This may be nuts, but i have a lot of *.m3u play lists that don't seem to work. They don't reference my d drive where the files live. They do reference the folder "my albums" though. Would they work if i added "my albums" to my system variable path, i think it's called, like c:\windows, etc?
The true path is in my "my documents" folder, which i moved to my d: drive.
The actual folder I want to reference is something like "d:\jody's stuff\my music\my albums."
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Yeah.
You generally have a choice of where to save the .m3u files using music players depending on the music player. Some default to My Documents; some don't.
Check the correct path you want.
Open up the file in a good text or word processor and do a global search and replace.
If for example the path shown is My documents then replace it with the correct path.
Save - making sure you are saving as a text document - and retry your music player.
OK, thanks guys. I was just wanting to avoid the editing process as I have probably 300 *.m3u files with the "..\my albums\ray charges\jack.mp3" , for example, path.
But the player is not reading the my albums path I guess.
I wonder if there's a tool that would search and replace text in those m3u files, in the folder, without opening them up and doing it manually 300 times. Is that called a grepping tool?
Yep.
Here's links to some that will do the job.
http://www.thefreecountry.
http://gnuwin32.sourceforg
Can't really comment on any of them as haven't had the need to use them.
Hey thanks again guys,
Yes AmazingTech that's basically the correct path and a script would be GREAT!!
For some reason the files have two dots before the my albums,
like this:
..My Albums\Somefolder\Somefile
THANK YOU
I've been gone for the US holiday, Thanksgiving, sorry to keep you guys waiting, but I'm back.
Jody, excuse my ignorance of mp3 players in general, but perhaps I can make things easy for you in future using stuff I do know about.
The two dots in front of the folder name like this:
..\my albums\ray charges\jack.mp3
means that whatever is reading that path to find out where the .mp3 file is, takes one step back UP the folder ladder to the parent folder and then moves forward (Down) from there to get to it.
So, if this was your original folder structure:
C:\Documents and Settings\Jody\My Music\My Albums\Ray Charles\Jack.mp3
C:\Documents and Settings\Jody\My Music\My Albums\Ray Charles\Jill.mp3
etc
C:\Documents and Settings\Jody\My Music\Playlists
and this is a path from the relevant line in your *.m3u file:
..\My Albums\Ray Charles\Jack.mp3
then it looks like the *.m3u file must have been in the folder "Playlists", or another sub-folder of the "My Music" master folder at that same level as the "Playlists" folder. Look at it again. The two dots tell it to move from "Playlists" back up to "My Music", and then Forward (Down) into the "My Albums" folder from where the rest of the absolute path is then specified.
If that is a "Ray Charles.m3u" playlist currently sitting right in the "Ray Charles" folder, then going back up one folder (ie. to the "My Albums" folder), and then going forward (Down) looking for a sub-folder of "My Albums" also named "My Albums" is not going to find that folder.
You either have to lose the ..\ from the front of each line in the *.m3u files and then make sure that they are right in the MASTER folder of the first folder specified in the path within the *.m3u file, OR convert them all to fully qualified paths and avoid moving folders around.
Are your *.m3u files created automatically as you play them, ie. in the ORDER you play them, or are they just an alphabetic listing of file names in each album folder?
If they are just an alphabetic listing of files, then a simple batch file executed inside each "album" folder will overwrite the existing *.m3u files in a sort order that you specify from a couple of choices.
@echo off
for /f "tokens=1,2,3* delims= " %%i in ('dir /on /b %CD%\*.m3u') do @set M3UName=%%i %%j %%k
dir /on /b /s *.mp3 > %M3UName%
exit
The sort Order can be any of the following:
/on = By file name ascending alphabetic
/o-n = By file name descending alphabetic
/os = By file size, smallest first
/o-s = By file size, largest first
/od = By date, oldest first
/o-d = By date, newest first
/oe = By file extension, ascending alphabetic
/o-e = By file extension, descending alphabetic
Change references from *.mp3 to *.wmv to list a different media file type.
the /b and /s switches used with the DIR command will list the files without any superfluous junk in the report, but will also list all files of the specified type in SUB-Folders. This gives you a fully qualified path to the files in each of the *.m3u files ather than Relative paths.
Instead of moving a batch file around from folder to folder running it, what I used to use was a new custom registry setting that allowed me to Right-Click on any folder and choose a new option named "Make M3U Here". That created (and overwrote an existing) a new "Playlist.m3u" in that folder bearing only the names of the files.
Would this help you better in the long term?
By the way, is it Ray Charles, or some French guy named Ray Charges? ;-)
Hi
I have uploaded a *.reg file, but have had to rename the file extension from .REG to .TXT. Providing you can see the .TXT extension after the file name "Make-M3u-Here" when you have downloaded the file, then that's fine. Just follow the instructions down at the attachment link.
If you don't see the .TXT file extension in Windows Explorer, then use the Tools menu > Folder Options > "View" tab, and untick the box entitled "hide file extensions of known file types". Click "Apply", and you will see the .txt extension to rename to .reg, and you can then reverse the setting to hide the file extensions again.
This creates a new Right-Click setting for folders entitled "Make M3u Here", and will generate a new "Playlist.m3u" file in the folder you right-clicked on. The playlist will be of file names only, so it will only work if left in that folder. It can easily be changed, however, just as the registry menu setting can be easily removed if not needed.
Here's the script for you jodyfaison:
Make changes to
Set M3UFolder=C:\AT\Playlist
Set UpdatedM3UFolder=C:\AT\New
M3UFolder is where your M3U files are now.
UpdatedM3UFolder will create new M3U files so you can check to make sure they work without destroying your original M3U file.
If for some reason My Albums doesn't appear in the file path or it can't verify the location a prompt will ask you whether you want to search "d:\jody's stuff\my music\my albums" this will search for the exact file name. It will prompt you if you want to change to this new location.
You're welcome Jody.
The "script" provided by AmazingTech in the Code Snippet is a standard (albeit pretty clever) "batch file". Windows XP doesn't have real DOS like older Windows versions, but it follows very much the same pattern as DOS. DOS batch files have the .BAT file extension. In Windows XP you can save the text file in Notepad as a .CMD (preferred) or .BAT file. You can name the file anything you want, eg. "M3u_Folder.cmd".
Hint:
When doing a Save As in Notepad, in the Filename field change the *.txt to your new file name and add the .cmd after it, then enclose the full file name in " " before clicking the Save button. That forces it to save as a *.cmd file rather than *.txt.
To run the batch file just double-click on it. You will see the black Command window will open and you will be prompted to type in information. If the window doesn't close when done, just treat it as a standard Windows window and close with the top right "X" button.
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by: dbruntonPosted on 2008-11-26 at 02:12:50ID: 23040791
at the command line or put this into a batch file
path=%path5%;"D:\jody's stuff\my music\my albums"
This may or may not work for your music player. I suspect not.