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Topic: Search/replace, Renaming directory, Re-pathing playlist, Renaming files,Autofind (Read 1423 times) previous topic - next topic
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Search/replace, Renaming directory, Re-pathing playlist, Renaming files,Autofind

I am going to have to rename, and move, some directories, and I am also going to have to rename some individual audio files.  I have about 20,000 audio files in about 200 playlists, some of which have more than 1000 files in each playlist.  Many of my playlists contain tracks that are located in multiple different playlists. 

I found some info in another thread (here: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,64955.msg579535.html ).  This thread is 10 years old.  Someone was asking if there is an "autofind" feature like there is in iTunes, so that if you rename or move an audio file or if you rename or move a directory, then you try to play the file in iTunes, iTunes says (paraphrased) "cannot play file, would you like to locate it?", then you click yes, then you manually find the file, then iTunes asks "would you like iTunes to use the location of this file to try to find other missing files in the library?", then you click yes, then, if it's a renamed folder or moved folder, in many cases iTunes will successfully find the corresponding moved files. 

So I guess my first question is: is there such an "autofind" feature in Foobar2000?  (In the post 10 years ago, the person was told no, but it's been 10 years, so I figured I might as well ask in case one has been created since then).

If there is *not* such a feature, then I will go to the other option mentioned in the thread I referred to above.  However, the person gave an explanation that did not get me to understand what I need to do.  The person answered: "if you did something simple, like change the driveletter or rename a directory you could save the playlist as m3u and perform a search/replace and open the new playlist in foobar."

How do you perform a "search/replace"?  What exactly does this function do?  Meaning, where does this function search, what does it search for, what gets replaced, and what does it get replaced with?  Is this a foobar function or a Windows function?

2) The second part of this is:

If I rename a single audio file, and this audio file is referenced in multiple different foobar playlists, is there a feature that I can use to manually "locate" this file once, which would then re-path that file's instance in every foobar playlist that references this file?

Thank you for any help.


additional search tags: autofind, auto find, auto-find, autolocate, auto locate, auto-locate, missing files, track, tracks, song, songs, directory, directories, folder, folders, automatically, automatic, rename, re-name, renaming, re-naming, repath, re-path, repathing, re-pathing, renamed, re-named, name, named, naming, labeling, label, labels, labeled, labelled, relabel, relabeling, relabeled, relabelled, re-label, re-labeling, re-labelled, re-labeled, function, plug-in, plugin, feature, features, locating, located, found

Re: Search/replace, Renaming directory, Re-pathing playlist, Renaming files,Autofind

Reply #1 –
Quote
How do you perform a "search/replace"?  What exactly does this function do?  Meaning, where does this function search, what does it search for, what gets replaced, and what does it get replaced with?  Is this a foobar function or a Windows function?
The only thing I can think of is to open the playlist file (m3u) with a text editor (Notepad++ is a very popular one) and then perform
the "search/replace" or "find/substitute" in the text editor, to change the part of the string (i.e. the drive letter or a recurrent piece of path) you want to change,
to reflect the renaming applied. Then save your modified .m3u file with the same name as the original and you are done.

I don't think there is an "autolocate" function inside Foobar or one of its components so you'll get broken links in all the playlists that reference the file.

But I may be wrong.

Thanks.

Re: Search/replace, Renaming directory, Re-pathing playlist, Renaming files,Autofind

Reply #2 –
Quote
foo_playlist_revive makes the dead items in the playlist alive again by replacing them with the matching ones in media library.
A handy util for those who often move or rename their media files/folders.
~ https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,73910.0.html
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  ;~)
 

Re: Search/replace, Renaming directory, Re-pathing playlist, Renaming files,Autofind

Reply #3 –
I probably don't understand the question, but if I run a move/rename on playlist 1 - and I only checked this for the case where the source and target are both in the library - then any affected paths in playlist 2 will also be updated.

I have playlist 2 also open when I do so. 200 playlists are a bit too much.

Suggestion: do a test first time after you have made a backup that can be rolled back next day.