[THREAD] Today, I discovered something new...

[pointfivezero]

This is for people who have discovered something for the first time in a program they've been using for a long time.


Do you have any stories you would like to share?

If so, please post them here!


:popcorn:

[n3tfury]

This is for people who have discovered something for the first time in a program they've been using for a long time.


Do you have any stories you would like to share?

If so, please post them here!


:popcorn:

you're not even going to start? rofl.

[pointfivezero]

you're not even going to start? rofl.

Can I have a do-over thingy? Kidding!

--

If you are anything like me, you started off the day not knowing what or how to deal with a music folder that has had little or no thought with regards directory structure, maybe its a single folder housing hundreds of different songs and now is the time to reorganise things.

Today, I discovered something new in... amarok. and now it would please me to introduce you to one features that I had overlooked for far too long, Media organisation.

Before you begin

Please be forewarned that this requires that the music files you wish to organise be correctly identified with id tags and should at least display the artist and album name meta information.

Step 1. Load an Album as a playlist

eg: "Back to Bedlam" by James Blunt

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/7966/amarokplaylistfilterde1.th.jpg (http://img85.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokplaylistfilterde1.jpg)

Step 2. Select the playlist entries (Ctrl+A)

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3688/amarokplaylistselectallxt5.th.jpg (http://img86.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokplaylistselectallxt5.jpg)

Step 3. Right-click on the selection, goto "Manage Files" - and click "Organise N Files...

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/2514/amarokplaylistcontextmelz8.th.jpg (http://img204.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokplaylistcontextmelz8.jpg)

Step 4. Setup how files should be organised

http://img465.imageshack.us/img465/6/amarokplaylistorganisefcw4.th.jpg (http://img465.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokplaylistorganisefcw4.jpg)

It's really a wonder why I hadn't seen this dialog earlier.

Step 5. Review the 'Destination Preview'

Its probably a good idea to have a quick glance at the destination preview.

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/7209/amarokplaylistorganisefbo1.th.jpg (http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokplaylistorganisefbo1.jpg)

I enabled the details button [this is not required], simply tick the boxes shown that apply. Press Ok when you are certain you want to make the changes.

Step 6. Troubleshooting Errors

amarok will now restructure the selected media according to the rules you set above. should anything go wrong, a small notification popup will appear in the lower left of amaroks mainwindow.

TODO: Briefly mention how this might fail

Step 7. Review newly organised files

Here i browsed to the '/media/hdd1/music/' folder.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/4963/amarokorganisedfilesindgh3.th.jpg (http://img134.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokorganisedfilesindgh3.jpg)

So far so good!

http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/9756/amarokorganisedfilesindge9.th.jpg (http://img463.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokorganisedfilesindge9.jpg)

Final Thoughts

It should now be easy enough to re-organise your music files into a manageable and consistent directory structure. I found it best to process one single entire album at a time, although if the tags are setup correctly there is no reason why you couldn't reorganise your entire library in one hit.

And to think I only discovered this today.

[pointfivezero]

A few more screenshots of the end result

The "Media Library" folder"

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/1310/amarokorganisedfilesindmj4.th.jpg (http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokorganisedfilesindmj4.jpg)

Some albums nicely organised:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/8761/amarokorganisedfilesindof4.th.jpg (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amarokorganisedfilesindof4.jpg)