Print

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

[paulx]

If i  initially drag and drop the files  (audio and docs) directly into my j river without auto import and then in few weeks i do auto import, old files get duplicated during auto import. Is there a way for me to do auto import without duplicating the old files that i dragged and dropped into j river from my hard drive. I do see that there is an option during auto import called "ignore files previously removed form the library" , But i would prefer away out where i don't have to remove the files in the first place.

Other thing is when i delete the files from jriver, I go to recently imported files and delete them but i notice that files are still there in jriver in audio, images and video. What is the best way to completely delete the file from JRiver so that if i import it in second time, jriver treats it as a new file.

I will greatly appreciate any comments and suggestions as i am new to JRiver.

[MrC]

MC should only ever have a copy of a file at a given file's path.  If you have what you think of as the same file, check the Filename field in MC - you'll see there are two different paths, therefore two different files.  MC uses the file path, not the content as the determining factor.

You can exclude certain directories from auto-import (your old files), but this will have other negative implications if you actually do what those files to be managed by MC.

If you are dragging and dropping files onto MC to import them, but then later move the files somewhere else, MC may not be able to resolve where you've moved the files, and hence considers the files to have broken links.  If you've moved those files into an auto-import directory, then MC will of course import these as new.  So, change your workflow.  Don't do that.  Instead, place the files into an auto-import directory and then let MC's auto-import do its thing, or you can force running auto-import manually.

If you do want to manually import, use MC to move the files into the auto-import directory.

Lesson: either you manage the files manually and completely, or let MC do its thing.  It is generally confusing for users to learn how to do a mixture of both.

Recently Imported is just a playlist.  When you Delete from there, you're just removing items from the list, not the actual files.  If you want to delete the actual files, hit Shift Delete and choose the option that you want.

See also:

   http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Import

[paulx]

Thanks for your reply and the links.

Based on what you told me, I  ran a sample test using folder A with 7 files (docs and audio)
First, I used the  feature "import  from a single folder" importing 7 files form folder A
Then i used  the "configure auto import" to import same 7  files from folder A
It didn't duplicate the 7 files that existed in folder A...so somehow it figured it out.
When i repeated the same test where i dragged and dropped the 7 files from folder A to jriver and then used configure auto import, it duplicated my files.

I understand what you were saying that its either good to use auto import or do it manually.

 I want to know if i use  a mix of "configure auto import" and "import  from a single folder" , j river will figure it out what files are already there and won't  duplicate them even if i do the  second import some time in future (latter date) . Is that correct? Please let me know.

[MrC]

When i repeated the same test where i dragged and dropped the 7 files from folder A to jriver and then used configure auto import, it duplicated my files.

Where exactly are you dragging the file.

I want to know if i use  a mix of "configure auto import" and "import  from a single folder" , j river will figure it out what files are already there and won't  duplicate them even if i do the  second import some time in future (latter date) . Is that correct? Please let me know.

There's no magic here.  Every file on your system has a path to that file, such as:

   M:\My Music\Benny Goodman\The Hits\02 Blue Moon.flac

MC uses that path - you can see it in the Filename field in a view's file list column.  So MC won't re-import the same file because it checks: "Does this file path already exist in the library?  If not, import it.  If so, skip it.

[paulx]

I do understand about the file path. To answer your question, I dragged and dropped the files from E:/Folder/Documents to a playlist on JRiver.

I again tested it and this is what i find.

1) If i use "auto import" (E:/Folder/Documents )  then it doesn't duplicate the files that already exist.
2) If i use "import a single folder"  (E:/Folder/Documents ) feature it does duplicate the file.

Why is that?

[MrC]

I do understand about the file path. To answer your question, I dragged and dropped the files from E:/Folder/Documents to a playlist on JRiver.

There's your problem.  A playlist can reference a file any number of times.   That does not mean that MC has duplicated the file in the Library.  Don't drag files onto a playlist if you don't want them added to the playlist (possibly again).

To see what (audio) files are in the Library, look at, for example, the Audio > Files view.

[paulx]

Thanks. Got it. My question is that what is the disadvantage of dragging and dropping vs auto import or one time import. I ask as there are some folders that i would prefer to drag and drop as these files are in a particular  sequence. Most other folders, i  can do auto  import. Is there a thread  that talks about the difference?

[glynor]

The Wiki's Import page covers the differences:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Import

[MrC]

It depends on your workflow, which you should use.  When you drag and drop, this is a manual import, and therefore auto-import rules and other features do not activate.

Also, you may not be aware, the order that you drag and drop items is highly dependent on how you've selected and clicked the last item in Explorer for dragging.  Each application handles this differently - some respect an order, some do not.  Here's a longish thread explaining this:

   http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87006.0

[glynor]

I also wanted to note... You can still import files into MC by drag-dropping them.  Just don't drag-drop them onto a Playlist inside MC unless you want them added to that playlist.  If you drop them essentially anywhere else (I often use the player control bar area because it is always visible), that works fine without creating Playlist entries.

But, I don't often see the point to manually import via Drag-Drop or whatever.  Auto-Import works well.  Just watch whatever folders regularly get new content.

