Launching external applications "dangerous" :-(

[peewee678]

Hi Steven,

If you forget to select a (few) track(s) and launch an external application via a toolbar button it will open as many instances as there are tracks in the selected folder and it's (sub)folder... (I have subfolders enabled in "manage folders"). This can easily result in a few dozen or even a few thousand (!) instances of the app being opened (if it allows multiple instances). Some apps don't allow this and others open a tab for each file (Soundforge) which also results in a crash and other apps *do* permit this (e.g. Total Commander).

If the "wait" option is unchecked it will open them all at once which causes your computer to crash; I've had quite some crashes when I first stumbled upon this problem and didn't realize what caused it. Only if checked you at least have the possibily to close MB (not a real solution) to prevent "endless" closing of opened programs again and again.

I love the external app option via icons in the toolbar (use them regularly) but I think this is really problematic (that's why I didn't post this in the wishlist forum). Could you please think of a solution to prevent this problem? Maybe there's something I'm missing here?

What are your thoughts on this?

[redwing]

For now remove those toolbar buttons and always use Send to> External Tool context menu command, then it won't happen without selecting tracks.
Maybe an option could be added to the setting (or as a default behavior) that wouldn't allow running those commands if no file is selected.

[psychoadept]

Also, if you use "<URLs>" instead of "<URL>" it will send all files to one instance of a program instead of launching multiple instances.

[peewee678]

Thanks Redwing: I hope Steven will look into this. For now I wrote an autohotkey script that opens the context sub menu's and moves my mouse pointer to it after a long right click :-)

Thanks Psychoadept: Your tip works with two of my apps so I can still open those via the toolbar without any risk. Great!

[Steven]

i have changed the behavior so at least one track must be selected ie. MB wont select all tracks if none are selected

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_0/MusicBee3_Patched.zip

fixes for the above. Unzip into the folder MB is installed and run MusicBee.exe

[peewee678]

Thanks Steven. Great!