Creating folder *shortcuts* via ID3 tag? (ie: organize by GENRE)

[mr.Curmudgeon]

I know a lot of mp3 organization software will allow you to generate FOLDERS using embedded ID3 tags, but is there a piece of software that will allow you to create folder SHORTCUTS?

I have tried Nordbeat Jukebox, which does this, but not in the way that I'd like. It creates shortcuts to not only the folder, but every MP3 file within it. I just want a shortcut to the main album folder.

I currently have all my albums in one folder (ARTIST - ALBUM), and what I'm looking to do is create a second GENRE folder that has subfolders with each album LINKED by GENRE (ie: ROCK/PINK FLOYD - DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.lnk). Like, sort of a cross-reference.

Then, like a real shortcut, it would just take you to the actual Pink Floyd album.


mrC

[Barry Barcrest]

Maybe i could do this for you, let me know what you are trying to achieve in a bit more depth and i might be able to knock you something up...

[Space Fractal]

If I read right he means have a folder structur like this:

C:\Album\#Artist#\#Album#\songname.mp3

He would like to made servial lnk files like this

C:\Album\#Genre#\#Artist# - #Album#.lnk

The lnk file should point directly album folder. I do not knew how to make these lnk files (but may been easy to due in Pure Basic), even my own software support lnk files fine (both folders and files).

Maybe you should simply contact the author behind Nordbeat Jukebox, so you can disable the shourtcut to mp3 thing, but only folders?

Othwerwice I can't see the problem you would remove all shortcut to mp3 files (but they may use a lots of hd space, wich can been why).

[Barry Barcrest]

Nope i think you are wrong.. I think he has

C:\Album\#Artist#\#Album#\songname.mp3

But i think he requires...

C:\Genre\Rock\Random Rock Album.LNK
C:\Genre\Pop\Random Pop Album.LNK

Thoose links point to the right artist so he can go in and browse by genre...

He still has not confirmed anything with me, however i am not going to code anything yet as i might be wrong and i am not going to waste some of my coding time if it is not what he wants.

[Space Fractal]

yes we need confirm.

I just thinked he want to sorting artist-albums by genre, and jump directly to the correct album with cross-linking.

Nordbeat Jukebox need just a adjust to being doing this thing correct, so contact the author is the best thing (ask to disable creating shortcuts to files).

Let us see :-)

[Barry Barcrest]

I was thinking about this and either way it should be easy for me to create the shortcuts just by modifying my config program from my own jukebox. All i need to do is create a shorcut to each album rather than a database entry. It shouldn't take me longer than 5 minutes to do once he lets me know exactly what he wants. I already have it dumping out a shortcut of each album to a folder called shortcuts... I will await his reply.

[Space Fractal]

of course. Smart think  .

I could maybe the same thing with caching sytem in AMB, but I think lI et you doing that.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Barcrest,

I have all my albums physically located in one folder, each stored in a sub-album as ARTIST - ALBUM (ie: Nirvana - Bleach), then inside each folder, there are the tracks ARTIST - ALBUM - TRACK# - TITLE (ie: Nirvana - Bleach - 01 - Blew.mp3)

So the structure is like this:

C:/Music/Albums/Nirvana - Bleach
                           Nirvana - In Utero
                           Nirvana - Nevermind
                           etc....

What I'd like is to have another folder organizing these album folders by GENRE, but only using folder SHORTCUTS.  Like this:

C:/Music/Genre/Rock/Nirvana - Bleach.lnk
                                 Nirvana - In Utero.lnk
                                 Nirvana - Nevermind.lnk

Note the '.lnk' extension denoting the folder shortcut, where the shortcut goes to C:/Music/Albums/Nirvana - Bleach, etc....

I've been looking for a program that'll just batch create the folder shortcuts based on ID3 tags, but I've come up pretty empty. It would need to be slightly configurable, since not every album is formatted the same way (ie: Compliation albums = ALBUM - TRACK# - ARTIST - ALBUM). It would also be useful if it could be configured to create SHORTCUT folders based on different ID3 tags, like YEAR, BITRATE, etc.

I hope the above made sense, if not, I can try to clear it up with further questions. I didn't even think to ask you to create anything, since I just assumed you're busy with Freebox in general...

What I'm basically trying to do is create a platform/software independent way of sub-organizing my collection. I don't want to load a HUGE dB everytime I want to play some songs. If I could just navigate some folders in windows explorer, it'd be MUCH quicker.


mrC

[Space Fractal]

hm? Since you user ONE folder, you may CAN'T doing that. This is (as I read) simply limithed by your folder structure, that dosen't use a folder to albums.

You NEED to create folder albums, before it can made shortcuts that way by genre. THis because:
1) Windows can NOT jump directly to a file made by a shortcut lnk folder.
2) Windows can NOT even store files in a folder shortcut (wich you may trying).

I have never seen it here, because it just my option. This is simply why Nordbeat have created files for all mp3, because it can not doing other things.

This is what I have read.

These limits can of course overrided by the jukebox software, that use a database, because it allready have scanned the files in the start.

So if you ask me, it a LOTS easier to made folders for albums first, so you can crosslinking directly from MS Explorer (and that way Arcade Music Box would like, it just check the path/file it store in the lnk file). This give also a lots fever files in a folder, and easier to find them again (some ripper software can even create the correct folder, like CDEX).

