Topic: Transfer/Recreate Folder Structure on Handheld Player (Read 4362 times)

rickeyjt · « **on:** October 11, 2004, 08:58:56 am »

Several players I own, the directory structure is based on the hard drive model. When plugged in to the pc they show up as a drive letter. This eliminates the use of any specific player software to transfer files to the device. I have an iriver ihp140 and the rio carbon.

My problem with mc10 I when I drag files to the player they do not recreate the or retain the folder structure they came from on my hard drive. So I still have to use windows explorer to transfer a folder. Then of course all my exported playists will work perfectly when copied to the root of the mp3 player too.

Notice when you drag a file in mc10 to the handheld drive letter, the cue for transferring shows the original path on my pc hard drive and the lists the destination handheld path as the root drive letter only.

Is there a setting to fix this or plugin or what?

Rick

SteveG · « **Reply #1 on:** October 11, 2004, 09:58:05 am »

Rick,

Right click on your device in the MC tree and check out the 'Rearrange folder options' option. This should do what you are after. If you are willing to try MC 11, MC 11 is more flexible in handling players like yours. For example, if I know your device name I can change MC to automatically put m3u playlists in a default directory if one is necessary for your device to recognize the playlists.

Steve

IanG · « **Reply #2 on:** October 11, 2004, 10:33:06 am »

Quote from: SteveG on October 11, 2004, 09:58:05 am

For example, if I know your device name I can change MC to automatically put m3u playlists in a default directory if one is necessary for your device to recognize the playlists.

I was going to ask about MC synching with generic mp3 players, but this looks very similar - by device name, do you mean the name I can give it by right clicking on a drive in Windows Explorer?

Ian G.

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** October 11, 2004, 10:39:56 am »

Yes, but it's the name the device has by default, out of the box.

IanG · « **Reply #4 on:** October 11, 2004, 11:08:53 am »

Quote from: JimH on October 11, 2004, 10:39:56 am

Yes, but it's the name the device has by default, out of the box.

That can be changed by the user - if it's just a one to one correspondence e.g. device name Peter = folder Playlists, could this be feature be implemented via the UI or an ini file?

Ian G.

SteveG · « **Reply #5 on:** October 11, 2004, 11:25:53 am »

Ian,

The device name I am referring to in this thread is a unique device name that the device reports to Windows. You can see it if you have a USB removable device and you start MC and then go to File->OpenURL and enter 'ShowdeviceID' for the URL path. When you do this, when you click on your device in the MC tree, a dialogue will pop up with a name associated with your device, but only for the session where you typed the 'ShowDeviceID'. With this name, I can make MC smarter in how it relates to your device (i.e. a default playlist path).

Steve

rickeyjt · « **Reply #6 on:** October 11, 2004, 12:20:24 pm »

Quote from: SteveG on October 11, 2004, 09:58:05 am

Right click on your device in the MC tree and check out the 'Rearrange folder options' option. This should do what you are after.

Very nice! Thankyou.

The Handheld Que (my K: drive) still shows the Handheld Path as being the root of K: but because I selected the option I wanted in Rearrange Folder Options my path gets created. I would suggest the Handheld Path column update to reflect the final destination path to written out so you can see what structure will be on the handheld before you transfer.

IanG · « **Reply #7 on:** October 11, 2004, 12:30:20 pm »

Quote from: SteveG on October 11, 2004, 11:25:53 am

Ian,

The device name I am referring to in this thread is a unique device name that the device reports to Windows. You can see it if you have a USB removable device and you start MC and then go to File->OpenURL and enter 'ShowdeviceID' for the URL path. When you do this, when you click on your device in the MC tree, a dialogue will pop up with a name associated with your device, but only for the session where you typed the 'ShowDeviceID'. With this name, I can make MC smarter in how it relates to your device (i.e. a default playlist path).

Steve

Steve

Sounds good, thanks! I don't have the player to hand, but how would you like these IDs sent to you - this forum or pm?

