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Author Topic: Cover Art => Add From File (Folder Location Problem)  (Read 760 times)

atreides

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Cover Art => Add From File (Folder Location Problem)
« on: June 15, 2022, 08:26:53 am »

When I click "Add From File" - the folder that pops up is not the folder where the current files reside.
I have the Cover Art location set to "in the same folder as the file" but I don't have the folder.jpg default files. 
But in 99% of cases, I have cover art in a subfolder usually called art, artwork, covers, or something like that.
If "Add From File" opened up the location of the music files, in 99%+ of cases I could instantly click and add the cover art link.
But I have to navigate around manually to find the files, and this is cumbersome.

Is this the intended behavior for this function, or do I have a setting I can change somewhere?

Thanks.
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blgentry

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Re: Cover Art => Add From File (Folder Location Problem)
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2022, 10:02:35 am »

Your use case is different than most people that use MC.  MC is really designed for two use cases:

1.  Cover art in the exact same directory as the media files.  (not a subdirectory).  These can be named one of 3 different ways, which is convenient.  In most cases it automatically picks up art without having to be told.
2.  Cover art for all albums stored in ONE directory.  Some people like this because they just drop art in a common location and MC tends to find it.  Or using "quick find in cover art directory" will scan this directory and find it.

Storing it in a subdirectory of the media files makes sense to me from an organizational standpoint.  But I'm unclear on what benefit that would have over just putting it right there with the media files.

All that said, I do not have a solution to your stated issue.   

Brian.
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atreides

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Re: Cover Art => Add From File (Folder Location Problem)
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2022, 11:17:03 am »

Thank you for your reply.  Honestly, I was completely unaware that anyone would collect cover art in the #2 case - in one big directory.  That seems too disorganized for me.

Typically, my artwork folders could have up to a few dozen files in them.  This is things like front, back, cover, matrix, booklet, etc.  It would be a mess to keep all these files in the flat structure of the root folder with the music files.  If it was just 1 cover JPG then I can understand doing it that way.

I'm not sure if the developers view this forum or not since I'm new here.  The simple tweak of pulling up the current music folder with the "Add From File" seems like it would alleviate a lot of headaches for users.  Mostly it seems to pull up the last album folder I opened up - which is completley useless since there would be no artwork in there, for the different album I would be clicking on now... 
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Matt

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Re: Cover Art => Add From File (Folder Location Problem)
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2022, 11:25:47 am »

I'm not sure if the developers view this forum or not since I'm new here.  The simple tweak of pulling up the current music folder with the "Add From File" seems like it would alleviate a lot of headaches for users.  Mostly it seems to pull up the last album folder I opened up - which is completley useless since there would be no artwork in there, for the different album I would be clicking on now...

We check the folder the files are in for jpg, png, gif, and bmp.  If artwork is found, we use that folder.

If no artwork is found, we use the last folder you used.

This seems pretty good, but let us know if you have another idea.  Thanks.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

atreides

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Re: Cover Art => Add From File (Folder Location Problem)
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2022, 11:47:49 am »

We check the folder the files are in for jpg, png, gif, and bmp.  If artwork is found, we use that folder.

If no artwork is found, we use the last folder you used.

This seems pretty good, but let us know if you have another idea.  Thanks.

Thank you for your reply.  There are so many useful functions in JRiver, it is really incredible.

I have done a few more tests to understand how the Add From File function works.
I am seeing now what you say.

If the root folder of the music files has an image file in it, then the dialog box opens up with that folder, so you can select one of the images (great).

Two other cases:
If the root folder of the music files has no image file in it, but a subfolder under that root folder does have an image file, then the dialog box opens up the last folder you used (for this case, I think opening the root folder, or the subfolder that does have images would be more useful).

[Folder]
\[artwork]\example.jpg
\music files

If the root folder of the music files has no image file in it, but a folder one level up does, then the box opens up the last folder you used (still, I would find there to be less clicks involved if it opened the root folder of the music files instead, of last folder used).

[Folder]
\[artwork]\example.jpg
\[CD1]\music files
\[CD2]\music files

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blgentry

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Re: Cover Art => Add From File (Folder Location Problem)
« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2022, 12:30:32 pm »

Typically, my artwork folders could have up to a few dozen files in them.  This is things like front, back, cover, matrix, booklet, etc.  It would be a mess to keep all these files in the flat structure of the root folder with the music files.  If it was just 1 cover JPG then I can understand doing it that way.

Several years ago I suggested that MC support multiple pieces of artwork for music that you could view separately from the album cover.  They added that feature and called it "View Extras".  If you right click on any song or album, you'll see a selection at the bottom to view extras.  These extras are searched for in various sub folders, including names like "art", "artwork", etc.  See this thread for details:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=106819.0

With that in mind, I would suggest that you keep your setup exactly as it is, but ADD a single piece of cover art for your album in the album folder.  That way you get automatic detection of your album artwork *and* you get all your extra art in it's own directory, which can be read by the View Extras functionality.

Perhaps try it out on one or two albums and see what you think.

Brian.
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atreides

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Re: Cover Art => Add From File (Folder Location Problem)
« Reply #6 on: June 15, 2022, 12:44:41 pm »

Several years ago I suggested that MC support multiple pieces of artwork for music that you could view separately from the album cover.  They added that feature and called it "View Extras".  If you right click on any song or album, you'll see a selection at the bottom to view extras.  These extras are searched for in various sub folders, including names like "art", "artwork", etc.  See this thread for details:

This is an excellent feature.
Thank you for pointing this out, I had not looked at this before.
This does in fact link to a lot of my cases.
Most of the time a single album of files with an artwork or similar folder.

So JRiver is already looking for these files, so it seems like this would be useful to include in the logic for the Add From File on the Cover Art functions.  If "Extras" are found, these are likely to include something that you would want to use for your cover art, so this folder could pop up when you Add From File.

On the other case, where the "Extras" are one level up (\[artwork],\[cd1],\[cd2]) then this one still would not work.

This last case was discussed here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,106819.msg750582.html#msg750582
and here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,106819.msg750583.html#msg750583

But it doesn't appear to have been resolved.  Going ..\ and then looking for the list of View Extra folders (scans,artwork,etc) would seem to do the trick.
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