What do you mean Barcreast? Do I say somebody wrong?

[mr.Curmudgeon]

But I can already do what I want to do, although MANUALLY...I'm just looking for an automatic/batch processing way of doing it, for the entire collection.

You NEED to create folder albums, before it can made shortcuts that way by genre

I think you may be misreading my post. I do have seperate folders for each album and I have those album sub-folders stored in one all-inclusive folder.


mrC

[Space Fractal]

ahhhhhh, I have just swapped Artist & Album. Sorry.

Really a great structure trouch!

This should been very easy to due for me or Barcreast.

I let you known, when I made this feature on my next AMB version (wich would been a great feature for AMB, a sweet feature by sorting in genre). This even if Barcreast doing this first (for him it may only take a few minuttes, because he just need to alter one function, so it create shortcuts intead inserting to database).

I been glad to misreading your post.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

I been glad to misreading your post.

I won't hold it against you...I can't read Danish AT ALL!   


mrC

[Space Fractal]

Im are going to made this feature in my next version of Arcade Music Box.

AMB would been able to browsing by Year and Genre, and would navigated by its shortcut (created automatic by launch).

For you, you can choose AMB to NOT to greate folder Shortcuts, even AMB can doing that (it support foldermask, so for you you should use #ARTIST# - #ALBUM#). It do only create file shortcut, if #TITLE# have been used, wich of course you dosen't use.

You do not even need to use AMB itself (but would been glad if you did), but just use AMB to creating these files.

I may release this new version in few days, but I need to polish this feature (because it not just creating these shortcut, but using them itself in AMB to sorting genre and year).

Goodnight (clock is 03.00 here).

Barcrest (sorry to misspelling your name):
I hope it was ok, I went back on this thread (sorry).

You may even add this feature in you config if you link. But since AMB allready support LNK files (and it browse like MS explorer does), it would been fine, if AMB could browser by genre and/or year.... So why not try to support this requested feature to my software? But It still not finished.

[Barry Barcrest]

What I'm basically trying to do is create a platform/software independent way of sub-organizing my collection. I don't want to load a HUGE dB everytime I want to play some songs. If I could just navigate some folders in windows explorer, it'd be MUCH quicker.


mrC

It is exactly as i thought you wanted it.. Ok i will do it for you... However this is now much quicker than using jukebox sofware, i suppose it depends how many albums you have got. If youi have a lot then this will be slower than using freebox i can tell you that for sure (Especially now it loads up right away). This is because windows takes a while to display large directories.

Anyway hopefully i can send this your way today.

[Space Fractal]

[PROGRESS IN ARCADE MUSIC BOX V. 23]

I have got the technical part to work, and they does great shortcuts as they should (based on your dirmask).

There was a little "problem" with Compliations and some remixes:
If it found 2 difffenct artists on 2 songfiles in the same folder, it would just rename the artist to "Various Artists". I did that to prevent creating too many shortcuts to the same folder

Any bad tagged files (missing genre or such) would been moved to "Unknown".

All Im now missing, is show it to the user....

[/PROGRESS IN V .23]

[Space Fractal]

v23 Arcade Music Box released with shortcut batch feature.

Do this to get this to work:

* Download AMB from my website
* Start config application
* Add a path in Folders/My Albums Folder
* You may want to use Audio/Album Options by creating a Dir Mask (when empty it read id3 tags trouch).
* Enable "Genre" feature
* Add "#ARTIST# - #ALBUM#" string to the shortcut Mask (as I had read about your structor).
* Run Arcade Music Box main application.

I hope this one works.

When running first time, it do now create a lots of shortcut files in the "arcade music box\cache\genre" folder.

It even show it to the user, because supported lnk files a while ago (but this one could been better, because it allways threat them all as a singles, not a album, but it works).

Best Regaards
Space Fractal

NB. Im still even use MS Explorer to hear my music for my desktop. He have created each folder for each album (but not artist), so it can seen it slower, using MS Explorer? So in this cause it may not matter to use a jukebox software on a desktop/work machine (Im doing the same thing).

[Barry Barcrest]

I forgot to post it on this thred for anyone who is interested....

Make sure you put the check in build GENRE folders. To be honest it's quite handy to see how out of shape my genre tags are with most of the albums ending in the no tag folder.... This is why i have never really been that pushed to impliment genres.

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.freeboxjukebox.com/files/beta/config2.zip

[Space Fractal]

Barcrest:
Yep same here. Genre was not really a part in AMB (like Freebox), why I also not never used them here.

When I tested this on my collection, some was named (28) or so one. I guess tag3.dll did that way, if genre is diffecent in id3v2 and id3v1. So if it find one with these name with (), they moved all to unknown genre, if there are not a string after that. I could not doing other thing like this.

mr.Curmudgeon:
I hope me or Barcrest have created the shortcuts as they should.

.24 now is relased.  Some change to the genre feature (if you diddent use .23).

The new genre shortcut feature is moved under the audio tab (if you not did this allready), because it exclusive for albums. Otherwice it does the same.

Since the toggle button for genre is gone, this feature is only enabled, if some text is inserted in the shortcut dirmask.

[Barry Barcrest]

I have updated it.. There were problems if you had / or \ in the genre tag... It's now fixed up anyway and is part of my last build.

http://www.freeboxjukebox.com/files/beta/setup1916.zip