SK renamed files, and then moved them a couple of directories
above the source. It deleted the source driectory.
I didn’t have “move” checked at all.
I had to point it at another folder in order to get the Fix Songs settings to come up so I could confirm that.
The original directory name was Mixing Colors.
Hi in SongKong a file path is split into three parts:
Base Folder i.e C:\Music
Sub Folder , the remaining folders making up the path of your music files
Filename, the last part of the filepath.
You have not got Move Folder set so base folder is left alone ( /Volumes/SUPERTUNES III/__SUPERTUNES 3 ROON) . But you do have Rename files based on metadata set to Yes if matched to a release or song, and you don’t have Rename Filename Part Only checked so the subfolder/filename part is replaced by your rename mask.
If you had re-enabled Rename Filename Part Only then it would only have changed the filename part. You should be able to use Undo Changes to put the files back to where they were previously.
And that’s one reason I almost always have Rename Filename Part Only checked. I don’t like surprise moves; maybe I should be able to understand where SK is going to move things in a situation like this, but I obviously don’t, and there isn’t clear indication of what is going to happen. I haven’t been able to make a filename mask that creates the Artist/Album/DD-TT-Album-Artist-Title structure the I want.
I’m not sure what happened, but I used to use SK all the time with no trouble. Now it’s confusing and I end up with results I don’t like unless I restrict it tightly.
Makes me feel stupid.
Don’t think of if as moving, think of it as renaming all the filepath after the Base Folder, the Base Folder can be seen on the Basic tab before you start the Fix Songs task, and you can modify it if the split between base folder and sub folder is incorrect by using the left/right arrows near the bottom
We cannot give indication of new filename as SongKong can be run on many albums in one go, but you could use Preview Only and look at the results in the report.
Okay I have created a rename mask based on Artist/Album/DD-TT-Album-Artist-Title, but assumed you actually meant AlbumArtist/Album/DD-TT-Album-Artist-Title
ifnotempty2(albumartist,artist,'/')
+ ifnotempty(album,'/')
+ ifnotempty(pad(discno,2),' - ')
+ ifnotempty(pad(trackno,2),' - ')
+ ifnotempty(album,' - ')
+ ifnotempty(artist,' - ')
+ titleThis is what I mean about it being confusing. The file path isn’t part of the file name. It never is. Nobody thinks of it that way. If you use clearer, more standard terminology, you won’t have to answer stupid questions, and people will be less frustrated. It would be so much clearer if you said Path will be AlbumArtist/Album and File Name will be DD-TT-Album-Artist-Title Could it be that you’re translating too literally from the JavaScript—something most people do not use in their day-to-day?
How do you know how everybody thinks ?
In the documentation, I use Base Folder, Sub Folder and Filename that seem pretty clear., I have the option you use labelled as Rename filename part only. I’m really not sure what you are complaining about here, actually I’m lost because earlier you say
I haven’t been able to make a filename mask that creates the Artist/Album/DD-TT-Album-Artist-Title structure the I want.
So here you used Filename mask to refer to subfolder and filename, whereas in SongKong its labelled as Rename mask not Filename mask
Well, obviously, I don’t. But I did do a few years of tech support for the ad and design industries, and I’ve talked to a lot of everyday users, and I’ve never heard anyone use a full path to talk about a filename.
I misstyped.
Would it not be simpler to say “Rename Files Only”?
“Filename part” assumes that people think of filenames as the entire path name. That’s all I was saying.
The fact is the mask replaces the subfolder and filename, and we call that a rename mask, and its pretty obvious that it includes folders since all the rename mask names contain ‘/’ to signify the folders within the path. There are not two separate masks, one for modifying the subfolder part and one for just modifying the filename, are you suggesting there should be two masks because that would be very cumbersome.
I think Filename part is clearer because the part signifies only changing part, wereas using Files it is open to interpretation.
I understand what you are saying, but I respectfully disagree. It doesn’t do anything to the directory structure when it is turned on, so it has no reason to refer to that. It’s confusing if your only goal is to rename the file.
No, I do not think there should be two masks; I think that creating a directory structure is a separate operation from naming a file. It makes no sense to me to do both in one operation. This is a fundamental difference between how I view things and how you view things. I think about song files as 0102-buggles-supersong.flac, not as HD/Jerrys_Stuff/Things_I-Like/Music/Buggles/Best_of_Buggles/0102-buggles-supersong.flac
You see what I’m saying? The path isn’t normally in the mind, the song name, or maybe the file name, is.
Rename Files Only is not at all ambiguous. It’s quite clear and specific. The “Only” makes it so. In my experience, “Only” means “and not anything else”.
Okay this sentence makes no sense to me, surely if you consider them two separate operations you would want the mask for the subfolder to be different to the mask for the filename. Whereas if you want to keep a single mask for both parts it make sense for the rename filename part only because this is a modification to the default behaviour of modify the filename and subfolder part of the path.
I understand that if using Finder/Windows Explorer and you want to rename a file then yes you are just renaming the filename not moving the file
However if you compare SongKong to other Music tagging software you will find that taggers allow you to rename using a rename mask do apply to path not just the filename. And it doesnt make such sense in general to rename the filename part so it matches the identified song but to leave the subfolder part not representing the identified song.
Had another thought, another customer wanted the ability to only modify the sub folder section without modifying the filename - https://jthink.atlassian.net/projects/SONGKONG/issues/SONGKONG-1414
So one possible change I was considering making was modifying the Rename filename part Only checkbox to a drop dropdown called Rename From Mask containing the following:
Rename Filename and SubFolder (Default)
Rename Filename Only
Rename SubFolder Only
Would that resolve your issue or not ?
I don’t have an issue with this bit—I was just talking about how it works.
But I don’t understand how you would like it to work, you said that when you rename you only mean to rename the file part, okay but how do you would you like SongKong to handle the subfolder part ?
I was just testing out the switches to see how they worked. The only goal I had was understanding the program.
okay, so I guess this problem is now resolved.