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Topic: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts? (Read 3285 times) previous topic - next topic
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How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Hi, switched over from Winamp and spent the last 3 days setting up Foobar.
I prefer to create a folder full of shortcuts (.ink's) that either point to album folders or single tracks, and want to navigate this folder without leaving my music player.
But I'm struggling to implement this in Foobar.
How can I get Foobar2000 to show .ink files in library/album list viewer?

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #1 –
It is ".lnk" with ell, but I don't think that is the big issue.

What are you trying to achieve, really? Have foobar2000 "see" what is not the real files, only a different folder structure? If so, have you tried hard links?

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #2 –
What does ell mean?
What do you mean by Hard Links?

When I download new music, I put albums in band folders, and singles in genre folders. Then I create shortcuts to them and place these .inks into my "Recently Downloaded" folder.
I want to see my ink. Shortcuts in foobar, so I can simply right-click the .ink folders and add whole album folder to playlist.
I tried listing the newly added/last modified folders in library viewer/facets/album list, etc. But this showed multiple entries of every track on an album, resulting in congested library and excessive scrolling.

How do I view these shortcuts

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #3 –
Hi there,

Quote from: hmp on
What does ell mean?
The letter L - a shortcut is .LNK as in "link" (not .ink)

Foobar only indexes media files, so what you want is not possible, to my knowledge.

Here is an article on Hard Links (I've never used them so I have no advice there...)

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: hmp on
Quote from: snotlicker on
https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_lnk
Thanks everyone, but I installed foo_lnk, then navigated to my 'new music links' folder using library viewer, but the folder still doesn't appear.
Of coruse, not. From the documentation:
Quote
As of component version 1.3.1, the target must be a file.

Actually, you should forget about still using windows shortcuts (.lnk files), if you are using Windows 10. Symbolic links are a much better alternative for the most use cases. You can find some information about them here

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #7 –
I'm using Windows 7. The 'new music' folder contains .lnk files too. But that new music folder still isn't visible.

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: hmp on
I'm using Windows 7. The 'new music' folder contains .lnk files too. But that new music folder still isn't visible.
Actually, symbolic links are also supported in Windows 7, but there is no native tool to create them. But the the link shell extension, which is mentionend in the linked article should make them easily usable also in Windows 7.

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: fbuser on
Quote from: hmp on
I'm using Windows 7. The 'new music' folder contains .lnk files too. But that new music folder still isn't visible.
Actually, symbolic links are also supported in Windows 7, but there is no native tool to create them. But the the link shell extension, which is mentionend in the linked article should make them easily usable also in Windows 7.
I meant  to say that I  installed foo_lnk, but still cannot see those lnk files.

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: hmp on
I meant  to say that I  installed foo_lnk, but still cannot see those lnk files.
The documentation only mentions playlists, so it only works by drag+drop .lnk files (or folders containing .lnk files) into the playlist. They are not indexed in the library viewer.

By the way, the usual way of showing recently added tracks is by Playback Statistics component. When you first install it, all tracks get the same (current) %added% date, but following that newly added tracks to the monitored library folders have correct dates going forward. Then for example you can make an auto-playlist by Library menu > Playback Statistics > 'Show recently added' > click '...' in search bar and Create Auto-Playlist.

(Probably less work than creating shortcuts all the time)

Cheers

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #11 –
Quote from: anamorphic on
Quote from: hmp on
I meant  to say that I  installed foo_lnk, but still cannot see those lnk files.
The documentation only mentions playlists, so it only works by drag+drop .lnk files (or folders containing .lnk files) into the playlist. They are not indexed in the library viewer.

By the way, the usual way of showing recently added tracks is by Playback Statistics component. When you first install it, all tracks get the same (current) %added% date, but following that newly added tracks to the monitored library folders have correct dates going forward. Then for example you can make an auto-playlist by Library menu > Playback Statistics > 'Show recently added' > click '...' in search bar and Create Auto-Playlist.

