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Author Topic: Please develop Cross Platform "local file" playback.  (Read 684 times)

Cryph

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Please develop Cross Platform "local file" playback.
« on: January 10, 2019, 01:16:39 am »

It looks to be the time of year that a large number of us are going to begin to send funds for the next version of this software.

A simple request-- the ability to have an Alternate OR Base path of sorts, that would allow for those of us with media libraries on a Linux machine to find these identical files locally on a windows machine. This has been requested by others, multiple times, and yet I see no serious discussion of it.

It is, in my opinion, one of the sole shortcomings of this software. I feel as if there are a myriad of solutions here, many of which are pointed out in previous requests.
The lack of implementing one really feels like an insult to those of us who purchase, maintain, and utilize this "Master" license and its cross-platform abilities.

See Also:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,116504.msg805326.html#msg805326
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114800.msg793822.html#msg793822
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Awesome Donkey

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Re: Please develop Cross Platform "local file" playback.
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2019, 03:38:16 am »

Hmmm.

Fortunately for me, I can use my local hard drive with all my music files on it on Windows, Mac and Linux without any issues (and MC installed in each OS). But, I can see what this technique is trying to accomplish even though I personally don't need it as I have cross-platform working fine. That said, accomplishing this would probably be an undertaking, I'm thinking. It's really not that easy to do something like this when the operating systems/file systems are much different to each other. I mean, I *could* see this viable for Linux and Mac, but Windows is a completely different beast when it comes to paths. I also share RoderickGI's opinion in that first thread too.

Then there's things that the user may have to be workaround for cross-platform in MC to work correctly, e.g. making sure there's no files or folders with a period preceding the name (e.g. .filename or .foldername), or else the Linux/Unix/Mac system will treat the file(s)/folder(s) as hidden, and MC won't import them. This was the main issue I had to workaround for cross-platform to work. Fortunately this can easily be done via the Rename, Move, & Copy Files tool with an expression when importing files on Windows.
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BryanC

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Re: Please develop Cross Platform "local file" playback.
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2019, 10:08:32 am »

Hmmm.

Fortunately for me, I can use my local hard drive with all my music files on it on Windows, Mac and Linux without any issues (and MC installed in each OS). But, I can see what this technique is trying to accomplish even though I personally don't need it as I have cross-platform working fine. That said, accomplishing this would probably be an undertaking, I'm thinking. It's really not that easy to do something like this when the operating systems/file systems are much different to each other. I mean, I *could* see this viable for Linux and Mac, but Windows is a completely different beast when it comes to paths. I also share RoderickGI's opinion in that first thread too.

Then there's things that the user may have to be workaround for cross-platform in MC to work correctly, e.g. making sure there's no files or folders with a period preceding the name (e.g. .filename or .foldername), or else the Linux/Unix/Mac system will treat the file(s)/folder(s) as hidden, and MC won't import them. This was the main issue I had to workaround for cross-platform to work. Fortunately this can easily be done via the Rename, Move, & Copy Files tool with an expression when importing files on Windows.

At least what I have in my head is that this functionality could be abstracted to the database and the underlying file system would therefore not matter. I can imagine an RM&C-like tool for automatically abstracting filepaths into a new "alternative" filepath field. The database could then attempt to play both the standard and alternative filepaths when the file is selected. In this manner a single library database could be used to play files on Linux/OSX/Windows using different filepath structures.
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