[paulx]

Thanks Mrc and Glynor for all the help. Maybe I am not doing the work flow efficiently. Please let me know  if there is a better way to do this

   1. I have Five folders on drive E  by topic - Topic A, Topic B, Topic C, Topic  D, Topic E
   2. Under each  of the 5 folders I have  two different folders  labeled  "Books"  and " AV"  (audio video)
   3. In JRiver, I have created 5 playlists  labeled Topic A, Topic B, Topic C, Topic  D, Topic E. I would want to do auto import for most of the folders and drag/ drop to few
   4. Files are audio, video and documents.
   
   
Glynor mentioned not  to drag-drop them onto a Playlist inside MC . ..that will also avoid duplication.  Where can I drop them as ultimately they will be a part of one of  one of the playlist (Topic A, Topic B, Topic C, Topic  D, Topic E)  mentioned above.
   

Thanks.

[MrC]

To help you better, can you explain the scope of those files you want to manually import via drag-n-drop.

I'm getting that you want to do this to retain some order.  But if those files are in order in Explorer, then MC can create that same order presumable.  So you might be able to let MC do the sorting for you.  Or, after you import, then you can do the manual ordering inside a playlist.

I think so far you want to auto-import everything, but let's see what your response is to the above question.

[paulx]

Thanks for your response. To continue from before, let's say Playlist  "Topic A" will contain documents and audio, video files for that topic.  For docs ,  I will create auto import   from Folder "Topics  Docs A" to playlist "Docs A" . For AV files,  I will import using Auto Import to the same  playlist "Topic  A" . For some AV folders I want some order  in the playlist as the Audio files are large in number and if I do auto import they will all be  jumbled up and it will take me lot more time to individually sequence them.  For example,  I attend an event/conference  and for each event I have  25 to 50 audio files and I would want to drag and drop files for each event  into MC playlist so that when I look at the playlist all audio files are arranged by the event.

I read that in windows  you can right click on explorer and move the files to MC but when i right click on a folder using my mouse I don't see any option to move files.

I don't want to auto import everything but  as I understand Auto import is great function where I know I will be adding more files in future to the same folder  so they get loaded to MC automatically. Otherwise I see drag and drop is ok. At this point I may not be  able  to see all the advantages of auto import over drag and drop. But you can enlighten me.

[MrC]

Let me make clear again - you do not import into Playlists.

You import into MC's library.  Playlists are simple lists of entries that are already in MC.  That you are dragging into a Playlist does both Import the file (if necessary) and adds that file's reference in MC to your Playlist.

Please read the Import wiki link both glynor and I have suggested.  It explains importing, and auto-importing (a topic linked at the bottom of the Import page).  These explain the questions you are asking.

You can get a context menu in Windows Explorer.  Tools > Options > General > Shell Options > Enable Shell Integration.

You are probably not aware of how much work MC will do for you, with its view system and expression language.  Many users find they spend hours doing something that can take seconds or minutes.

[paulx]

I do understand about the playlist and i did read  the wikis. They were helpful. You can drop and drag into MC library and then to a playlist. Glynor mentioned in earlier post not to import it into playlist (as playlist can contain duplicate files)  but move it somewhere else..I didn't  understand  where can I move it in MC if not the playlist? I asked this question earlier too.

But please read my last  comment and tell me what is the best way for an efficient workflow in my situation especially  if i want to maintain the order or do you have any  suggestions. I did a test to auto import all my audio files  from folder A  on my hard drive to a MC  library but  as i suspected they came in MC  all over the place which  will take  me hours to get them together . SO  i was thinking of doing drag and  drop for those particular data set of files.

Also is drag and drop same as  using explorer to put the files in MC?

I also read about creating  libraries and i think its a good idea to create multiple libraries. Any suggestions?

[MrC]

You can add files to a Playlist in many ways, but they (almost) all start from assuming you are using MC's view system.  In any view, like Audio > Album > Genre or Audio > Panes, at the bottom there is a file list (or there will be once you open it).  At the top are either categories or panes (and you can do some things with these).

To get files into a playlist, you can select some files, and:

   - Right-click > Send To > Playlist > ...
   - Open Build Playlists in the Tag Action Window and drag files from within MC to the window that opened up
   - Open Playlists in the Tree, and drag and drop files onto a Playlist

You may find it easier to open several Tabs, one open to the Playlist you are working on, the other in some view where you are selecting music.  That way, you can go back and forth.

I read your questions, but I can't answer what's the best workflow for your situation without knowing exactly how it is that you know the order of your files that you are adding to some playlist.  That's what I was asking about above, with respect to scope.  You clearly see some pattern or have some knowledge that tells you the order you want.  The question I'm wondering - is there something about the file or folder names that helps you to see that ordering, or do you just know based on some other internal knowledge?  Also, how many items are we talking about.  If it is a dozen, auto-import and then manually do your playlist work inside MC.  If it is thousands, its going to take a while no matter what you do.

You asked: Also is drag and drop same as  using explorer to put the files in MC?

