Hi.

Not too sure wether this qualifies as a bug, but here is what I did and how emplode reacted to it. It was less than intuitive, but might be intentional anyways:
On my empeg as well as on my harddiscs, I order the (completely id3v2 tagged) files as
\MP3\\\() .mp3
on my harddisc, respectively as
"artists"---
on my empeg.

Well, as I have some of my albums encoded on my laptop and some on my desktop, I sometimes have some albums of a single artist on the notebook and others on the desktop, obviously. Now when I drag´n´drop a whole artists subtree to the emplode window (emplode and player both have 1.0 software, developer image on the empeg), it creates the appropriate hierarchical playlists. However, when later dropping the same artists (in my case it was Queen) to the same playlist window ("artists"), it creates another playlist for the same artist, leaving two identically named playlists for a single artist. Intuitively, I would expect emplode to either
a) silently at the newly dropped songs to the existing playlist, or
b) ask me what to do.
This would avoid identically named playlists (at least on the same level of the playlist tree) usually.
Should I report this to bugs@empeg? I haven´t done so yet, but I think I will.


cu,
sven

, when later dropping the same artists (...) to the same playlist window, it creates another playlist for the same artist

Well, this is the way emplode is supposed to work, I think.

My understanding of its internal workings is that any MP3 that is added to the player is treated as an additional track. Irrespective if its contents already exists, or the same tag info is inclueded in any other file.

Copies are only created when you tell emplode to copy a track from one playlist into another. Then, the new playlist also gets a link to the MP3 file, just as the old playlist is linked to this file.

Hugo / Rob / Mike / Tony
Can you comment / confirm, please ?

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

Well, the current behaviour is what is coded but I think you're right it should probably traverse existing playlists if they are available. I'll chuck it on the wishlist.

--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)

Hugo / Rob / Mike / Tony Can you comment / confirm, please?

Henno's right- I think this is by design. It assumes that if you're dropping tracks onto Emplode that you really want the new tracks/folders there. Think of it this way: Dragging something onto Emplode from Windows is the equivalent of a "New" command. There's no option in Emplode to automatically detect whether it's the same file/folder/playlist to avoid duplication.

Maybe there should be?

As I understand it, though, what the original complaint was about was basically this: "I had a Queen folder. I dropped it onto Emplode and synched. Then I ripped some more Queen tracks. Then I dropped the Queen folder again. Instead of synching just the changed files, it created a whole new set of Queen files from scratch. I don't want it to work this way, I want to use my hard disk as the master, so I can change only the hard disk, and not have to manage the playlists in the Empeg by hand."

This was discussed in another thread: The idea that you'd want to have the Empeg automatically detect changes made on the PC's hard disk, and synch only the changed files. The PC is the master and the Empeg infers changes based on what it finds on your PC's hard disk.

There's some merit to that idea, but that's a lot of work to implement. And it also breaks the convenient feature of being able to synch on any machine. For instance, I have different sets of MP3s on my work PC and my home PC. The empeg contains a mixture of the two sets. And on both PCs, there are some files I wouldn't want uploaded to the Empeg.

Although I do try to maintain a standardized folder structure across all three locations (work, home, empeg), I prefer the flexibility of being able to manage the Empeg directly without it having any dependencies on a hard disk directory structure. And in practice, this is actually very easy and not a chore at all.

___________
Tony Fabris

Hi Tony.

Well, I think you didn´t really get what my complaint was about:
Ok, this is made up, but similar enough to my real setup.

Let´s say I do have the following playlists on my empeg already (I omit the tracks themself here for clearness, but only the lowest level contains tracks, all other levels only contain playlists):

\artists\Queen\Greatest Hits
              \Made in Heaven
        \Meatloaf\Live at Wembley

Ok, these playlists where created on my desktop system. Now on my notebook, I have the following directory structure (again omitting files/tracks, same restriction as above):

\MP3s\Queen\Greatest Hits II
           \Rocks

When I now drag the Queen directory too the empeg (artists playlist), to add both albums at the same time, I get the following structure, which seems less than intuitive to me:

\artists\Queen\Greatest Hits
              \Made in Heaven
        \Meatloaf\Live at Wembley
        \Queen\Greatest Hits II
              \Rocks

Got the figure? This is different to the "detect changed tracks" issue, as no tracks are actually involved, only playlists. If I wanted to add to tracks with completely the same id3 info, probably even with the same (local) filename, I would still expect the empeg to ask me wether I want to replace the old file, or add the new file (leaving me with two files that are completely indistinguishable (sp?) from the empeg menus).
What I would like to see is that emplode adds newly dropped folders in a way like the windows explorer does it: It does not replace existing folders (even if the dialog box seems to imply this), but adds the dropped files and directories to the already existing ones, only replacing files (after asking wether to do so or not), but not directories. What is more important to me is that it does not even try to create a directory named >a< inside directory >b< if a directory named >a< already exists inside >b< (though this is a result from most filesystems being incapable of handling multiple files with the same name). I respect the current behaviour, which might be the way to do it for some people, but would really like to see either an option to do it explorer-like, or at least ask what to do.


cu,
sven

Well, I am not sure whether this is indeed a bug, but I agree with Sven that, if feature, it is an unhandy one.

Let me just add that emptool behaves differently: say your current playlist is 'Artists' and there already is a sublist 'Vangelis' containing another album list '1492'. Now, you upload a directory 'Vangelis' from your machine containing subdirectory 'Voices'. Upload command will skip it (ignoring 'duplicate' direcroties), unless you specify -p option, in which case the directories (lists) will be merged, and you will end up (as I think one should) with 'Voices' under existing, not duplicete 'Vangelis' playlist. This is behaviour I think Sven wishes, and I agree.

Cheers!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Ah, I see what you're saying.

Of course, the work-around is to just drag the sub-playlist onto emplode instead of the larger parent playlist. But I see what you're saying.

___________
Tony Fabris