(Probably less work than creating shortcuts all the time)

Cheers

That's a shame. I already indexed an actively monitoring library viewer via playback statistics component, sort by  recently added/last modified. But I hate having to scroll through 10-20 entries of files belonging to one album, l just to get to the single tracks. Hence, why I wanted a folder lnk to be indexed so, I could only see one album entry, instead of 20.

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: hmp on
When I download new music, I put albums in band folders, and singles in genre folders. Then I create shortcuts to them and place these .inks into my "Recently Downloaded" folder.
I want to see my ink. Shortcuts in foobar, so I can simply right-click the .ink folders and add whole album folder to playlist.
I tried listing the newly added/last modified folders in library viewer/facets/album list, etc. But this showed multiple entries of every track on an album, resulting in congested library and excessive scrolling.

And the purpose of doing this, is to have a "Recently downloaded" to keep track of what you have ... recently added to your collection, and play from that?

A few solutions:
* In fb2k, search for %last_modified% DURING LAST WEEK or so.
* Use NTFS links instead of .lnk. If Recently Downloaded is the same drive and partition as your music files, then instead of using .lnk, you (1) drag them into fb2k, (2) File operations -> Copy, and then instead of making copies, you create links. Those will be NTFS pointers to the same file, achieving the same except not by .the old .lnk.

There are also ways to make links from Windows. mklink (command-line) or this shell extension that I have not tried.
 

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Quote from: hmp on
When I download new music, I put albums in band folders, and singles in genre folders. Then I create shortcuts to them and place these .inks into my "Recently Downloaded" folder.
I want to see my ink. Shortcuts in foobar, so I can simply right-click the .ink folders and add whole album folder to playlist.
I tried listing the newly added/last modified folders in library viewer/facets/album list, etc. But this showed multiple entries of every track on an album, resulting in congested library and excessive scrolling.

And the purpose of doing this, is to have a "Recently downloaded" to keep track of what you have ... recently added to your collection, and play from that?

A few solutions:
* In fb2k, search for %last_modified% DURING LAST WEEK or so.
* Use NTFS links instead of .lnk. If Recently Downloaded is the same drive and partition as your music files, then instead of using .lnk, you (1) drag them into fb2k, (2) File operations -> Copy, and then instead of making copies, you create links. Those will be NTFS pointers to the same file, achieving the same except not by .the old .lnk.

There are also ways to make links from Windows. mklink (command-line) or this shell extension that I have not tried.


Success! I have now tried the shell extension, and if I 'Drop as' > Symbolic Link, Foobar Library viewer recognizes and allows me to as to playlist!!!!

P.S. I tried Drop As> Hard Link, but that just copied the file /folder to the target directory.
And Hard Link clone creates a copy in the target directory whose existence is intertwined with the original (e.g. if
I delete the hard link clone folder, the original one shows a warning icon, like it's broken).
Are these results normal?

Unsure why I can't achieve this with native Windows 7 shortcut creation/ctrl+click and drag :s

Thanks for finding this shell extension solution for me!!!

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #16 –
Quote from: hmp on
P.S. I tried Drop As> Hard Link, but that just copied the file /folder to the target directory.
Not a copy, just a second name for the same file. There is one file on the hard drive. If you change the file somewhere, you change it the other place [see reservation at the end].

When you as end user see a file in a folder, what you actually see is a hard link to the data chunk on the drive. Your usual "normal" file has only that one single hard link. Making a hard link means that you tell c:\user\myself\hereiswhereIwanttofindthisfile.flac to be another place where that very same data chunk on the drive is accessible to you.

Then that reservation: if you need to retag so much that it would trigger a complete rewrite of the file, foobar2000 does this the safe way: rather than overwriting the file (which in case of power outage will leave it damaged), it will write a completely new file, delete the old, and apply the old file's name to the new one. But the other hard link you made, will still point to the old data chunk.
Making symlinks on the other hand, will say that "I want whatever file that hides behind the M:\music\hereismytargetfile.flac path and filename"

Re: How do I get library viewer/album list to show .ink shortcuts?

Reply #17 –
I'm slightly confused. Isn't Symlink also a second name for the same file?