Ian G.

SteveG · « **Reply #8 on:** October 11, 2004, 01:18:17 pm »

IanG,

This thread would be fine, thanks.

Please also include a playlist path if it is necessary.

Steve

IanG · « **Reply #9 on:** October 11, 2004, 04:54:43 pm »

Steve

The player only appears as a disk under "My Computer", not "Drives and Devices" - I don't get the right click "Rearrange folder options", and ShowdeviceID has no effect. If I switch my USB card reader on it appears under "Drives and Devices" as well as "My Computer", and "Rearrange folder options" are available. ShowdeviceID doesn't work, but maybe that's not surprising!

MC can work with the drive perfectly, but it looks exactly like a HD.

Ian G.

SteveG · « **Reply #10 on:** October 11, 2004, 05:04:03 pm »

Ian,

It appears that your device presents itself to your PC as a fixed drive rather than a removable drive. If this is the case, we also have a solution. For MC to recognize your device as a Portable (with all the Portable device features such as rearrange folders, etc.) if it is a fixed drive type device, go to Tools->Plugin Manager->Handheld->Portable Drives->Configure and then enter the volume label for your device. Also enter a playlist directory if your player has a specific directory in which playlists must reside. After you do this, MC should recognize the device.

Steve

IanG · « **Reply #11 on:** October 11, 2004, 05:16:28 pm »

Steve

Brilliant!! Works like a charm! Many thanks for your help!!

Ian G.

rickeyjt · « **Reply #12 on:** October 11, 2004, 06:25:44 pm »

Now what would be better is if any playlist in mc10 is dragged to the mp3 player, the playlist gets saved to root as an m3u file. Dragging the playlist does put files on the player with the full original path. I'm saying why not have mc10 finish the job by saving an m3u file on the root too.

Not a big deal. I'm very happy being able to get this far!

To summarize, all I did was right click on the mp3 player drive letter in mc10, it indexed it then right-clicked the drive letter again and clicked Rearrange Upload Folders and checked Use Filename Path.

Nice.

IanG · « **Reply #13 on:** October 12, 2004, 03:10:53 am »

If it's any help, you can right click on a playlist in MC and export it wherever you want, in a choice of formats.

Ian G.

rickeyjt · « **Reply #14 on:** October 12, 2004, 09:22:34 am »

Quote from: IanG on October 12, 2004, 03:10:53 am

right click on a playlist in MC and export it

I do export to a .m3u playlist on my hard drive. But I have to use windows explorer to drag the .m3u to the root of the player. This is the extra step I would like mc to handle.

SteveG · « **Reply #15 on:** October 12, 2004, 09:51:55 am »

This is already implemented for removable drive type players or fixed drive players with a path other than root. I will tweak it in today's build to accommodate the root if you enter 'ROOT'' into the playlist path where you configure the volume label detection.

Steve

IanG · « **Reply #16 on:** October 12, 2004, 11:52:10 am »

Quote from: rickeyjt on October 12, 2004, 09:22:34 am

Quote from: IanG on October 12, 2004, 03:10:53 am
right click on a playlist in MC and export it

I do export to a .m3u playlist on my hard drive. But I have to use windows explorer to drag the .m3u to the root of the player. This is the extra step I would like mc to handle.

I'm sure Steve's approach is better, but you should be able to export the playlist directly to the player.

Ian G.

rickeyjt · « **Reply #17 on:** October 12, 2004, 12:19:53 pm »

I enter the device ID in the configure handheld dialog but how do you enter the playlist path in there too (syntax)? I'm not sure I understand the full purpose of filling that dialog out. I seem to be able to transfer files to handheld removeable drive players regardless.

