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[datatrader]

After a full day of trying to save my playlists after upgrading to version 8 as Matt advised I have come to the conclusion that moving playlists to another machine or drive would be more time consuming than manually recreating all my playlists.

I'm confident that others have developed methods to save their playlists and move them to a different drive or machine.

So I respectfully request that folks who have a good method post it (with details) to this thread to create a single source of methods to accomplish what should be a simple task...

[Charlemagne 8]

Gather your songs into "Playing Now", select all of them, right-click any one of them, "Send To > Playlist > (Pick from list or create new).

OR

In media Library, right-click any artist and "Send To ..." as above.

OR

I'm just getting used to this one. It could turn out to be very cool. Click on Media Library, there will be a "search" bar at the top of the right pane, type in ANYTHING you can think of. Genre, name, album, artist, file type, playlist ... there may be more. Experiment. As you type, the list gets smaller. You can use the resulting list to make playlists, move to another directory, burn, convert, edit properties ... whatever.

That's the way(s) I do it. If there's a better way, I'll be watching.

CVIII

[AlonsoN]

Just to make sure that I understand:  Saving the playlists as say, a .m3u in v7 and importing them is not an option?  I did that, and did edit the .m3u files to fix drive/path problems, but with a decent text editor (I use NoteTabLight, freeeeeee, great, /www.notetab.com ) it's a ctrl-g snap)

[datatrader]

Alonso said: Just to make sure that I understand: Saving the playlists as say, a .m3u in v7 and importing them is not an option? I did that, and did edit the .m3u files to fix drive/path problems

Yes exactly... that seems to be my problem... fixing the drive/path problem.
When you save the playlist as a .m3u or .mpl it saves the drive path also. So when you move the .m3u or .mpl to another directory MJ doesn't recognize the path.

What I'm looking for is specific info to globally change the path for these playlists.

What's the quickest most efficient means of doing this ?

Is it absolutely necessary to save all your playlists as .m3u or .mpl first.

Is there a way to do this with all your playlists or must each individual list be edited each time you move your date to another machine?

So... what's the consensus out there?

BTW, this is a very supportive community of users/developers...

[Charlemagne 8]

Oh, I see.
I never had a problem with that. I just made sure the directory that the playlist was in was designated in the "Import Media Files" search bar and that the filetype (expand "advanced") is selected. I've been keeping my playlists current that way since version 6. Even all my old WinAmp, MusicMatch, Windows Media Player, Siren and Napster playlists are still there.
CVIII

[AlonsoN]

I'm not sure what C8 is saying, but would like to....

There are some things you can do to help:

1. Notetab will let you File:Open ALL your .m3u's, then on the first one select Edit:Replace.

If your old path was say:
c:\my music\foo\song.mp3

and you need to move it to:
c:\media\music\albums\foo\song.mp3

then you would put "c:\my music" as the Find text and "c:\media\music\albums" as the Replace With text.  then press Find then Replace All, then r.click on the Tab, select Close then Save.

That brings the next playlist to the front, then just press ctrl-G, close, repeat.


You can also save yourself the trouble of having to do that again by putting your music on a virtual drive, say M:  By doing that you will be able to move your collection anytime, access if from other machines on your network, etc. w/o having to rename/fix anything.

The DOS command subst lets you take a path on a drive and make it a virtual drive, EG:

If your music was at d:\media\music\albums
subst m: d:\media

would create a m: drive and the first folder in that would be \music

The Find & Replace job from above would be

Find "c:\my music" Replace with "m:\music"

Again the advantage is that since the drive letter is virtual the actual root folder can be local or remote & is portable.

You would want that command in your autoexec.bat equivelent so it got created on every boot.

Make sence?

[JNKH]

Hi,

I also find the same problem trying to move songs to another computer.

I find MusicMatch much simpler to move playlist because you can use Convert, which copies the songs in the playlist into another directory.  You just copy the directory into another computer, then rescan the directory into Media Jukebox.

Alternatively, you can use a CD-RW disk, ask Media Jukebox to copy the MP3 tracks into the disk using DATA format.  You then copy the tracks into your new computer, then rescan the media to load into the computer.

[datatrader]

Alonso that is a huge help...
From your earlier post I realized I was going to have to do this outside of MJ in a text editor. So I used the find and replace function in Microsofts 'Notepad' to edit the path as you said. However I had to do it for each playlist separately... time consuming indeed.
In another thread (Export playlists to laptop ?) Matt suggested using the find and replace function in MJ highlight all songs in playlist, right click, go to properties, go to Tools,go to find & replace, then change the path. but you can't 'see' the file name while doing this so you can't cut and paste etc.

