Clearing up some confusion as a new iTunes immigrant

[Realityfoible]

Hey!
I've been an iTunes and mac user for 20 years (although I've always been a android guy), but now I'm migrating over to a windows machine, and found MusicBee to bring my music library over.   
Pleasantly, I've found MusicBee to be light-years ahead of the windows version of iTunes, but I have a few small questions as I settle in and grok the new platform:

Right from the word go, MusicBee found my iTunes library on the PC, and loaded it in near perfectly.   But, when I look at the file system, I notice that MusicBee has created its own directory in the music folder, and copied none of the songs over to it, leaving them where they are.   
-Am I right in assuming this means MusicBee is agnostic about song file location, as long as that file doesn't move location after it's been entered into its database?  (as opposed to iTunes, which wants every song it interacts with to be inside its own directory, and will make copies of every song opened with it)

-When I deleted a song from the music tab, I was prompted and chose to delete from both the library and the computer.  However, when I popped over to iTunes, it wasn't missing, and was still sitting in its proper directory.   Am I missing something?

-As an experiment, I used MusicBee to open a song that was not a part of the iTunes library I initially imported.  It played fine, and I could manipulate the file as normal, so I put it into a couple of my playlists.   However, when I searched for it in the all music tab, it was nowhere to be found despite being perfectly find-able in its playlist.   Is the music tab an incomplete list?  Does it only pull from specific directories?   

Thanks for any insight you guys can provide as I learn!

-Nick

[frankz]

Right from the word go, MusicBee found my iTunes library on the PC, and loaded it in near perfectly.   But, when I look at the file system, I notice that MusicBee has created its own directory in the music folder, and copied none of the songs over to it, leaving them where they are.   
-Am I right in assuming this means MusicBee is agnostic about song file location, as long as that file doesn't move location after it's been entered into its database?  (as opposed to iTunes, which wants every song it interacts with to be inside its own directory, and will make copies of every song opened with it)

Yes, that is correct.  As long as you don't turn on any auto-organization, MB will deal with your music where it is and leave it alone.

-When I deleted a song from the music tab, I was prompted and chose to delete from both the library and the computer.  However, when I popped over to iTunes, it wasn't missing, and was still sitting in its proper directory.   Am I missing something?

Deleting from the computer normally deletes from the computer.  I don't know why it wouldn't.  Was iTunes just reporting that the file was still there, or did you see the actual file in the actual folder on your drive?

-As an experiment, I used MusicBee to open a song that was not a part of the iTunes library I initially imported.  It played fine, and I could manipulate the file as normal, so I put it into a couple of my playlists.   However, when I searched for it in the all music tab, it was nowhere to be found despite being perfectly find-able in its playlist.   Is the music tab an incomplete list?  Does it only pull from specific directories?

The music tab only shows files that are in your library database.  You can browse files outside your library through the Computer node

[psychoadept]

-As an experiment, I used MusicBee to open a song that was not a part of the iTunes library I initially imported.  It played fine, and I could manipulate the file as normal, so I put it into a couple of my playlists.   However, when I searched for it in the all music tab, it was nowhere to be found despite being perfectly find-able in its playlist.   Is the music tab an incomplete list?  Does it only pull from specific directories?

The music tab only shows files that are in your library database.  You can browse files outside your library through the Computer node

Just adding to this: "opening" a file (such as playing it) doesn't automatically add it to the library, nor does adding it to a playlist. Just as with moving files, MusicBee takes a hands-off approach and will only add files to the library if you explicitly add them. That means either drag & drop, scan folders for new files, or set up a monitored folder to automatically import files in that folder.

[Realityfoible]

Thank you both!  That was fast and clear. 

[sveakul]

Just adding to this: "opening" a file (such as playing it) doesn't automatically add it to the library, nor does adding it to a playlist.

This is absolutely true in the sense that such a file will never appear in the actual MusicBee Library "Music" display.  However, a persistent entry for that file will be made inside the "MusicBeeLibrary.mbl" file, which also holds the data entries for your "real" library and playlists.  What harm does that do?  None that I know of; however, the entries for those files CAN be completely removed by doing an occasional Tools>Advanced->Compress Library, which will remove any entries from MusicBeeLibrary.mbl that do not correspond to a "real" library entry or a playlist.  The number of entries so removed will be shown in the lower left corner of MB after the operation.

Another "fun fact" for new users is that your playlist entries do not necessarily have to be composed of files within your actual "library"; any metadata alterations done to such files however WILL be picked up and adjusted by a general "Rescan All Files", as of course by an individual file rescan.  I have many playlists of stuff I don't want to clutter up my "real" library with because they're too esoteric/tentative (?), but it's good to know that if I work on some of them with an external tagger those changes will be found by MusicBee during a rescan as long as I don't move or rename the actual files.

[hiccup]

the entries for those files CAN be completely removed by doing an occasional File->Tools>Advanced->Compress Library, which will remove any entries from MusicBeeLibrary.mbl that do not correspond to a "real" library entry or a playlist.  The number of entries so removed will be shown in the lower left corner of MB after the operation.

Very good info.
(minor observation: I think it should say "Tools>Advanced->Compress Library". It's not a child of 'File')

I just ran it for the first time in ages:
"54.413 files removed"

Damn, what happened? Back to school for me...

[sveakul]

Menu path corrected hiccup, thanks!  Hey glad I brought something up that actually helped a maestro;  me, I'm too embarassed to list the stuff I've forgotten was there!!

[hiccup]

Hey glad I brought something up that actually helped a maestro

Even after all these years, you would be surprised how ignorant I probably am about several aspects of MusicBee.
It's really great that the hive keeps things healthy, helpful, and keeps going forward.