I think this is probably a metaphor for how almost all software is trending: towards a lowest common denominator, most useful for most people. For those hold-outs that that can do more with tools...
I think this is probably a metaphor for how almost all software is trending: towards a lowest common denominator, most useful for most people. For those hold-outs that that can do more with tools that require investment there will always be options and alternatives. I run plex and keep all my media locally and with an offsite backup. Do I think this is best for most people? Nope. I do it because I like dicking around with computers. For people that want files, there will always be NAS systems and that jazz.
This isn't even unique to software, I bet every activity under the sun has a control / convenience trade-off.
This part confuses me. When you look into your iTunes music library it sorts all your music based on the id3 tags you’ve put to the file. It auto groups them into folders by album artist, then...
But if you look under the hood, at the files themselves, you see a rabbit warren of mess, weird names, and strange folders.
This part confuses me. When you look into your iTunes music library it sorts all your music based on the id3 tags you’ve put to the file. It auto groups them into folders by album artist, then album, then orders by track number if possible and alphabetically otherwise.
It’s possible if you’re downloading from Apple Music it does it differently, but iTunes as an mp3 file system is actually a great example of the right way to do things.
Personally, it's horrible for organizing audio at a folder/file level. iTunes has a catalog file where it does all the "magic" you see within the program. And what you see there does not always...
Personally, it's horrible for organizing audio at a folder/file level. iTunes has a catalog file where it does all the "magic" you see within the program. And what you see there does not always relate to what you see when you browse the folders/files.
Now, this is typical of personally added content vs. that added from Apple's cloud repository. Even if you pre-tag your media. Which really sucks, especially with audiobooks.
I gave up trying to use only my iTunes folders for managing my audio long term. I collect, tag, create folders (genre, author (last,first of course), then series (Ishmael Jones), finally a folder for each book (e.g. Ishmael Jones 01, Ishmael Jones 02) and maybe renaming the files too and all that is done on my NAS. Then I click and drag from there into iTunes.
I just wish iTunes ALWAYS used that info. But I've followed to the same process, used the same software (mp3tag) for years and thousands of files and still found folders named First,Last and completely renamed book titles. Then I have to manually correct that within iTunes, but it doesn't change anything at the folder/file level. And if you lose that catalog file...
I just can't bring myself to switch to Android though. Tried it, supported it, really tried many times to like it, but just hate it.
It won't really help for audiobooks (to my knowledge, at least), but Musicbrainz Picard is the best program ever devised for music catalogers. It's fairly good at figuring what your music is by...
It won't really help for audiobooks (to my knowledge, at least), but Musicbrainz Picard is the best program ever devised for music catalogers. It's fairly good at figuring what your music is by analyzing the actual audio, and you even have the ability to choose the specific release if there are differences.
This is the way all technology goes. The old Tandy computers were fairly simple machines. There were a few things they could do really well, with a small digital footprint. As the physical...
This is the way all technology goes. The old Tandy computers were fairly simple machines. There were a few things they could do really well, with a small digital footprint. As the physical footprint got smaller, the digital one expanded, and expanded to fill up all available disk space.
There's a whole digital minimalism movement waiting to be born. We all find our comfort zone somewhere in the continuum and would like to stay right there. Sometimes I miss MultiMate. But I never miss Lotus 1-2-3. It used to be you could tell a person's age by their hair style. Now you just have to look at the software they miss.
It seems like it became a question of how to manage files in bulk? Often these are media-specific operations, not something easily done in a file manager. And the filesystems themselves provide...
It seems like it became a question of how to manage files in bulk? Often these are media-specific operations, not something easily done in a file manager. And the filesystems themselves provide little organization.
But file formats are still very important for storing data and moving it between different apps, and that seems unlikely to change.
This is frustrating, and the exact reason I wrote koios. I still need to write a nice GUI interface for it, though.
It seems like it became a question of how to manage files in bulk? Often these are media-specific operations, not something easily done in a file manager. And the filesystems themselves provide little organization.
This is frustrating, and the exact reason I wrote koios. I still need to write a nice GUI interface for it, though.
Hmm, it seems like if you store data inside the file (like Exif format in images) then it's less likely to be lost. On the other hand, this can result in privacy leaks too. Would there be a speed...
