Bugzilla – Bug 6447
Playlist Path Translation
Last modified: 2009-09-08 09:31:27 UTC
Request that a feature be added to translate paths of playlists. Playlists are easiest to generate in a third party program and upload to a computer for use by Slimserver. However, playlists generated on one computer that may point to Z:\Artist\Album\Song.mp3 may be shared with a computer running Slimserver where that local path may now be D:\Music\Artist\Album\Song.mp3. The current workaround is to open the playlist in a text editor and do a global find/replace which would search for every instance of Z:\ and replace it with D:\Music\. However, each time the playlist is changed this cumbersome process must be repeated to avoid Slimserver seeing invalid paths. The proposed solution is to add a path translation option to Slimserver so that the user could tell the software: {Each time you see "Z:\" in a playlist, substitute with "D:\Music\"} This exact function is currently provided in Xbox Media Center (XBMC) and works very well.
Great idea. I mentioned something similar in bug 6299. It's the only way that you can reliably translate mapped drive letters to either local or UNC paths.
Why not just use UNC paths everywhere? That's what they are for, after all.
(In reply to comment #2) > Why not just use UNC paths everywhere? That's what they are for, after all. > Some software will not scan/import mp3 files from network folder - they require the folder to be mapped to a local drive letter. As such, any playlists outputted by these programs will not work in Slimserver/Squeezecenter without doing the above mentioned path translation.
Got it, thanks. Will look at this post-7.0.
Another example of this feature in action is the mc2slim plugin that provides the ability to play directly from J. River Media Center on one computer to Slimserver on another using pre-defined path translation. http://www.duff-zapp.co.uk/
Additional thoughts: Any solution would also require an option to change the '\' character used on windows based playlist creation software to the '/' character required by Unix/Linux. For example, \\server\media\music\ on remote machine would need to be changed to /media/music/ on server by substitution of path as well as / and \ characters. Also something that is implemented in previously referenced MC2SLIM program.
As John mentioned, MC2Slim does use a find and replace on file names when Slimserver and MC are on different PC's and it works well but I must say that this is the part of MC2Slim that I get the most enquiries about. So if it was to be implemented then some thought will be needed to explain what it's doing. Craig
guys, i can not contribute anything useful except for *urgency*! ;-) i just migrated from windows to a qnap and of course discovered that all my previous paths were now useless. i think to myself: "no problem, lets convert them to linux paths!" so with gusto i find/replace -> works! only to discover that the new linux compatible lists do not work in my windows playlist editors anymore... :-( here are some threads that relate this this as well (i think they are not aware of this enhancement request yet!): http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=348281 http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=49962 (at the end) there are more, i just cant remember them all. PuhLEASE - please pretty please make this happen! :-D
Hi! This would be fantastic - esepically for users in mixed enviroments like myself (Netgear Readynas and Mac, Linux and Windows workstations).
I'd like to suggest support for relative paths in the playlists. There's obviously already a setting to tell SqueezeCenter where the music folder is. I'd like to be able to configure it to make relative paths in playlists relative to the music folder.
I'm with Richard's comment #10, I'd like to see relative paths too, this would be easy to include along with some sort of path translation option. Most modern Linux distributions include a pre-defined set of directories under a user home dir. If you use more than one system with more than one user name, as I do, the path to your Music folder may change but the rest of the path will be the same. For example, /home/user1/Music on system 1 and /home/user2/Music on system2. This is where the relative path option would be really very useful indeed. Also, many open source player (such as Amarok) provide the option to save playlists with relative paths so this option would improve compatibility with other software players too. I can definitely see the value of a path changing option for other platforms too though!
Both support for UNC name and path translator sounds great. I store album playlists in the album directory where my wav files are. These are created by EAC and are useful for players that don't support automatic directory playing. Paths in these files are relative to current directory. Might be troublesome to make them useful for SB without converting and copying them to a common folder? Then again. That would be rather pointless as browsing music directory already give the same or better functionality. But the ability to add directory from music folder to favorite list might be useful for us that can't tag our wav files. Sorry, favorites wasn't what this was all about. But I really like the idea that I soon can move my music disk without having to convert hundreds of hard links.