This is ambiguous.  What is "explorer"?  Is that MC's Drives & Devices > Explorer, or is that Windows Explorer?

   - Dragging files from Windows Explorer onto MC is a manual import.
   - The Windows Explorer right-click context menu when you right-click a file or folder will show a Media Center sub-menu, which has an Import item.  This is a manual import.

Don't bother create multiple libraries until you understand what you're getting into.  There is likely no practical benefit, and you'll end up spending a lot of time trying to re-create views, etc.  Let MC do its job and manage your files.

[glynor]

It is almost certainly NOT a good idea to create multiple Libraries.  I don't have a lot of time to explain right now, but you are missing the main "portion" of MC's Interface, it seems.

First of all, for your example, the easiest way to make your separate lists (which I don't think you should necessarily make, but) would be to use Smartlists.  Smartlists are, essentially, saved searches.  So, you could:

1. Set up Auto-Import to watch all of your files on Drive E (or at least the ones in your five folders).
2. Make five smartlists each with a search like the following one for each one:



3. Now, each file you add to said directories, will automatically show in those Smartlists.  You have to do nothing.  MC will, when it is running, automatically detect new files you add and Import them.  Any file Imported which matches that search (so, resides in the given path) will be shown in the list, and they'll be sorted in alphabetical order by filename.

But, as I said, that's not very efficient.  All of the files in the Library can be viewed in MC's Media Views, which are found outside of the Playlists section, under Audio, Video, and Images.

All of those views are, essentially, just like Smartlists (saved searches) that can be "stacked" on top of one another.  So, the reason only Audio files show under Audio in the Tree is because that Audio Media View has a search that says [Media Type] = Audio.



Then, since you can stack them and they inherit the entire "filter chain" (the searches of the Media Views "above" them in the chain), the Media Views underneath only show Audio too, but can have their own filters.  If you wanted to make a View that showed only ABBA songs, you could just make a new one under Audio and add a search that says:

[Artist] = Abba

To do this (as an example):

1. Open Audio in your Tree.
2. Right click on it, and choose Add Library View.
3. In the dialog that appears, scroll way down and pick Empty View (just as an example).
4. Name your View something obvious, like ABBA Only in the same dialog, and click OK.
5. The next dialog that appears is the one that lets you customize the view.  Ignore most of this for now, and click on the Set rules for file display link under Included Files.
6. This brings up the Edit Search dialog, just like the one you get when making a Smartlist.
7. The view will already only show Audio files, because it lives "underneath" Audio in the Tree, so all you have to do is:



And then, when you open it, it will filter all of your files and show only those that are both Audio, and where the Artist tag contains "ABBA".  This might be hard to replicate if you don't have any ABBA in your Library (no fault there) but you can use any Artist you do have files for as an example.  This isn't obviously a very useful view, because it shows only Abba, but the point is that you can filter any of these views using any criteria that the Library knows about.  This is mostly Tags like Media Type, Artist, Album, Disc #, Series, Season, and whatnot, but can also be things like Filename, Bitrate, Dimensions, and a whole host of "automatically" calculated qualities about your files.

Of course, Media Views also provide Categories, which allow you to filter the file results on the fly, so instead of filtering to show only ABBA, you can (on the previous dialog that we skipped) add an Artist category, and now you'll get a pane at the top showing all of your Artists (like iTunes) where you can select each one to filter the file list below "on the fly".

The best course of action would be, probably, to properly categorize your five "types" in Media Center and assign them to tags, which can be searched.  You can even do this automatically in Auto-Import.  When you add a Watched Folder to Auto-Import, you can add a Tag on Import rule that assigns all files it finds in that folder with a particular tag.  So, if one of your five "top level" folders is all TV Shows, you could assign [Media Sub Type] to "TV Show" and then any files it imports (from then on, it doesn't affect things already imported) will be automatically classified as TV Shows, even if Media Center would have otherwise assigned it some other tag.  And, if you get really clever, you can assign tags based on fancy logic, but I wouldn't even think about that until you get the basics covered.

If you have a lot of files already imported, and you need to wrestle tags out of your File/Folder structure on disk, the Library Tools > Fill Properties from Filename tool will be your best friend.

[paulx]

This  is great info. It opens all new possibilities. Let me process this and come back to you. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you  both for taking time to respond to my inquires and making suggestions.Thanks

[paulx]

I am still processing  all the info from yesterday. In meantime, please advise what will be the best way to create multiple tags  for the documents and Audio/Video  files. I created a custom field called tags where I am going to manually put multiple tags for each file. For eg  say Doc 1 has tags History, Music, Abba. Now what will be the most efficient  way to search for a single tag  in my library in MC.  Lets say,  I want to search for tag history. Will I create a smart list or what?

[MrC]

Use the existing Keywords field.  It is a list type, and you can add one or more semicolon separated values.  You can use Search (the box in the top right of MC) to find items with one or more keywords.  Example:

   kw=history

There are all sorts of things you can do with Search:

   http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Smartlist_and_Search_-_Rules_and_Modifiers

And here's a list of existing tags / fields:

   http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Tags