Quote:
in the first folder i suggested, you could continue to break it down, so like this:
..\audio\music\FLAC\..
and
..\audio\music\mp3\..
it would not be a problem to do that.
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Yeah... then I'd have /mp3/, /flac/, /flac-archive/ and /mp3-dupes/.
I also sometimes would like to be able to traverse the folder hierarchy of course.
Then I'd end up with
/audio/albums/mp3/
/audio/albums/flac/
/audio/flac-archive/
/audio/mp3-dupes/
That'd be annoying, another level to the hierarchy. So I'll just do
/audio/albums/....
/audio/flac-archive/
/audio/mp3-dupes/
For some reason I prefer to keep a distinct collection on disk called "flac-archive" where I'll put the 'backups' of my CDs. Then most of those folders end up in the main /albums/ structure as well. I have a backup of the entire thing on a second external harddisk.
I've always been very fond of Unix softlinking, at least, when it's done in anything of an automated way. If Windows supported softlinking, I would just keep the flac folders in /flac-archive/ and then link to those folders from the /albums/%genre%/ hierarchy like this:
/albums/piano/elijah bossenbroek - harmony in disarray [2004, flac]/ ->
/flac-archive/elijah bossenbroek - harmony in disarray [2004, flac]/
Then on disk it would be a single folder, but it would be accessible from two locations.
In fact, if it were automated, one could also dump all flac albums and all mp3 albums into single folders /flac/ and /mp3/ and then link to those locations from the /albums/%genre%/ hierarchy. It is very powerful, but hard to maintain. A jukeboxing software could create any kind of softlinking hierachy based on tags, in any way it would wish, without moving files - thereby making useful directory structures that could then be harnessed by other software based on the available file structure. You would set up all tags and genres, setup a naming hierarchy/structure, hit a button and presto - a complete beautiful organised directory hierarchy. You would have file hierarchies that would exactly and precisely mirror the metadata of the collection. That would empower users to use
file-based traversing and copying whenever they liked it, in the way that they like it.
Well, I guess we do it the other way around. We organize music into a hierarchy and then obtain tags from that, or just ignore the hierarchy altogether.
If this design existed, I would probably organise all albums into an initial letter hierarchy like /a/autumn's glow, /b/blimey!, with flac and mp3 together, and then use the virtual hierarchy metadata system to split that hierarchy into something that would be useful for Winamp.