Your method appears to be the best solution offered so far.
And it looks like the 'Notetab' program will make it much easier than microsofts 'notepad'. I'll definetly download it and check it out.

Your suggestion to create a 'virtual' drive just for the music data Is also excellent. I keep all my programs on one drive and all my data on another drive on all my machines. So I went ahead and changed my directories to match exactly D:\Music\sample.mp3 Now once I update all my playlists on one machine I'll be able to move the entire directory to the second machine and it will work fine.
There is however one more important step that was driving me crazy. The Library files would change where the songs pointed to (the first time you do this) So I had to:

Save all the playlists as .mpl or .m3u files

Rename all the paths for all the playlists in a text editor

Find and Remove all the.jmd files from the directory

Move all the saved playlist files to the same directory as the mp3's (in this case D:\Music\sample.mpl  They will now show up in the playlist directory in MJ without a Library reference.

Copy the directory to the second machine (or drive)

Open MJ on the second machine

Clear Library

Open Library Manager and create a new library name that points the the same directory

Load the newly created Library

Import all the media into MJ

Update Library

Simple huh ?  If this is in fact the most efficient way to accomplish what should be a simple task I can see why I didn't get any answers to this question from the developers of MJ... (no offense folks.. just a friendly and respectful heckle from the sidelines) Alonso, your help was invaluable... I hope others will post any other tips for all to share... I'm still hoping there is a simpler way

[Charlemagne 8]

I suppose I just don't understand what the problem is. I've never had one regarding playlists even when I added a new hard drive and switched all my data files into it (including all my music related files) while keeping my program files in the original (including Media Jukebox). I used the "drag & drop" method in Windows Explorer but I have since found out it can be done from within MJ, including creating the new destination directory.
I just don't understand why you need to go through all of the above, as clever and as well thought out as it is, to do something relatively simple.
Maybe that's the problem: Combine "I just don't understand" and I'm "relatively simple".
Sorry I couldn't help ... I tried.
CVIII

[JimH]

But hey, your truck is paid off, isn't it?

[Charlemagne 8]

It all depends. I don't owe anybody any money on it but it is the subject of a years-long restoration project. 1973 Ford F-150 long bed with 76,000± miles (really), black with a red roof (I have no idea why but it's original), now equipped with an AIWA MP-32 and 12" Rockford-Fosgates behind the seat and a four speaker headliner. That's my only departure from stock. An AM radio with a single dashboard speaker just wasn't cutting it.
CVIII

[datatrader]

Sounds like a cool truck... except that it's a Ford (Fix Or Repair Daily) just kidding.... obviously I'm a Chevy truck guy.. although I did have a beautiful 1952 Ford pickup that I dropped a 1953 flat head V8 Mercury into. Talk about torque... she'd climb a telephone pole ! It was my second truck... sniff I still miss her.

Anyway Charlemagne, I sure wasn't looking for a complex solution. I was looking for simple. I don't use the default directory of any program to store the data from that program. I store all data on a different drive. Do you export your files and playlists to a laptop?

Clearly I'm not alone here as Alonso has gone through a similar routine. I think it's safe to assume that neither of us were looking for additional complexity in our lives... I'm glad that you've had such success with your method... but I don't think it applies with this scenario. much thanks for the input.. and take good care of that nice ride !

[datatrader]

But hey, your truck is paid off, isn't it?

Your well thought out and articulate input to this thread is truly appreciated...

Seriously though Jim, What's your "best method" or have you done this ??

[Mark Coutinho]

Alonso (or anyone else): About the virtual drive option: is there a Windows-command (or Explorer-option) too for this, or can one do this just from the DOS-prompt?

[Mark Coutinho]

bump

[AlonsoN]

Alonso (or anyone else): About the virtual drive option: is there a Windows-command (or Explorer-option) too for this, or can one do this just from the DOS-prompt?

AFIK it's command only.  But that is what you want since you want it to happen as you start the machine.  It's a really standard method & works quite well.


Datatrader:

Not sure what you are trying to accomplish with all those steps.  I thought it was simply deal with playlists that did not survive a move & upgrade.  Seems to be something about multiple machines there & if so there are some better tools for that.  Maybe you should start by telling us EXACTLY what you are trying to do.

[datatrader]

Alonso said: "Seems to be something about multiple machines there & if so there are some better tools for that. Maybe you should start by telling us EXACTLY what you are trying to do."

Exactly: move all playlists to another machine (different drive). In other words simply update the files on the laptop so that MJ recognizes the files on both machines in the easiest way possible.