Relative path names inside m3u playlists : possible ?

[DavidHB]

(22-10-2016 19:18)Andre Gosselin Wrote:  I get your point about the "current directory". I was just confused about what constitutes the current directory in the context of a playlist contents. Now I understand that, with MinimServer, the current directory is the one where the playlist file resides. Sorry for having been a bit slow to understand ...

Yes, that's true, but it's not just true for MinimServer - it's the convention that applies in (I think) all file systems; the 'current' file or directory is the one that currently has focus, and when an application is handling a playlist file, it is the playlist file that has the focus.

Where this gets complicated is that (again, I believe, in all file systems we encounter) each volume has its own current directory. So "E:thisfile.txt" may look like an absolute reference (because it begins with a volume letter), but is actually relative, because it means "the file thisfile.txt in the current directory - whatever that is - of the volume/drive E:".

As most of these path/folder/file designations are - with the major exception of the use of backslashes rather than forward slashes in Windows, for which recent versions of Windows at least have a workaround - common to all the widely used file systems (and as such are respected by different operating systems), relative file paths are portable between OSs. It would be a real pain to have totally different path naming on one's PC and one's NAS.

(22-10-2016 19:18)Andre Gosselin Wrote:  I use playlists to manage compositions-by-artists (works). This explains the large number of playlists I have (> 1,000 for J.S. Bach, same for Telemann, etc). This number does not create problems, as long as the playlists are organized in a multi-level hierarchy, which can be navigated easily with minimserver through the [folder view]. I know that minimserver also serves all the playlists as a "flat" list in its top "Playlist" index, but the length of the list makes it unmanageable and painfully slow to browse.

I must admit that I did not know that the Folder View in MinimServer could be used to handle playlists in the way you describe. It's not a feature I need (indeed, I never use Folder View these days), because I rather think that the effort you have put into constructing your playlists has in my case gone into ensuring that the tagging is complete and consistent. My concern has been to implement MinimServer browsing options that work for me, using tags such as COMPOSITION, GROUP and COMPOSERSORT, with the occasional DISCSUBTITLE thrown in for good measure. This approach provides multiple paths to any given track, which suits the somewhat haphazard way in which I prefer to choose the music I play.

(22-10-2016 19:18)Andre Gosselin Wrote:  The possibility offered by MinimServer to hierarchically organise playlists is of an immense value for me, as this lets me manage and quickly browse a composer catalogue, and create all sorts of meaningful groupings of composers works. In my humble opinion, MinimServer shows here one of its best strengths.

Other servers have a folder view, but those I have tried tend to be a lot slower than MinimServer, and I don't know whether they handle playlists.

David