Fastest way to add music to the Gallery?

[JohanZ]

Hi Peter,

Today i have copied 16 cd's to the harddisk. What is the fastest way to add the music to the Gallery? I am using two external Harddisks and the Galery is on D:/ (internal Harddisk). I useally changed the path to the Gallary to one of the external Harddisk containing the ripped cd's, but thats a very long way to add music. What is the most simple and fastest way?

Regards, Johan

[PeterSt]

I would say :

1. Go to the Library Area. At the bottom fill in the path to the new albums.
Note that everything you fill in there, will not be shown later at retrieval, thus, g:\wav\JZHolidyAquisitions\ is what you don't want to show (and copy to the Library !)
2. Now press Search, and all the albums in there will show. There can be more than the newly (16) added.
3. Next, browse through the result, and select (ctrl-click etc.) all the albums you want to add to one Library.
4. Then, right-click and and from there put them in the Library you want.

But this is what you knew, I'm sure.
You can replace 2 with pressing the little D button and enter a "rip date". Now you will get only those which were ripped at or after that date. This function works a little awkwardish, but it can fulfill a handy job.


Having said this, I know what you mean. It is kind of clumsy to know what is new, and how to add them fast to the Libraries you want (the new albums don't need to be in the same folder, and they certainly won't go all to the same Galery). But this is exactly what 0.9v-4 will be about. Also think of newly found coverart, and you can imagine that improvements are needed here and there, but also that it is all lot of work (for me I mean) because it is already hard to think of how things can be done best (by us, the users).
This is also about the "Reprocessing" the releasenotes of 0.9-v3 talk about.

Don't hesitate to come forward with ideas, because I can imagine that exactly this part is performed differently by everybody.
Peter

[JohanZ]

Don't hesitate to come forward with ideas, because I can imagine that exactly this part is performed differently by everybody

Introduce a rip function in XXHighEnd.
The user has to define the Source - and Destination (Galary) place, Music style
After an rip the information is copied to the Galary automaticaly.

[PeterSt]

Hmm ... The Destination would not really be a Gallery. It would be the physical place the rip goes to, and from that you can direct it to a Gallery.
This latter seems overdone to me, the first not ...

[PeterSt]

Today i have copied 16 cd's to the harddisk. What is the fastest way to add the music to the Galery?

I finally understood this question, since I took some time to rip again lately (which I hadn't done for years).
Yeah, this didn't work comfortable, or actually there was no provision.
Strangely enough the "let XX Rip" solution slipped through my mind as well, but although you're more integrated then, you'd still need something lik I now created in 0.9w-2. Here's an excerpt from the release notes of that version :

When you just ripped an album (or downloaded it, whatever), it was nothing less than a pain to get it into the appropriate Galleries as well. As you know, the activity is a redunant one, and nothing is worse than redundancy. Although this by itself will stay, a first attempt has been made to soften the pain; from now on, with normal Explorer right in front of you (assuming you just did your best to get the new album right in its physical place) you now can drag the album onto its intended Gallery place in the Embedded Explorer.
Careful please, and learn the abouts of it (hence create a trial place) before you (too late) find things to have worked out wrongly;
The way the folder structure is created in the Gallery is exactly the same as it is done by the means you are used to - if you are, but this is selecting albums in the Library Area -> rightclick -> Add to Gallery which creates a logical structure right from the structure you selected in advance by means of the bottom text box there - and where the folder(s) dragged onto Embedded Explorer are the representative of the context of that text box. Try it out, answer No to the questions to create the Gallery entries, and watch the contents of the text box, now being filled automatically where before you had to fill it more explicitly by means of selecting "a" folder.
Try it out, and you will get the grasp of it.

The way Embedded Explorer behaves is nothing more or less than Vista Explorer behaviour, that being a pain by itself because of opening and therewith moving target folders (when you are not quick enough), and maybe in a next version this can be improved. So, still working on that one.

Individual tracks can be dragged and dropped just the same, and the result is the same as if you were adding a track from within the Playlist Area (rightclick on a track once it has received the full selecetion color -> Add to Gallery).

Important : Currently no provisions are there to prevent you from doing things the wrong way around, meaning that you will be able to drag Gallery files onto real music folders, or dragging real music folders onto other music folders (that resulting in actual Gallery entries within your orginial music folders). So be careful on this, and at least watch yourself.

More important : More than before this incurs for deleting Gallery Entries from Embedded Explorer when you did something wrong, or just want to get rid of Gallery Entries for other reasons. You should NOT do this, because it will destroy the referential integrity (see the x-Reference files), with unknown results on further (Gallery) activities. The solution to this will hopefully be available in due time.

I hope this is a good start off. Ripping will be in there too, just because I think it can be faster *and* better.

[PeterSt]

Only two days ago I discovered a nice way to do this (you may do this for years like this already ) :

Start XXHighEnd. Clear the PLaylist Area.

Start Explorer, or just have/leave that open all the time during ripping.

Go to the folder which contains the tracks of the new album.
From there, drag at least one track onto the Playlist Area of XXHighEnd.
Rightclick on the Coverart at the left. Choose Add to Gallery.

Done.

[JohanZ]

...From there, drag at least one track onto the Playlist Area of XXHighEnd.

Great!
I am using a 8" screen so to drag a file from one location to the other i need the option in the Explorer Window(from XX) to make that window smaller, but there is no option here! When i move the Explorer Window so i can see the playlist, Windows (7) automatically reposition the Explorer Window. So please give me the possibility to change the size of the Explorer Window. It looks like a nice way to add music to the Gallary!

Regards, Johan

[PeterSt]

Hi Johan,

As you may recall, I ever promised "presets" for these kind of things, like clicking a button and all sizes change at your (ever) presets.
Now I must make up to that promise ...

Peter

[JohanZ]

1. Go to the Library Area. At the bottom fill in the path to the new albums.
Note that everything you fill in there, will not be shown later at retrieval, thus, g:\wav\JZHolidyAquisitions\ is what you don't want to show (and copy to the Library !)
2. Now press Search, and all the albums in there will show. There can be more than the newly (16) added.
3. Next, browse through the result, and select (ctrl-click etc.) all the albums you want to add to one Library.
4. Then, right-click and and from there put them in the Library you want.

This is still the method i use to put the records in the Gallary. In version 09z-3 I get a message "XXHighEnd has stopped working" after the message 1 album added to the Gallary. The result no album added to the Gallary. I have noticed that when you changed the path(step 1), this structure will be shown in the left pane. Thats new in 09z-3. I had the impression it was alway the Gallary path. I have the feeling it doesn't work 100%.

[PeterSt]

Hi Johan,

I am sorry, but it doesn't work at all for 0.9z-3. It was somewhere on the forum last week, and I also added it to the Release Notes I think.
Will be solved for 0.9z-4.

Peter