Print

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

[bspachman]

I've started using view filters to manage my transcoded files. I like to hear my APE versions when listening at home, but have to use MP3 files with my iPod.

To this end, I created 2 smartlists, one with the rule [file type] = "mp3" and the other [duplicate] = "y". The "Duplicate" field is a custom field that I assign the value of "y" to when it's a transcoded file.

When at home, I keep the view filter set to HIDE based on the "Duplicate" smartlist. When working with the iPod, I set the filter to SHOW the "MP3" smartlist.

All works as expected except when using linked smartlists. My main iPod synching smartlist is a combination of 2 smartlists:

Smartlist 1 is defined as ([Track #] = "1"; Limit = 500) in order to select 500 1st tracks.
Smartlist 2 is defined as (Playlist = "Smartlist 1"; Modifier = Full Albums; Sort = "Album", "Track#") to select the full albums based on the random selection of 500 tracks.

When using the view filters, Smartlist1 filters appropriately as described above, SHOWing mp3 files only. Howver, Smartlist2 always shows both APE and MP3 files when the view filter is set to only SHOW mp3 files.

Needless to say, this hampers my iPod synching. Am I doing something wrong, or do we have a bug here (or possibly a feature)?  

What do you think?

Best,
Brad
-------------
Media Center Registered 9.0.180 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\Microsoft Windows 2000  Workstation 5.0 Service Pack 4 (Build 2195)
Intel Pentium 4 1795 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 303 MB
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.81 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1226 / Shell32.dll: 5.00.3700.6705 / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0002) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright  1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0002)

Ripping /   Drive Z:   Copy mode:ModeSecure   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No

Burning /  Drive Z: TOSHIBA  DVD-ROM SD-R1202   Addr: 0:1:0  Speed:1  MaxSpeed:16  Use MJ Engine:Yes  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: No /  Write CD-Text: Yes  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[Matt]

Any chance you could try this with version 9.1?  There have been a lot of improvements in this area.

[bspachman]

Any chance you could try this with version 9.1?  There have been a lot of improvements in this area.

<gulp>
Upgrade to a beta?

My only concerns are about keeping my rather extensive Girder controls working after the upgrade. I remember in the early 9.1 beta days, the TREEPATH command line switch lost it's functionality--I use that switch a lot and don't remember seeing its correction in any of the 9.1 change lists.

Other than that, I'm game.... Are there any other "gotchas" I should be concerned about for a user who is 99% a music user? If not, I'll give the latest build a whirl tonight.

Oh, if things work out badly for me, how do I roll back to 9.0.180? Will a simple uninstall/reinstall work, or will I need to mess around in the registry?

Best,
Brad

[Matt]

Treepath has been fixed.

All MCC commands should still work.  More have been added.

If you have any problems, let us know and we'll get them fixed.

Thanks Brad.

[bspachman]

Treepath has been fixed.

Indeed it has. It works fine.

All MCC commands should still work.  More have been added.

As I have time, I'll start working through them. Is the list still up-to-date?

If you have any problems, let us know and we'll get them fixed.

When firing items in my view schemes via the /Play TREEPATH command line switches, the files in Playing Now are not cleared. Instead, they are appended to the end of whatever is in Playing Now and the current playing file jumps to the first newly added file.

/Append TREEPATH does work as expected.

I love the new pane/view scheme creation method. I didn't realize I would lose all my view schemes when I upgraded. You may want to make that prominent in the README.

With all the new database fields exposed, I'd love to know what all the differences are between the "Date" fields and the "File" fields, and so on. Will there be a master list in the documentation?

I like the new panes so much, I've depopulated the tree. I'd love to hide the tree entirely, but I can't seem to figure out how to switch view schemes without having the tree showing. Is there a way to do this--or better still, is there a way to MCC_Command it?

I also love the "tagging mode". I'm slowly moving to a genre/sub-genre method of classifying my files, so that will simplify and standardize my tagging quite a bit. My only complaint is that it seems very slow on my machine, but I know optimizations will come.

Lastly, I've skipped much of the discussion about the Action Window. As far as I can tell, it's just a replacement for the tagging methods we've seen before. How are folks using it? What's the underlying theory behind it.

Best,
Brad

[bspachman]

OOPS!

I spoke too soon.

View filters are working with linked playlists as I described in my original post. That is to say, when I look at my ("x" Full Albums Smartlist) with my (Show only MP3 files) filter on, the smartlist only shows mp3s.

However, it doesn't show the correct number. My first smartlist ("x" first tracks) shows the correct number of tracks when using the view filter--for example, 500 tracks. The 2nd smartlist shows a much smaller subset--it only shows 261 of the first tracks & so only includes 261 albums instead of 500.

Seems that there's either a bug or a PEBCAK around here somewhere....

Any ideas?
Brad

[bspachman]

Whew, I hate replying to my own thread, but I keep discovering little "gotchas" in the use of TREEPATH and in view filters.

This is some TREEPATH behavior that isn't really a bug, but I wanted to post about it to help folks who might be searching.

I had modified the view scheme that I use in my TREEPATH command to include grouping and to not populate the tree. However, that makes the treepath switch fail. The tree must be populated for any view scheme you want to use with the switch (makes sense, in retrospect). Also, since grouping effectively adds another level to your path, your original commands may not work as expected.

So, to sum up--if you use the TREEPATH command, make sure you've actually got the tree populated and that you allow for any grouping columns when constructing the path.

Best,
Brad

[Matt]

Thanks for all the feedback Brad. (still digesting it -- will have more to say later)

[bspachman]

When firing items in my view schemes via the /Play TREEPATH command line switches, the files in Playing Now are not cleared. Instead, they are appended to the end of whatever is in Playing Now and the current playing file jumps to the first newly added file.

Well, I figured out this issue. Turns out I missed a note in one of the build reports (for build 244): "13. NEW: Added command /PlayReplace to mjextman to replace Playing Now instead of using the default /Play behavior."

Modifying my Girder setup to send "/PlayReplace" gives me the old behavior of clearing PN before adding the new files. How come the "/Play" switch changed? Also, is it possible to update the documentation (or create a v9-specific version) located at http://www.musicex.com/mediajukebox/DevZone/CommandLine.html ?

Thanks!
Brad

P.S. Still hoping to find out what's happening with the reduced number of files in my view-filtered nested smartlists.

[Matt]

We'll try to get the smartlist thing in a coming build, so let us know if it's still not right within in a few builds.  Thanks!