File Organisation: Question about the drive mapping 'on drive' setting

[Anti]

Can anyone explain to me why the File Organiser tool and the Auto Organise settings have the 'on drive' parameter?


For instance:
· If I have new files in C:\Downloads.
· They're loaded into the Now Playing List, and I've just edited the tags.
· Now I right-click them --> Send to library.

If I have a rule defined for C:\ then they'll get moved to D:\Music and renamed. Perfect.

Now imagine the same thing, but the new files are now on F:\Downloaded
When I send them to the library, they'll be added, but they won't be moved or renamed.
Unless I set up an rule for the F drive.

I'd basically like all files to be moved and renamed whenever I 'send to library', no matter what partition or disk they're on.
I don't understand why the 'on drive' parameter even exists, except for maybe as a safety mechanism?

Thanks.

[frankz]

I don't understand why the 'on drive' parameter even exists, except for maybe as a safety mechanism?

Because some of us might not want things to work the same way you want them to work, and having more options for customization is better?

[Anti]

> Because some of us might not want things to work the same way you want them to work


>> Can anyone explain to me why the File Organiser tool and the Auto Organise settings have the 'on drive' parameter?

What I'm saying is that I can't think of the usage case for it. What's it used for? Why does it exist?

Then maybe I can understand why I can't go to any partition and use 'send to library' without setting up the drive first. I've used MB for years, but with only one partition. Now I've got four fixed disk letters, plus a couple of network locations, from which to send files to my library. Then there are drive letters for tablets and flash drives too. I'm just trying to understand how it is supposed to work and whether I'm doing it right.

Thanks.

[Anti]

OK, this thread seems to explain the historical development of the disk mapping.

It's quite a complicated thread to follow, but from what I understand, before v2.4 MusicBee would only organise music if it was on the same partition as the MB database and media library, and it would not move files between different drives/partitions at that point. So the drive mapping was the response to that particular problem.

I still don't quite understand why it was done like this though (ie. having to set a rule for every drive/partition before you can use organisation freely).

I can see why it is handy to be able to have different rules for different partitions as a choice if you want to set that up. But if you only have one central location where all your music ends up, but several locations where new music may land in your system/network, ready to be tagged and moved, then it seems unnecessary to have to add rules for all those locations, rather than have one rule for all locations that says 'wherever a file is right now, when I add it to my database, rename it and move it to the media library'.

Maybe it was a programming/time limitation, safety feature, or because it simply solved the problem at the time. I searched around, and couldn't find many users commenting about it, so I guess it's not important. The main thing is that I understand I'm using MusicBee correctly.

It did nearly catch me out though, as I didn't know that the music I had just 'sent to library' hadn't been organised - all the files that I'd added to the database were still sitting in the download location, and I would've deleted the folders thinking they were now empty. I only noticed they had not been moved or renamed because I absentmindedly opened one of the folders.

Cheers.

[FilmTraveler]

Anti is right. It's not a rare thing for people to stick in some portable media and drag the files into MusicBee, but it's a different drive letter at different times due to being an SD card one day or a thumb drive another day (or due to drive letters changing for any number of reasons). There should be an option to organize ALL music no matter the drive letter (perhaps a checkbox or allow a "*" wildcard character in the drive-letter box). And they could set it up so if this box is checked, you could still add individual mappings as you do now, but they'd be treated as exceptions which supersede the checkbox.