BTW, I have two hard disk players with differenct IDs. I used xp disk management to make sure they each have a different drive letter when connected. Drive K: IHP140 (iriver), drive L: Carbon (rio)

rickeyjt · « **Reply #18 on:** October 12, 2004, 12:26:42 pm »

Quote from: IanG on October 12, 2004, 03:10:53 am

I'm sure Steve's approach is better, but you should be able to export the playlist directly to the player.

That's correct but I have to export several times then. Once to my pc hard drive and then to each of my removeable drive players, the IHP140 K: and the Rio Carbon L:.

I think what should happen is when I drag a playlist to the root of my player that playlist automatically gets created on the player. Now if I change the playlist and drag it over again, files if they already exist do not need to be overwritten, only new ones added to the player and then the playlist is written out to the player. All in one click and drag operation.

Rick

SteveG · « **Reply #19 on:** October 12, 2004, 03:36:43 pm »

Rick,

Quote

I enter the device ID in the configure handheld dialog....

Just to be clear, this is the Volume Label name which should be entered in this dialogue.

Quote

how do you enter the playlist path in there too (syntax)

A path separated by double '\\'. For example... "My Music\\MyM3uPlaylists". I will add an example to the dialogue so this is clear.

Quote

I'm not sure I understand the full purpose of filling that dialog out. I seem to be able to transfer files to handheld removeable drive players regardless.

If your player is WMDM compatible, this information is unnecessary. It is useful for players that are not WMDM compatible (and appear to your system as a drive) or for drive type WMDM compatible players that have a specified playlist directory which is not specified in our internal system. (ideally I will update this so the dialogue is not necessary for this type of device).

Quote

I think what should happen is when I drag a playlist to the root of my player that playlist automatically gets created on the player.

Our system is designed to do this assuming the player is a drive type player and the device supports m3u playlists (although this can be extended to other playlist types). In the case of IHP140 and Carbon, I can add this support quickly with some information from you (I do not have these devices). If you are running the latest MC 11, go to File->openURL and enter 'Showdeviceid'. If your device is WMDM compatible and a drive type device, after you do this click on your device in the tree and you will see a name in a dialogue. Post this name and also post whether there is a specific playlist directory. With this information, I can make MC compatible with XP and 2000 in a few minutes with no need to update your MC version. After this you should be able to sync or drag and drop playlists to the device.

Steve

rickeyjt · « **Reply #20 on:** October 13, 2004, 10:50:49 am »

A few things going on. MC11 locks up when accessing K: (IHP140) under Drives & Devices. The same when the Carbon is plugged in on L:. ShowdeviceID for the IHP140 is 'MK4004GAH' and for the Carbon it's 'Carbon'. K: or L: will show up un My Computer within MC11 and will access the drive.

MC10 lets me click on the device under Drives & Devices but then comes up with Micorsoft Visual C Runtime Library error program Media Jukebox.exe. Before installing MC11, MC10 did work.

I also tried uninstalling mc10 and reinstalling mc110099 but same thing. This was all working in MC10 yesterday.

rickeyjt · « **Reply #21 on:** October 13, 2004, 11:54:18 am »

Ok, I let it sit for 10 minutes and it finally displayed all the files.

Now in the Plugin Manger Configure I have the playist directory set to 'ROOT' should I type \\ instead? I've tried both.

I am dragging a playlist created under Playlists on to the handheld a click Transfer. No m3u playllist shows up on the root of the player.

Also, when looking at tree under Drives & Devices you see all the folders and m3u playlists. However when you click on any of them main window lists everything on the player not just what is in the folder or playlist I have highlighted.

SteveG · « **Reply #22 on:** October 13, 2004, 03:54:17 pm »

rick,

The next build of MC should resolve the issues you are seeing. I will modify MC to automatically send playlists to the root for your two devices.

Steve

PS the 'Locking' you saw is due to MC creating a database for your player. This should occur only the first time you connect (unless you opt to rebuild the database). Did MC give you any message indicating this that you recall?

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: Transfer/Recreate Folder Structure on Handheld Player (Read 4362 times)