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+---- Thread: Can You Avoid Folder Splitting with Multiple Sources? (/showthread.php?tid=364191)
Can You Avoid Folder Splitting with Multiple Sources? - WishItWas1984 - 2021-08-27
I'm sure this has been asked before but I can't seem to find the exact question I'm looking to get answered.
Basically, I like having everything in one location. I click "My Movies" and I see all of my rips and can scroll through my whole library.
Problem is, I now need to create a new drive for overflow and I only see the ability to open a singular location on a menu click.
Is there any functionality whereby you can designate different sources to be drawn from to populate a menu? So for example, I click "My Movies" and I still see my whole library because I have Kodi populating the selection from a folder on Drive A *AND* a folder on Drive B.
Thanks
RE: Can You Avoid Folder Splitting with Multiple Sources? - Karellen - 2021-08-27
If I understand correctly, then my answer is:
Library listings are independent of file location. I have media across 9 hard drives, Movies on 4 but when I click my Movie library I see all my movies, regardless of what drive they are on.
Have you scanned/scraped your media into the library?
RE: Can You Avoid Folder Splitting with Multiple Sources? - WishItWas1984 - 2021-08-27
(2021-08-27, 08:11)Karellen Wrote: Have you scanned/scraped your media into the library?
I don't think so? What I did was create a menu button for me and one for my wife. So lets say "His Movies" and "Her Movies". The button actions are to go to each subfolder on a drive.
Then I went into Files, navigated to each subfolder, and set content as "movies" and to use local files (no scraping).
I assume that's different than what you're doing, because I don't see how I incorporate a second "His Movies" physical drive into this without making a new menu button, as the original button action points to a drive location, rather than a figurative overarching movie library.
Wait...I did a little more research, would this work? (Not at home right now)
Can I point menu button "His Movies" to a Smart Playlist called "His Movies", and tgen in tge playlist, setup multiple rules for the multiple drive paths?
RE: Can You Avoid Folder Splitting with Multiple Sources? - black_eagle - 2021-08-27
(2021-08-27, 16:15)WishItWas1984 Wrote: Can I point menu button "His Movies" to a Smart Playlist called "His Movies", and tgen in tge playlist, setup multiple rules for the multiple drive paths?
Yes. If you name your directories "hismovies1", hismovies2", "hermovies1", "hermovies2" etc then you can use a smartplaylist rule of "path contains 'his/her' and split your media into two playlists. You then point your buttons to open those two playlists.
The "path contains" rule will match local and networked media and is OS independent, so will match f.e.
E:\Movies\hismovies1, smb://server/movies/hismovies3 or /mnt/moviedrive/movies/hermovies2/.
RE: Can You Avoid Folder Splitting with Multiple Sources? - WishItWas1984 - 2021-09-02
(2021-08-27, 17:08)black_eagle Wrote:(2021-08-27, 16:15)WishItWas1984 Wrote: Can I point menu button "His Movies" to a Smart Playlist called "His Movies", and tgen in tge playlist, setup multiple rules for the multiple drive paths?
Yes. If you name your directories "hismovies1", hismovies2", "hermovies1", "hermovies2" etc then you can use a smartplaylist rule of "path contains 'his/her' and split your media into two playlists. You then point your buttons to open those two playlists.
The "path contains" rule will match local and networked media and is OS independent, so will match f.e.E:\Movies\hismovies1,smb://server/movies/hismovies3or/mnt/moviedrive/movies/hermovies2/.
I've finally been able to dedicate some free time to getting this to work. I did more digging and what you say will work and I've seen videos of people literally going through a basic Smart Playlist setup with it working, yet nothing I try is succeeding. Here's what I did. Am I missing something obvious?
I have 2 drives with TV subfolders. Instead of giving them a unique word, such as his/her above, I decided to use the "Path" function as that seemed to be the most straight forward. I tested this by attempting to create just 1 Smart Playlist with 1 rule to display 1 drive's set of TV Shows.
First I used Files to browse to this TV show subfolder and used "Set Content" to set it to the "TV Shows" type and to use local information rather than online scraping. This worked just file.
Then I went into Playlists and did the following after clicking to create a Smart Playlist:
1) I set the Type to "TV Shows"
2) I set the rule to "Path", changed "Contains" to "Starts With", then used "Browse" to navigate to the TV show subfolder, then hit OK. My assumption is that when activated, everything show inside the TV show subfolder (all of the show folders themselves) will display at the end.
3) I think hit OK and Kodi prompted me for a name for the playlist. I gave it one.
When I ran the playlist, it was a blank screen. No shows appeared at all. Nothing did.
If I did it again and changed "Starts With" to "Is", so it would literally ONLY show that path....same thing.
I feel like this is the easiest method and it STILL isn't working, and I'm at an utter loss as to why.
I believe I downloaded the correct playlist I created. Here is the code if that helps:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="tvshows">
<name></name>
<match>all</match>
<rule field="path" operator="is">
<value>/media/Saturday Morning_Prime/TV - Saturday Morning/</value>
</rule>
</smartplaylist>
RE: Can You Avoid Folder Splitting with Multiple Sources? - Karellen - 2021-09-02
(2021-09-02, 05:23)WishItWas1984 Wrote: to use local information rather than online scraping.And do you have local nfo files and artwork that Kodi could use to scan into the library?
Smart playlists (wiki) are a library feature and won't work with just files on your hard drive.
See my signature for help setting up the video library.
RE: Can You Avoid Folder Splitting with Multiple Sources? - WishItWas1984 - 2021-09-02
(2021-09-02, 05:30)Karellen Wrote:(2021-09-02, 05:23)WishItWas1984 Wrote: to use local information rather than online scraping.And do you have local nfo files and artwork that Kodi could use to scan into the library?
Smart playlists (wiki) are a library feature and won't work with just files on your hard drive.
See my signature for help setting up the video library.
Looks like I'm pulling those drives back out of the living room tomorrow or this weekend. For TV I do not have NFOs, just artwork. I bet that will work once I use Ember to scan the folders and put in a rudimentary NFO for each of them. If I have issues, I will update again. Thanks, I appreciate the help!