like everything engine for scanning physical files in hdd disks.

[AndreaT]

Hi RoderickGI, sheppaul correctly got the core.

I confirm that all my 5 hdds for a given "target" uses the same structure of directories, sub-directories, and file names.
However, there is not a unique rule for all the "targets".

For example, for Beatles, the root directory is exactly this, but just the first sub is organized by Original release, Remastered, Collections, Bootlegs, and even then I have subs for different editions of the same album (like US, UK and Japan editions) and so on.

For Classis music all is even more complex. Usually I organize by Author, then Editor (EMI, DG, Decca and so on), then my Director or by Musician.

Other matter is when I have to manage Collections of various artists.

So, so far, the best for me shall be to have both views:
1) by folder structure like Foobar
2) by dBase query like MC

Regards
Andrea

[DJLegba]

If you can't move everything onto a single 8TB drive would symbolic links work? Check out the mklink command.

[RoderickGI]

Besides, MC seems to scan the whole files in library from all the hard disks whenever MC is started.

If MC is doing that, and it is obvious and takes a lot of time, you are probably doing something wrong. MC will check for file system changes if you have it set to "Fix broken links" and/or "Update tags when file info changes", but that shouldn't take all that long.

However, if you are using a File System view, such as "Drives & Devices > Explorer" or some Location based View, then MC needs to read the whole drive in the same way Windows would have to, and that takes time. That is why using tags makes so much more sense. It is fast, using a small library, doesn't need to read the whole drive, and is far more flexlible.

Andrea I will have to set up some sample data to see if I can produce what you want. I don't have anything similar to what you have to test. That is why I wanted good examples of what you have. No guarantees when or if I will get to that. 

If you can't move everything onto a single 8TB drive would symbolic links work? Check out the mklink command.

MC can handle the consolidation across drives no problem without using symbolic links or anything like that. The "removeleft([filename (path)], 3)" expression does it, as above. The possible difficulty is in doing the consolidation at the drive letter level, and then still providing what is essentially a drill down through sub-directories View. That may be easy and work well. There are some ideas above. I can't test ideas without building some sample data across drives.

[JimH]

May be running the install file and then importing, instead of running the installed program.

[AndreaT]

Dear RoderickGI, please, help me better understand what I shall provide you to support your test.
Sorry, but it is not clear for me reading your last email.

Regards
Andrea

[AndreaT]

Hello, no any news for me?
Help me, please!
Regards
Andrea

[RD James]

Though I agree with the suggestion to transition from file structure to tags - and Media Center has tools to make this easy if your file structure is good - I think I have a solution for you:

1. In the tree, right-click Audio and add a new library view.


2. Select an empty view and give it a name. I used "consolidated drives"

 
3. In "customize view" set it to view as "panes" with the pane on the left.


4. Add a new category. Select "expression" and paste the following code:

Code: [Select]

RemoveLeft(Replace([Filename (path)],;,；), 3)&DataType=[list]

 
You should now have a view which combines the file structure of all drives in a nested list down the left-hand side.

[RoderickGI]

Thanks RD James. That is a good enhancement of my original simple expression.

My apologies AndreaT. I have been distracted with other things, and so haven't had a chance to build some data in a structure like yours to test, so haven't gotten back to this. Try creating the View as shown, and see if that does what you want. I built it and on my data, it does drill down through the directory structure, but I have a very flat structure so hard to tell if it will do what you want. Also, it still ultimately relies on tags for the final window display, which you don't have, so it may not be perfect.

Note: In image 3, if you are wondering how to get "Directories" to show, that is actually the Expression category built in image 4. So ignore that "Directories" isn't showing yet, set the Panes to left, then click the Add button to add the Expression category, Ok to save and then see if the View does what you want.

[AndreaT]

WOW!

RD James, it is exactly what I was willing to have!

Fantastic. Many thanks and... my personal suggestion to all the Dev Team, ADD THIS VIEW BY DEFAULT.

Regards
Andrea

[RD James]

To follow up on this, it seems that Media Center crashes immediately if you try and sort through this view by hitting a letter on your keyboard; e.g. hitting T to get to artists starting with that letter.

[AndreaT]

Hello Reader, if you get here, better you know that the right expression to use is the following

Code: [Select]
RemoveLeft(Replace([Filename (path)],;,|),3)&DataType=

Regards, Andrea