Considering a switch from iTunes to MM

[NWDreamer]

@1 - I do that when I only have one to fix - just finished cleaning up all the other comments and removing ratings (so I can start from scratch).

@2 - Thanks, I'll go see my friend Google, but it might be a good time to just start over (many are to find things that MM already has an easier way anyway).

Unfortunately, MM doesn't appear to completely organize my files. I had a bunch that ended up in the "Unknown" directory because I had Artist filled in but not Album Artist (which is the field used for the file directory mask). Even after I made the Album Artist field match that Artist field, the file itself is still stuck in the Unknown directory and wasn't moved to the Album Artist directory where it belongs. I don't want things all over the place after I've corrected the tags.

Is there an easy way to get this cleaned up? Is this another bug in MM? I consider this a big deal for me.

*** Once again, thanks for responding! I can't tell you how many times I posted a serious question in the iTunes forums and never got a decent reply. It makes my decision to move to MM that much better!

[Lowlander]

I don't want things all over the place after I've corrected the tags.

That's what Tools > Options > Auto-Organize does.

[NWDreamer]

I didn't realize you had to physically do something, I thought it would automatically move or change things if one of the organization mask fields were modified. My first try it did "something" with 16,388 files but there were still files in the "Unknown" directory and now I have duplicates to sort out (even though I had a lot of "File already exists" to which I answered "No" I didn't want it to overwrite). Apparently, it also requires you to know what you want to organize? I made an album name change, clicked on Organize Files and only one song (unrelated to my change) showed up. I figured out that it was because I happened to have that one selected so I tried a <Ctrl>A and then clicked on Organize Files and now there are several areas that I guess I need to clean up (some duplicate songs with different names somehow and at least one that I changed that now shows up in yellow for some reason and others in red!).

Too many weird things. If you ask me, it really should be this simple: When you make a change, where one of the organization mask fields modified, make the corresponding revision to the file and/or directory. Then the Organize File option would only be required if you started manipulating files outside of MM.

Oh well, what's a few more hours of cleanup? Just scrolling through 70,000 songs looking for highlighting (that still doesn't make sense - I'll try to figure that out with help next) takes a LONG time!

Here's one feature request: Add a button to filter out all songs/files that DON'T have a problem so we can easily see what needs to be fixed (and a tool-tip of what the problem is would be nice). Having all the fields that you use in your organization mask available as columns would be handy too.

Anyway, I'm getting there, I spent MONTHS getting all of those songs imported and cleaned up in iTunes so spending a couple of days for MediaMonkey isn't too bad.

[Lowlander]

Not sure what you mean.

Tools > Options > Auto-Organize will run when you make tag changes to your files or scan them in. Tools > Auto-Organize Files is the manual variant of this which runs on selected files.

The Files to Edit > Unorganized Files node will show all files for which the Path doesn't match the Auto-Organize rules.

See: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... enames/4.0

[NWDreamer]

Hmm... I definitely missed that and this is definitely a program with so many options that it takes a while to understand which ones do what.

The "Auto-Organize Files as a Background Process" appears to be what I want. I just didn't realize that I had to enter the organization rules a second time. I think this is what corrupted my files a bit, the import scan was using one set of rules (what I wanted) but the auto-organize was using another (the default). I understand why you don't want to have one mask for everything (most people might want their Classical collection to be different), but I do wish it had let me know there was another spot to change...

I also didn't know (or remember) about the Files to Edit > Unorganized Files node - that should be very helpful!

As long as I'm learning, I've got two quick additional questions for you:

1) How long can a file name or full file path & name be? (I saw where it said it would highlight ones that were too long, but didn't say what that limit was.)

2) In the not-to-distant future, I will be moving my file heirarchy from where it is now (i.e., F:\MediaMonkeyMusic\) to its final destination (E:\Music) once I'm happy with the switch and nuke iTunes. To reduce the stress of that move, what steps should I take to make this happen? Is it as easy as changing the Main Directory and auto-organizing?

[Lowlander]

1) 255 characters. You can use $Left(<Artist>,50> to force limits on how long tags are in the filename to prevent filenames that are too long.

2) Use Auto-Organize or Auto-Organize Files with the new mask pointing to the new drive.

[NWDreamer]

Great, thanks! I think I'm good. I'm still cleaning up small things using the nice new tools (and additional scripts available), but just realized I can move things like backing tracks (that I play guitar over) and non-music (like interviews) into their own collections and then restrict them from the main Music area. This has made things a lot cleaner!

It's been painless enough that I may try to get all of the missing album art (I always used to remove it to save space).

Certainly liking MM so far.

[NWDreamer]

2) Use Auto-Organize or Auto-Organize Files with the new mask pointing to the new drive.

Well, I've got all the files copied over to the new drive and changed the mask, but I can't figure out how to make MM ONLY change the path designation. It puts up an error (I assume for every file) that says it can't find the source file and won't move the file. Needless to say, I don't WANT it to move anything, just to update the file path...

What's the easiest way around this?

I'll keep looking...

[NWDreamer]

Well, I ended up scanning the new location which added all of the files into MM a second time. Fortunately, it was smart enough not to copy the actual files twice! I then had to sort on location and delete the files from the old location from the library. This seems like a very long way around for something that could happen as easily as if someone had all their music on an external and plugged it into a different system which assigns the drive a new letter... I think I'll add an "Update File Location Only" option to the MM WishList.

[Lowlander]

File > Locate Moved/Missing Files does that or: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... w_computer