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[Rubberduck0]

I set empty folders to be deleted automatically. If there are only tracks inside a folder, then it works. But if I delete all tracks from a folder and there is a folder.jpg image present, then this is not deleted of course. And hence MC does not delete this folder, as it seems to treat this folder as not empty.

This is annoying because when organizing the music collection and moving tracks around then you will end up with a lot of unnecessary folders. And I do not know of any way to quickly filter those folders, so it has to be checked one by one. Happy click-feast with some thousand albums...

Please fix this.

[JimH]

I set empty folders to be deleted automatically. If there are only tracks inside a folder, then it works. But if I delete all tracks from a folder and there is a folder.jpg image present, then this is not deleted of course. And hence MC does not delete this folder, as it seems to treat this folder as not empty.

It isn't empty.

[Rubberduck0]

But it should be treated as empty.

Storing the cover image in the album folder is sometimes no choice as some music players require me to do this. But actually, as a user, I don't care how this is handled. I use MC to find and download covers, I do not even want to think about the details. And on this side MC works perfectly.

But when deleting or moving then MC fails. Every time I move files, I have to check, if that was the last track of a folder, have to look if there is a cover image inside and then delete it manually. Since I have to do this anyways, the automatic deletion of empty folders MC offers is useless as it does not save me time nor effort.

Or to put it in other words: You (MC) downloaded and saved it, you delete it!

[AoXoMoXoA]

But it should be treated as empty.

Or to put it in other words: You (MC) downloaded and saved it, you delete it!

Yea,  what he said. 

[6233638]

It's a bad solution, but the way I solved this was to use "Tools > Cover Art > Save Cover Art to External Location Specified in Options..." on everything, which saved a copy of the art to "%APPDATA%\J River\Media Center 18\Cover Art\" and then just deleted the Folder.jpg files off my disk. (in Explorer, I just did a search for "Folder.jpg" inside My Music folder)

I don't really like this solution though, there's no "undo" for changing cover art, so if you accidentally replace the cover for an album with the wrong one, you have lost the previous artwork as there's no Folder.jpg to fall back to.

Another "solution" for this is to import the Folder.jpg files into your Media Center library, create a "maintenance" view that displays all file types, and then move the relevant Folder.jpg along with the tracks. (you can probably use "group by [Filename (path)] for this - though I haven't tried it)


I would much rather that, when auto-import is set to "ignore special files" it would silently import any Folder.jpg files alongside the albums so that when you move the tracks, the folder.jpg moves with it.
Either that, or add an additional option that performs this function.

I would also like some standardized way for a "Liner Notes.pdf" file or "[Album].pdf" to be considered a "special file" (whatever you want that to be called) and handled in the same manner.
I don't really want to "import" (see) these files, but you have to, to be able to make use of the powerful renaming tools Media Center offers.

[yannis]

Well, as I've said elsewhere, it's inconsistent behavior that MC moves the video covers + sidecars along with the main file BUT doesn't treat the album covers the same way.

This is one of the parts of MC that I like the least - I never understood why when you move an album the related pics should be left behind; if you decide to change the folder naming scheme, you're in for a lot of manual work.

Frankly, it's totally unintuitive and I can't think of a rationale that would explain why a user could want to move the tracks but not the related image files. And after all, I don't think it's so difficult to add a routine that checks if there's files remaining and asks the user whether he wants them to be moved as well.

[6233638]

I think the issue is that when files are not a part of the Media Center library, it's "unsafe" for Media Center to move them.
If you use the first method I described - saving them all to ""%APPDATA%\J River\Media Center 18\Cover Art\" deleting your "Folder.jpg" files via Explorer, and then moving the albums, it shouldn't take long at all.
You can probably then change the setting to save a "Folder.jpg" next to the files, "save to external location" again, and have your "Folder.jpg" files back in their original place. (I just decided to do without Folder.jpg files after this)

A bit longwinded, but not a ton of manual work involved.


Coming back to this problem today though, I think the best solution would be to have the option to designate certain files as "sidecar" files for an album, and have Media Center automatically move those files along with the rest of the tracks. (similar to the way film covers and .xml sidecar files are treated)

A "simple" option under File Location > Cover Art would be to have a field that lets you enter filenames to be treated as sidecars - they would not imported into the Library (or imported to a hidden section) but will be moved alongside music files.

All you would need is a field to enter: "Folder.jpg; Liner Notes.pdf; [Album].pdf" etc. depending on what you require.


Similarly, I would really like to have the option to move all my Film covers to a single directory.
Unlike audio files, where I do want to store a copy of the cover art in the same location as a backup, when it comes to videos, I don't want to store a copy with the file.
It would also be useful to have a "sidecar" option for video files to include things like "[Name].srt; English.sup" etc. for subtitle files. (or any other files people would want kept with the file)

[Rubberduck0]

Some may call it narrow-minded, but saving all my covers in one folder is not an option for me. Main reason is other music players cannot handle that, but it is also a question of intuitivness and logic IMHO.

