XXHighEnd

G'day Peter,

I may have missed discussion about this on the forum, but I can't find a way to have my library folder art displayed other than in alphabetical order. I was hoping to be able to have it shown sorted by date creation order so I could more easily identify new albums I have added recently to my data folders. This would make it much easier to append these new albums to the galleries.

Is that possible currently or a feature you could incorporate?

Thanks,

Russ

Hi there Down Under,

If you look at the first picture below, the mouse pointer points to this little "D". Clicking that brings up the Date Picker.
I selected from Nov. 1 2007 u/i Jan 31 2008;
The second picture shows (a part of) what I ripped in that period. You can see the exact dates and times doing that.
FLACing doesn't change those "rip dates".

So, it is not sorting on that date, but you can select on the period anyway.
I now realize that I could sort on the date/time just the same, but I'm not sure whether that would be a better thing to do, *assuming* you know the period to select. But if you don't (know it exactly) ... hmm ... I guess I'll provide the option to sort on the date/time. Seems nice. :teasing:
Peter

Doh! Thanks for the reminder about that little button Peter. It's a valuable function I had forgotten about.

I have noticed though that you appear to be using the 'data modified' attribute of the first audio data track within a folder upon which to base your search/sort criteria. Would it not be more appropriate to use the 'date created' attribute of the actual folder itself containing the audio tracks?

If you copy folders across systems the 'date modified' attribute won't necessarily be changed to reflect current date and may be many months older than the actual creation date of the new files. Searching under these conditions may result in albums NOT being displayed after the Date Picker has done its job.

Thoughts ??

In principle though, the Date Picker will do what I am seeking

  :thankyou: Peter,

Russ

edited 19th ( see bold NOT added )

Well Russ, do not hesitate to blame me for having sleep in my eyes, but in your latest post I seem to read everything the exact other way around of what you seemed to want per the first post, while the latter seems logic to me (hence your last post not at all) ?

It is about date *creation*, right ? (btw, it just is, and obviously (??) not date modified).
Moving files around to other folders, which may include a renewed creation of the folder the music data is in, just will not help you (the opposite).


Maybe here is your misunderstanding (yep, yours haha) ? First of all, this seems to be a contradiction within itself, and secondly when I rip an album at Sep 19 2008, copying it around won't change that. You seem to imply that you would *want* to change that, which is the most illogical to me. You would want to keep it, ... which it does. No matter where you copy it to.

Most probably you are confused by looking at the DateTimes the system shows (in e.g. Explorer), which btw Vista does a little bit differently from XP. But you should not look at that, and look at the DateTimes XX shows you, instead. They are just the originals ... and as said, even if you FLACed the files in between (or deFLACed for that matter).

Now shoot me ... :) I'm awake now.


The sorting is half in by now. I suppose you just *will* get that. :grazy:

hehe ... can I blame you then for my lack of sleep due to extended nightly listening sessions on a system which hasn't hiccupped since 0.9v-6a was released :)


Perhaps if I outline the scenario I wish to achieve it may be easier to understand where I am coming from.

I normally do my ripping of new albums on my study PC. These new rips may reside there for a few days or even weeks until I have built up enough new albums to fit onto a blank DVD for secondary archival purposes in case my primary harddrive archiving goes belly up. During the time I am accumulating my new music, I access ( over my LAN ) and play that new music from my HTPC in the theatre. The HTPC contains all my music spread across several drives, EXCLUDING MY LATEST STUFF.

After I have filled up a DVD's worth of new music I then copy all that chuck of music to the HTPC drives into the appropriate main folders. It is after this copy process that I then need to identify the data I have just created, and thus create gallery entries for them.

Early this morning I tried using the Date Picker on my laptop to test its functionality and noticed the conditions I mentioned above in the previous post, namely that XXHE appears to be using the 'date modified' attribute of the files upon which to base its selection. I found this out by comparing the date and time displayed within XX's library listing description to the attributes of the files when viewed via Explorer.

Yesterday ( 18th ), I copied over a chuck of new music to the HTPC and tried setting the Date Picker to the range 18th to 19th and nothing showed up. I extended the range to 17th to 19th and a few showed up, and interestingly enough, not all the CD's from a particular boxset. I went back to the 16th - 19th and a few more showed up. Well, you get the idea.

I can only conclude from this that it isn't doing what I expected. I still think using the 'date created' attribute would work.

Are you able to test this procedure on your system Peter just to assure me I'm not going  :grazy: :grazy: in my old age!

Many thanks for your perseverence.

Cheers,

Russ

Hehe, we must have a misunderstanding, and I can't find where it is just now. But I will :


This works exactly how I expect it to do, including how I intended it to work. One thing : this is because the date creation **is** used. Keep in mind though, that this is about the date creation of the original. Thus, might you send such an album to me, even then the (your !) date creation is pertained. Mind you, the date creation as how XX digs it up, which just *is* the official date creation; hence, what Vista shows you, just is not, no matter you just "created that file on the network". You did not. You COPIED it (and of course, yes, you created it somewhere else, but this is not how it works following official rules -> look in the Windows folder ... there are no dates there *you* copied those files into that folder; these are original Bill Gate creation dates :swoon:).

