Playlist Field For Sync

[MattTown]

Hi,

I want to put several related playlists onto a USB stick and want the on-disc folder organisation to be /Music/<Playlist>/all playlist files in a flat folder.

I know my way around the file masks to achieve the flat folder under Playlist but can't find a Playlist option in the file masks, so I can't easily do what I want. I don't think that I've missed it because I've been through all of the CONFIGURE options twice.

I have adopted the kludge of devoting a custom field to "Copy of Playlist" and setting that to the playlist value for all of the files in the playlist, and then using that custom field as the folder name.

Is there a reason why Playlist is not available to the the sync file mask when other database attributes such as Played# are?

Cheers
Matt

[Lowlander]

<Playlist> is the Mask.

[Ludek]

Are you saying that if you add some playlists on sync-list :
https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index. ... 3E_Device)

and change mask to something like
/Music/<Playlist>/<artist> - <title>

in File Locations here: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index. ... _Locations

that the files are not synced to the individual folders named according to playlists ?

[MattTown]

<Playlist> is the Mask.

Thanks, glad to know it exists.

With that understood, my problem was caused by the <Playlist> mask field not being present anywhere in the function path Devices & Services > MyUSBdrive > Sync Profile > File Locations > Music > CONFIGURE. With "Playlist" not being present in the CONFIGURE options - and without looking at the help page - I concluded that <Playlist> had not been implemented.

Can I suggest that the UI be updated to add the Playlist field to the Properties category available under CONFIGURE, where Track Folder is already present as a field.

Cheers
Matt

[MattTown]

Are you saying that if you add some playlists on sync-list :
and change mask to something like
/Music/<Playlist>/<artist> - <title>
in File Locations here: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index. ... _Locations
that the files are not synced to the individual folders named according to playlists ?

Yes I did select the wanted playlists on the Sync List (Library -> Device) and yes I did change the mask to a similar patten in Sync Profile and yes - after the custom field kludge described above - I got the result I wanted. I don't doubt that if I simply use the <Playlist> field as described then I will also get the desired result.

My problem was solely that I did not know that the <Playlist> field was available because it was not listed on screen under the CONFIGURE options as described to Lowlander above, and I had assumed that the CONFIGURE list was definitive.

Having been led to the help text, I'd like to point out that "<Folder>" in the help text is represented as "Track Folder" in the CONFIGURE pane. Would it be sensible to use the same terminology in both places? Also, if the help text is the definitive source, meaning that anything listed on the help page can be used even if it is not listed in the CONFIGURE options, then it would be worth putting a link to the web page in the Configure dialog box.

Cheers

Matt

[Rob_S]

How would it deal with tracks which might be attached to several Playlist?

Would you get multiple copes synced

[MattTown]

How would it deal with tracks which might be attached to several Playlist?
Would you get multiple copes synced

Rob

In my case I configured the sync to take files from specific playlists (the Playlists option at the bottom of the Choose which files to list panel under the Sync list (Library -> Device) tab), and a subsequent sync with use of the <Playlist> mask as suggested above created only those folders, as expected.

If a sync using the <Playlist> mask for Folder was initiated from say Main Music with a set of files which just happened to be members of more than one playlist then yes, I would expect that you would get one folder for each of the entrained playlists and each of those folders would have a copy of the associated tracks. And so you would get duplicates across the entire sync, but not within a playlist folder. If the use of playlists is not particularly disciplined then there could be all sorts of duplication, but that is an organisational issue, not a functional one.

I am using this process so that groups of files can be organised in folders recognised by a separate Windows PC not running MM, so the physical organisation of the file system written by the sync process is what matters to me here, and I get the result I want by initiating the sync from a Playlist focus in the first place. If I did get stray playlist folders then I would simply delete them in the downstream Windows environment.

And, just to be clear, the <Playlist> mask already exists - my suggestion is that the omission of <Playlist> from the CONFIGURE panel options be rectified.

But it does prompt the question - what to do with playlists that have child playlists, or a combination of tracks and child playlists. I haven't tried this (I don't have many hierarchical playlists) but I hope that the synced file and folder structure would echo that of the playlist structure:

• any files in the parent playlist are located in the root playlist folder,

• any sub-playlists immediately under the parent create a sub-folder under the parent folder with the sub-playlist files in that sub-folder, and

• repeat recursively to the bottom of the playlist structure.

Cheers

Matt