This week's tip might help those of you who want a little more (obsessive) control over your file locations. If you're one of those who tosses everything onto your desktop, thanks for stopping by - have a nice weekend.
Media Center will create
new files with the name and in the locations specified in Tools > Options > File Location. There are sections for Audio, Images, Ripped DVD Video, Ripped BD Video, and Other Video (we'll ignore the others below Other Video in the Options dialog).
The sections allow you to specify a base location, a folder rule, and in some cases a filename rule. All new media for a given Media Type will be created as per your definitions. To be clear, these settings affect newly created files (i.e. ripped, scanned, recorded, etc.); they have no affect on imported files. Note, however, as a bonus, the Rename, Move & Copy tool allows you to call up these location definitions by using the Presets button at the lower-left of the tool's dialog.
The two or three components of each media type section are simple: the base specifies the top-level folder where all folders defined in the folder rule are created, and the filename rule specifies how the files should be named under those folders. The term "rule" indicates you can use an expression-based template to more dynamically direct how your files and folders should be created. And this is the meat of this week's tip.
When I first started using Media Center, I specified my rules directly under each media type's section. This was generally fine, but I always found it difficult to debug new rules, or remember how they would work for new situations. And the limited space in the text edit area makes editing rules anything but fun.
So I decided to fundamentally change how I used the rules. Instead of specifying each rule in this section, I defined custom calculated user fields in Tools > Options > Library & Folders > Manage Library Fields... :
and then specify my rules in these user fields instead. These calculated user fields are then used in the File Locations dialog:
Note: I haven't setup rules for Image media types, since I don't create images in Media Center.
There are some distinct advantages to setting up your file locations this way:
- these custom fields can be used in views to test out how they will perform given various situations
- the larger expression editor can be used to edit the field's expression
- the values in File Locations are very short and trivial
- the fields can be used in various expressions to derive the path name for files and folders
- you can use one rule for all your video types (instead of one for each of the three video types in File Location)
So, now I have file and folder rules for Audio and various Video types:
Audio Folder Rule:
The audio folder rule places all my downloaded media (from Scheduler) under the Downloaded Media folder, and all other Audio (this doesn't include Podcasts, which have their own separate configuration) gets placed under my Music folder. You'll notice from above that I specified my Base folder to be the same for all media, and then use the folder rule to locate media types and sub types. This little trick, for Audio, allows keeping Scheduler downloaded media outside of my Music folder.
Audio File Rule:
This audio file rule helps name files under Music - it is typically sufficient for my needs. It allows the Rename tool to work correctly when I'm renaming folders that include not only music files, but also the files JRSecureRip.log and Folder.jpg.
Video Folder Rule:
The video folder rule places general video under the Video folder, and other stuff under its pluralized Media Sub Type, followed by the output of TVInfo(SeriesDisplay) and TVInfo(SeasonDisplay), which creates the paths I want for various video sub types. For example:
TV Shows\The Simpsons\Season 1\...
Video File Rule:
The video file rule just uses Name if the sub type is Movie or Music Video, otherwise for my use, it is generally a Series, and the files will be created as the two digit episode number followed by the episode's name. When series is empty, everything else gets dumped into the Video folder created from the folder rule above.
So you might consider defining your own rules using custom user fields. You can work them out in an expression column in a file list, and once perfected, move them into the user field (this saves a lot of back-and-forth into Options).
Have a good week!
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Topic: • MrC's Tip of the Week 2013.35: File Locations (Read 4264 times)