Regarding a solution:

Coming back to this problem today though, I think the best solution would be to have the option to designate certain files as "sidecar" files for an album, and have Media Center automatically move those files along with the rest of the tracks. (similar to the way film covers and .xml sidecar files are treated)

A "simple" option under File Location > Cover Art would be to have a field that lets you enter filenames to be treated as sidecars - they would not imported into the Library (or imported to a hidden section) but will be moved alongside music files.

All you would need is a field to enter: "Folder.jpg; Liner Notes.pdf; [Album].pdf" etc. depending on what you require.

Definitely my choice as it would totally solve the problem and still has a lot of flexibility (e.g.: leave field empty and you have todays behavior). And yes, the problem is not only deleting folders, it is of course the same with moving whole folders (no, actually it is even worse). I also agree on the import behavior: those files should be ignored.

Similarly, I would really like to have the option to move all my Film covers to a single directory.
Unlike audio files, where I do want to store a copy of the cover art in the same location as a backup, when it comes to videos, I don't want to store a copy with the file.
It would also be useful to have a "sidecar" option for video files to include things like "[Name].srt; English.sup" etc. for subtitle files. (or any other files people would want kept with the file)

Although I do not use MC for video, I'd also vote for this suggestion too. Saving those files along with the song/video only makes sense as long as they have their own folders.
* If albums correspond with folder: makes sense.
* If each video has its own folder: makes sense.
* If songs of multiple albums are in one folder: does not make sense.
* If different videos are in one folder: does not make sense.
So I end up with the same conclusion: there is actually no reason to treat sidecar files for music and video differently.

[yannis]

You can probably then change the setting to save a "Folder.jpg" next to the files, "save to external location" again, and have your "Folder.jpg" files back in their original place. (I just decided to do without Folder.jpg files after this)

A bit longwinded, but not a ton of manual work involved.
Coming back to this problem today though, I think the best solution would be to have the option to designate certain files as "sidecar" files for an album, and have Media Center automatically move those files along with the rest of the tracks. (similar to the way film covers and .xml sidecar files are treated)

Indeed, but I was talking about the other files related to an album: booklets, reviews, image files, whatever on thinks important to keep in the same folder with the tracks. Changing a folder naming scheme (e.g adding the year in the folder name) requires that you move those files manually and that's a ton of work. And I'm not sure designating them as sidecars would work, because you may have 10 image files and a txt for one album and an html or a pdf for another. My thought is that MC should check if all the tracks are moved somewhere else and transfer there the rest of the files residing in the same original folder.

It would also be useful to have a "sidecar" option for video files to include things like "[Name].srt; English.sup" etc. for subtitle files. (or any other files people would want kept with the file)

+1000 

[Rubberduck0]

Indeed, but I was talking about the other files related to an album: booklets, reviews, image files, whatever on thinks important to keep in the same folder with the tracks. Changing a folder naming scheme (e.g adding the year in the folder name) requires that you move those files manually and that's a ton of work. And I'm not sure designating them as sidecars would work, because you may have 10 image files and a txt for one album and an html or a pdf for another. My thought is that MC should check if all the tracks are moved somewhere else and transfer there the rest of the files residing in the same original folder.

True. Yes that's probably better. A folder where the last audio or video track is removed is treated as empty, i.e. if tracks are deleted the folder and remaining (non-music/video) files are deleted as well, or if tracks are moved, those files are moved too.
However, since this solution bears a potential risk for losing files I think this should be an option you can enable or not.

Mmmmh, since it is happy-wishing-time... The best way would be a combination of the two suggestions, resulting in three options:

When the last audio or video track of a folder is moved or deleted:
( ) Do not move/delete remaining files (like it is now)
( ) Only move/delete the following files: "folder.jpg; [Album].jpg; ..."
( ) Move/delete all remaining files

And now, the grand finale:

[ ] When moving some but not all audio or video tracks of a folder, sidecar files should be copied

I am not really sure if this is needed. The only use-case I can think of is a multi disc album, where all tracks are in one folder, and you want to split this up in different folders (each disc in separate folder). But I personally would not need such an option.

[Arcturus]

I solved that by deleting all the folder.jpg files. They don't serve much purpose for me since my music already has the cover art embedded and for anything else JRiver always titles them the same as the file so getting rid of that is not a big loss.

A bit of a nuclear solution but works like a charm. Just go to where your music is and in the search box in windows explorer type folder.jpg. You can get rid of lots of junk too like .sfv whatever else you don't need.