The problem:
You want to be able to search for a playlist fast, and play it in whatever audio software you choose.
You want your Music folder to be changeable (be able to re-organize and re-name the folders) and portable (Portable Hard Drive), without having to update the whole playlists you have.
The easiest way for me was to create a new folder for each Playlist, and to use the FolderName as the PlaylistName, but of course in this way you have lots of doubled files and requires more and more storage.
The real solution I found is to get stuck in one audio program, but I'm trying not to be dependent on one software or another.
How to organize music and manage playlists?
Re: How to organize music and manage playlists?
I'll just babble...
mpv.net incorporates Everything.
(Actually, I'm not really sure how, have never actually used that feature.)
That might help.
Some media players are WAY faster at loading (HUGE) playlists then others.
(Typically, the more "data" you pull in, like tags, the longer it will take.)
mpv.net is rather fast at it.
Everything is great at finding audio: (everything, in general)
.
Everything can easily export to .txt.
Do you need a "playlist" per se?
If you Export from Everything, as .txt, & name the file as .m3u, you then have a "playlist".
So if you search for, Export that (as .txt) to "red & blue songs.m3u", you now have a "playlist" that will play your red & blue songs.
You could set up your own file associations... say .plss for "playlist-Stamimail".
So export from Everything to .plss. That is your "playlist".
Double click the file, Windows asks what do with it, tell it to Open With... mpv.net (or whatever you want)...
You could "create" different extensions/associations to open with different players, or always right-click, Open With....
.plsm to open with mpv.net
.plsx to open in (cough) Windows Media Player
.plsw to open in Winamp (it really whips the llama's ass) ...
You can easily find .plsm or .m3u or ... in Everything.
You can have a playlist of your entire music collection, & play it randomly.
You could use ES (Everything command-line interface) & a batch file to automate creation of playlists & once created, have the playlist, play.
So your files can be anywhere, Everything will find them, & you can group them together as you want, virtually, into a "playlist", that your media player can then play. (Directory structures be damned!)
mpv.net incorporates Everything.
(Actually, I'm not really sure how, have never actually used that feature.)
That might help.
Some media players are WAY faster at loading (HUGE) playlists then others.
(Typically, the more "data" you pull in, like tags, the longer it will take.)
mpv.net is rather fast at it.
Everything is great at finding audio: (everything, in general)
.Everything can easily export to .txt.
Do you need a "playlist" per se?
If you Export from Everything, as .txt, & name the file as .m3u, you then have a "playlist".
So if you search for
audio: <red | blue>You could set up your own file associations... say .plss for "playlist-Stamimail".
So export from Everything to .plss. That is your "playlist".
Double click the file, Windows asks what do with it, tell it to Open With... mpv.net (or whatever you want)...
You could "create" different extensions/associations to open with different players, or always right-click, Open With....
.plsm to open with mpv.net
.plsx to open in (cough) Windows Media Player
.plsw to open in Winamp (it really whips the llama's ass) ...
You can easily find .plsm or .m3u or ... in Everything
.You can have a playlist of your entire music collection, & play it randomly.
You could use ES (Everything command-line interface) & a batch file to automate creation of playlists & once created, have the playlist, play.
So your files can be anywhere, Everything will find them, & you can group them together as you want, virtually, into a "playlist", that your media player can then play. (Directory structures be damned!)
Re: How to organize music and manage playlists?
Assuming your portable hard drive is NTFS formatted, you could use hardlinks.
Hardlinks are a sort of shortcuts to files/folders, but it would be a little more accurate to describe them as an alias.
If you create a hardlink to an mp3, you can move or rename the "original" mp3 to a different folder and the hardlink would now point to this new name and location.
Quick demo (I installed Link Shell Extension to create hardlinks from the context menu)
Note: hardlinks are only valid when on the same disk as the "original".
Hardlinks are a sort of shortcuts to files/folders, but it would be a little more accurate to describe them as an alias.
If you create a hardlink to an mp3, you can move or rename the "original" mp3 to a different folder and the hardlink would now point to this new name and location.
Quick demo (I installed Link Shell Extension to create hardlinks from the context menu)
- hardlink playlist.gif (804.92 KiB) Viewed 15550 times
Note: hardlinks are only valid when on the same disk as the "original".