Map my hierarchical music file structure to MusicBee

[BillM256]

Hello,

I have many hours invested in organizing my music into a multi-layer Win10 file structure. I'd like MB to present that structure. I've tried everything I can think of and still have a flat-file presentation.

Also, to the creators of MB: Nice work! I'm a SW Engineer myself, and recognize the effort and ingenuity that's gone into this program. Again, nice work!

Thanks,

Bill McDonald

[Steven]

In the left Navigator (or add a folder browser panel) there is a computer section that shows the folders/ files similar to windows explorer
Alternatively the library explorer panel also allows a hierarchical structure to be displayed

[BillM256]

My music is stored hierarchically, i.e., nested folders, on my hard-drive. In some cases, the nesting is 4 or 5 deep. When displaying in the MusicBee navigation panel, I'd like exactly the same hierarchical presentation. Despite hours of trying to make this happen, all I have is a flat display of files organized alphabetically by name, which is unhelpful with almost 5000 songs.

Please help!

Bill McDonald

[frankz]

Use the Computer Node for this view, which is the same correct answer you received when you asked this question 24 hours ago.

[BillM256]

Thanks Steven. Not only am I struggling with the program, I'm also having a little trouble with the forum, so please excuse my double-post.

I'll see if I can figure out how to use the info you sent to get the hierarchy I need. I disabled all I could other than Computer and now have a listing of folders but no folder hierarchy. It's late, and I'm tired, so will take a look at Library tomorrow. Will let you know regardless.

Thanks again,

Bill

[Zak]

With pictures...

Edit Preferences > Layout (1)
Make sure Computer is checked.




Then in the left-hand panel you can browse the folders hierarchy:




Also right-click and check/uncheck Manage Folders > Include Files from Sub-Folders to suit your tastes.
If you have a lot of tracks, you may not want to display everything when you click a folder that's high up in the hierarchy.



There are other ways to display folders via the Panels Configuration, by adding a Folder Browser or Library Explorer there, but they give the same result overall.

When displaying in the MusicBee navigation panel, I'd like exactly the same hierarchical presentation. Despite hours of trying to make this happen, all I have is a flat display of files organized alphabetically by name, which is unhelpful with almost 5000 songs.

Note that the Computer node and Folder Browser just serve as a filter for which albums and/or tracks are displayed in the main program window, from where you can select what to play or queue. If you want the folder hierarchy to be the main thing that MusicBee displays, that isn't gonna happen because MusicBee isn't designed that way.

If you're a software engineer with many hours invested in organising their music collection, I'm going to assume you also have all of your files correctly tagged with artist, album and track details. In that case, you'll probably learn to like MusicBee more by letting it present your music based on that metadata, rather than wrestling with it to achieve a preconceived idea of how it should look. Once you get used to how all the different views work, and then get stuck into setting up some custom and virtual tags, there's no looking back. 

[BillM256]

All, Zak in particular,

Thanks for your help!

I managed to get the Nav Panel to display my folder hierarchy. Frankly, I'm not sure how, I just kept trying combinations until something worked.

Unfortunately Zak, I didn't yet have your response, which would have saved me a lot of time. But it's still invaluable as I now have documentation on how to recreate if I need to; I've copied your response to my local drive.

As to meta-tags, no I don't have many. I rely on my naming-hierarchy to do the job, which it does. And I don't want to invest the additional time it would take to multi-tag almost 5000 tracks. Maybe someone has a way to shortcut this process?

Again, success! And thank you all for your assist.

Bill

[psychoadept]

As to meta-tags, no I don't have many. I rely on my naming-hierarchy to do the job, which it does. And I don't want to invest the additional time it would take to multi-tag almost 5000 tracks. Maybe someone has a way to shortcut this process?

If your folder structure contains most of the info you need, then you can use the Infer and Update Tags from Filename feature. Right click on some tracks and it's in the auto-tag by track menu. Definitely try it on an album or two at a time first, but then you should be able to do more once you know it's working.

There's also the auto-tag by album command, which can get info from the MusicBrainz database and I think Discogs if you have that plugin, one album at a time. It helps to have your basic title, artist and album tags as a starting point, although you can sometimes identify tracks based on the sound signature.

I concur with Zak. If you have at least minimal tags (title, artist, album, album artist, year) MusicBee can offer you a lot more flexibility in navigating your library than the folder structure. The column and thumbnail browsers, filters and auto-playlists, AZ jumpbar, etc all rely on tags. The jumpbar can do years if you sort by date rather than album or artist, and so on.

If you go crazy and start tagging multiple artists, for example, then you can do things like select Paul McCartney in the column browser and get all the Beatles tracks, and Wings, and tracks he's done under his own name. And if you've tagged composers you can do a search that will find all of the above plus tracks by other artists that he composed.

Most of us use tags to create the folder hierarchy rather than the other way around, too. As you add new music you can use MusicBee's File Organization features to do the same.

[BillM256]

Thank you PSYCHOADEPT (speaking of tags, a very interesting one),


I greatly appreciate your comprehensive explanation. I'll play with the possibilities and may  become a convert as you and Zak expect.

My best,

Bill