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[Tolga]

Background:

• The users should make all physical file location changes inside MC since otherwise we may loose links to the physical files. Reimport is not sufficient since this also messes up the playlists.
  
• MC Explorer (the my computer tree view) is difficult to use

Short feature request:
The MC explorer tree does not allow selecting and moving multiple folders. The absence of this feature makes restructuring of physical locations a nightmare. This shouldn't be difficult to fix, right? Is there a technical block? It is strange that this feature is missing because  the playlists tree that work similarly does allow movement of multiple playlists.

A solution that does not work:
Automatically renaming paths  using tags is dangerous. The tags are often inaccurate, it is easy to make tagging errors, stacking operations can create unintuitive results (i.e. merge albums of two files from different folders).

Long term solution:
MC explorer should have a right-hand side view similar to Microsoft explorer, that is the right handside should show folders and files similar to when a Path is selected as a view scheme. The user should be able to move folders from one MC explorer view to the other.

It has been a year since I complained about this issue last time, so thought I should bring it up again.

[Matt]

In general, I'm a fan of working in the opposite direction: get the tags right, then move the files based on the tags.

But I agree multi-select in the tree would be nice.  Like you said, we already allow this for playlists.

[glynor]

In general, I'm a fan of working in the opposite direction: get the tags right, then move the files based on the tags.

I agree.  A metadata-based organizational construct is more useful than filenames and directory structure.  It is simply more flexible.

Besides, I would argue that this is a large portion of the point of Media Center.  To allow you to overcome the rigidity of the artificial "filing cabinet" based file system we use, and overlay a more useful and flexible system.  In fact, I'd guess it very likely that future file system navigational tools will themselves much more resemble Media Center than Windows Explorer, the failure of Microsoft to implement WFS notwithstanding.

[fitbrit]

In general, I'm a fan of working in the opposite direction: get the tags right, then move the files based on the tags.

But I agree multi-select in the tree would be nice.  Like you said, we already allow this for playlists.

Agreed. One of the best attributes of MC is the ability to achieve the same result in more than one way. It would be nice to have both.

[Tolga]

In general, I'm a fan of working in the opposite direction: get the tags right, then move the files based on the tags.

But I agree multi-select in the tree would be nice.  Like you said, we already allow this for playlists.

Matt,

I am a religious tag fixer. I assign unique ids to song names from semantic web etc. Tag every song with at least 10 subjective qualities.  So, I use only tags when I listen or select music.

However, the physical structure is still important mostly for maintainance purposes.

For example,
- I need physical structure, to check that files are not lost (i.e. I use mp3bookhelper to check that).
- Physical structure helps a lot while Tagging new files, and to verify tagging.
- Since I change tags a lot, I sometimes mess up big time, but no worries, I still have physical locations. I move files rarely and very carefully.

The bottom-line is that MC currently in effect forces most users not to change physical locations (inside or outside of MC) by making it very difficult. This is bad for users at very different levels. I can assure you that my Mom cannot handle tagging, but she is very comfortable creating folders and organizing them the way she organizes her closet.

FitBrit & glynor,
Maybe the folder structure will disappear at one point, but the idea of hierarchical organization will never disappear. When tags replace pathnames, I expect that multiple paths to lead to the same file but we will still have hierarchical navigation. Hierarchy is just too much part of our cognitive abilities. I can cite a lot of AI research on that.

[glynor]

I'm not saying that it doesn't matter.  I'm saying that the tags are more important and useful.  I certainly maintain both on my system.  I don't understand why the Rename, Move, and Copy tool doesn't work, if you maintain your tags.

That said, I agree with Matt that multi-select in the tree would be useful.

[Tolga]

I'm not saying that it doesn't matter.  I'm saying that the tags are more important and useful.  
That said, I agree with Matt that multi-select in the tree would be useful.

Agreed.

I don't understand why the Rename, Move, and Copy tool doesn't work, if you maintain your tags.

Because I can't be 100% sure that all tags are correct (i.e. two files sometimes to the same album with slightly different names). Stack operations often create unintended tag merging, which I fix using the physical information as the baseline (the albums stay as a unit in a folder). I sometimes introduce tagging errors although I am very experienced in this. Also, I keep other stuff in folders that I want to move with the album (i.e. verification files). but they are not in MC. I could import those files too, but then I have to make sure that they all have the same album name etc., not very easy. Sometimes, I have two copies of the  albums that are in different paths. If I use rename  those using Album Name as folder name, they are going to be merged in the same folder. (i.e. albums with multiple CDs). Yes, very standardized use of tags would in theory solve all of these problems, but in practice it does not for me even though I cleanup my tags obsessively.