So, out of all context (of your last post), and regarding above quote only, this happens because you started to rip that box set at the 16th (earlier in fact), and finished it at the 17th. So the date creation spreads over several days (and this by itself is caused by your slow ripping speed or the too large box set hahaha).

Can you tell me what is wrong with this idea of the (intended) working ? (and I mean, only to dig up the misunderstanding, and not (so far ;)) to be right on something !)

ah ha! I think this is where things become unstuck .. well .. from my perspective anyway .. LOL.

In the screen capture below there are Explorer views of the files as they exist on my study PC ( lower section ) and the equivalent as they exist on my HTPC. Note the 'date created' column differences. Now, I would have expected that if you put in a Date Picker range of 18th - 19th they would have been picked up, but they don't, you need to extend that range to the 11th to get them, and that's my issue.

Is this any more helpful?

Cheers,

Russ

Yes, I think I understand now what you want (and why you need it).
I was about to make a general sort routine anyway, and this is just another base for the sorting.

Btw Russ, if I see it correctly, you changed the name of that x-Reference file ? This will destroy the (upcoming) features around that ...

Never mind. I saw it wrongly ! :)

Wonderful. It's great when I'm on the same page as the programmer. Makes it so much easier to get my ideas across :)


Well this hasn't been intentional on my part. Ever since I saw them they have had lots of parenthesis's (sp? ) in the name and I assumed that was by your design.

What I have been doing up till now ( and will continue until the new version comes out with the amended sort routines ) is to rebuild my galleries from scratch each time I have added a fresh batch of albums. My galleries are pretty simple affairs, basically reflecting the folder names they reside in. I haven't got around to the time consuming chore of creating additional galleries based upon genre's etc, but may do so in the future. Although I do like your idea of having a gallery called 'nice music'. I might end up having a lot of stuff in that one .. hehe. As a precursor to rebuilding the galleries I simply deleted all references to those x-reference files before doing the rebuild. Oh, and the existing gallery data itself of course.

Ha ha .. I can just see you shaking your head now thinking "users ... they always find a way!" :rofl:

It doesn't take all that long to do and turned out to be easier that trying to individually find the latest additions from my increasing list of albums.

Perhaps I need to read 'creating galleries 101' to see how it should be done more effectively.

Cheers,

Russ  :sleeping: :sleeping: :sleeping:

Oh, we just crossed posts. Sorry for taking your time !

Not a problem. I got a message indicating there was a new message just prior to my last entry but I transmitted anyway as I wanted to illustrate how I do things currently, in case there is a better method. I suspect I will change procedures for gallery creation and updates when a newer version arrives.

Cheers,

Russ

And a confession for your morning cup of tea : I am using the "Last Modified" Date/Time. *Not* the "File Creation" time. :fool:

The latter I will add for you now ...

ah yes .. that would explain it all, and good morning, I notice you are up early!

While you have your coding hat on, may I suggest a couple of functionality additions?

-  make the appendage of (WAV), (FLAC), (MP3) in the library listing a 'tickable' option in the settings panel. I find that the text colour coding for the file types sufficient to identify each type, and that the suffix of file types simply adds to the 'clutter' on that panel. When using the "TestUnder" display ( which I normally use ), I had also thought of asking for the artist to be identified ABOVE the folder art and the title BELOW, but not sure how easy that would be to achieve. I'm thinking it might help with the word wrapping that occurs now with albums that are quite lengthy in total. Please consider.

- keep a history ( perhaps the last 10 entries ) , of the paths shown in the entry just to the right of the Date Picker button. These previous paths could be selected via a little down arrow. As I have music spread over several systems this would be a handy feature to have, as i could simply use the mouse on most occassions rather than typing each time a change of path is desired.

Thanks again :)

Russ

I'm afraid this is too much woven in the code while at the same time it has its purpose for that code ("is this a FLAC album ? then do such and so"). I think this will stay ...


Now I see this working here (:yes:) it is actually quite convenient. You'll see ... :)
Thanks for the idea !

Peter

Not a problem Peter. If It's not easy to do without having to re-invent the wheel I understand.


bewdy .. this one I had been thinking about for a while to ask for.

Thanks again Peter for your willingness to listen to all our ideas and suggestions.

Cheers,

Russ

Thank you for the addition of the "Favourites" library paths in 0.9v-7 Peter ... much appreciated.

The amendments to the "date picker" code in 0.9v-7 have also allowed me to identify new albums in a way I wanted .. great job there. Just one small quirk with the "data picker" though ... if I want to select ONE specific day, say the 20th September, I can't have the 'from' date and 'to' date set the same. There currently needs to be at least one day difference between the two date ranges. In the example above, if both dates are set to 20th Sep, then no results are forthcoming. If I try again from 20th Sep TO 21st Sep, then I get the results for the 20th as I wanted. ( It might also pick up results for the 21st also, but as I don't have any for that date I have no way of telling at the moment). If it is possible to amend your code so that both dates on the picker could be the same, it might help someone in the future from falling into the same trap as I did, and not being able to get the results expected.

Thanks again   :thankyou:

Russ

Hi Russ,

I tried September 24 u/i September 24 ... no luck.
25 u/i 25 ... no luck.
24 u/i 25, but 24 and 25 appear.

Aint that smart ? :swoon:

Thanks for pointing this out. One could go crazy of it.
Peter