Hmm, it seems like if you store data inside the file (like Exif format in images) then it's less likely to be lost. On the other hand, this can result in privacy leaks too.
Would there be a speed advantage to automatically copying data from inside the file to extended attributes?
Hmm, it seems like if you store data inside the file (like Exif format in images) then it's less likely to be lost. On the other hand, this can result in privacy leaks too.
Sure it could. Just have a plaintext header or footer with the Metadata. You could modify open source programs to ignore it, or just trust the user to ignore it.
Sure it could. Just have a plaintext header or footer with the Metadata. You could modify open source programs to ignore it, or just trust the user to ignore it.
Ah right, of course, I'll just alter every major programming language to ignore a block of text in their source code files. I don't understand why you don't see immediately how unwieldy and out of...
Ah right, of course, I'll just alter every major programming language to ignore a block of text in their source code files.
I don't understand why you don't see immediately how unwieldy and out of scope of the project that is.
I think this is probably a metaphor for how almost all software is trending: towards a lowest common denominator, most useful for most people. For those hold-outs that that can do more with tools that require investment there will always be options and alternatives. I run plex and keep all my media locally and with an offsite backup. Do I think this is best for most people? Nope. I do it because I like dicking around with computers. For people that want files, there will always be NAS systems and that jazz.
This isn't even unique to software, I bet every activity under the sun has a control / convenience trade-off.
This part confuses me. When you look into your iTunes music library it sorts all your music based on the id3 tags you’ve put to the file. It auto groups them into folders by album artist, then album, then orders by track number if possible and alphabetically otherwise.
It’s possible if you’re downloading from Apple Music it does it differently, but iTunes as an mp3 file system is actually a great example of the right way to do things.
Personally, it's horrible for organizing audio at a folder/file level. iTunes has a catalog file where it does all the "magic" you see within the program. And what you see there does not always relate to what you see when you browse the folders/files.
Now, this is typical of personally added content vs. that added from Apple's cloud repository. Even if you pre-tag your media. Which really sucks, especially with audiobooks.
I gave up trying to use only my iTunes folders for managing my audio long term. I collect, tag, create folders (genre, author (last,first of course), then series (Ishmael Jones), finally a folder for each book (e.g. Ishmael Jones 01, Ishmael Jones 02) and maybe renaming the files too and all that is done on my NAS. Then I click and drag from there into iTunes.
I just wish iTunes ALWAYS used that info. But I've followed to the same process, used the same software (mp3tag) for years and thousands of files and still found folders named First,Last and completely renamed book titles. Then I have to manually correct that within iTunes, but it doesn't change anything at the folder/file level. And if you lose that catalog file...
I just can't bring myself to switch to Android though. Tried it, supported it, really tried many times to like it, but just hate it.
It won't really help for audiobooks (to my knowledge, at least), but Musicbrainz Picard is the best program ever devised for music catalogers. It's fairly good at figuring what your music is by analyzing the actual audio, and you even have the ability to choose the specific release if there are differences.
This is the way all technology goes. The old Tandy computers were fairly simple machines. There were a few things they could do really well, with a small digital footprint. As the physical footprint got smaller, the digital one expanded, and expanded to fill up all available disk space.
There's a whole digital minimalism movement waiting to be born. We all find our comfort zone somewhere in the continuum and would like to stay right there. Sometimes I miss MultiMate. But I never miss Lotus 1-2-3. It used to be you could tell a person's age by their hair style. Now you just have to look at the software they miss.
It seems like it became a question of how to manage files in bulk? Often these are media-specific operations, not something easily done in a file manager. And the filesystems themselves provide little organization.
But file formats are still very important for storing data and moving it between different apps, and that seems unlikely to change.
This is frustrating, and the exact reason I wrote koios. I still need to write a nice GUI interface for it, though.
Hmm, it seems like if you store data inside the file (like Exif format in images) then it's less likely to be lost. On the other hand, this can result in privacy leaks too.
Would there be a speed advantage to automatically copying data from inside the file to extended attributes?
Doesn't work for code or text files
Sure it could. Just have a plaintext header or footer with the Metadata. You could modify open source programs to ignore it, or just trust the user to ignore it.
Ah right, of course, I'll just alter every major programming language to ignore a block of text in their source code files.
I don't understand why you don't see immediately how unwieldy and out of scope of the project that is.