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Bug 383880 - Multiple Libraries
Multiple Libraries
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: banshee
Classification: Other
Component: general
git master
Other All
: Normal enhancement
: 1.x
Assigned To: Banshee Maintainers
Banshee Maintainers
gnome[unmaintained]
: 529006 570786 590821 612699 615224 640648 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2006-12-08 22:35 UTC by Mike McWay
Modified: 2020-03-17 08:17 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Mike McWay 2006-12-08 22:35:45 UTC
Multiple Libraries would allow those like me with a laptop without much storage capacity to switch between a Full Library (on external drive or network drive) to Local Library on the go.

this would alleviate having a useless main library with files from both and playlists for each as the only way to seperate them.
Comment 1 Andrew Conkling 2008-02-05 20:44:06 UTC
Wouldn't it work to import from multiple local folders?
Comment 2 Andrew Conkling 2008-03-11 16:14:39 UTC
Closing this bug report as no further information has been provided. Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can provide the information asked for.
Thanks!
Comment 3 Mike McWay 2008-03-11 23:03:03 UTC
dont think i got an email after the first comment....did put this up over a year ago.

the issue is that the folders aren't both local. I have some music stored on my laptop and the rest (over 60GB) on an external USB drive because of space. this drive is only connected while i'm home.  If both are imported, then when i'm out half of my music will give me an error because its not found.

This would be solved by a database that is aware of external drives being connected or not, then populating the library with the music available.

as of now, i use different media players... just use banshee when my USB drive is connected at home and use rhythmbox when i'm away.

so I guess the enhancement would be that when you import from an external source, banshee should be able to recognize when that source is disconnected and display only the music available or show all music but only play the music available without errors of missing files. (think i would prefer the 1st with an option to show all)

i'll let you judge whether this should be reopened. I may be able to explain myself better if you don't understand. also have some ideas on how i'd like it to operate on the GUI side. not a programmer though myself.
Comment 4 Andrew Conkling 2008-03-11 23:10:38 UTC
I see. Ultimately, it sounds like what you want isn't necessarily a separate database. The same could be solved with a filesystem monitor/watcher (like Rhythmbox's). Either way, it's certainly a valid enhancement.

Sorry for the closing, I was batch-closing NEEDINFO bugs.
Comment 5 Mike McWay 2008-03-13 15:11:11 UTC
filesystem monitor could work, just depends how long it'd take to import 10,000 songs everytime i insert my external drive. seems a little tedious when i connect and disconnect my drive a few times a day.
Comment 6 Gabriel Burt 2008-04-07 06:04:34 UTC
This feature is implemented in trunk, just as part of our USB mass-storage device support.  If you touch .is_audio_player in the mount point of the external drive, Banshee will recognize it, store its files in the database etc, essentially giving you another library, with full searching and smart playlist support.  In the future I hope to have a wizard or dialog to choose disks you want included in this support when they're mounted to avoid users having to touch .is_audio_player.  I'll keep this open until we have something more user-friendly like that.
Comment 7 Mike McWay 2008-04-09 21:41:46 UTC
awesome! how would you propose to handle an external usb with both music AND movies? this complicates things a little
Comment 8 Cory Kaufman 2008-10-25 18:10:50 UTC
@Gabriel Burt: Is it possible to allow Banshee to only scan a certain portion of an external drive, instead of the whole thing?
Comment 9 Gabriel Burt 2008-10-25 18:23:39 UTC
Yes, you can set a music_folder in the .is_audio_player file - see http://wiki.banshee-project.org/Guide/DAPs/MassStorageDevices
Comment 10 Cory Kaufman 2008-10-25 19:12:40 UTC
Great-- that seems to be working.

Will it ever be possible to keep the library/playlist information on the external drive, instead of locally?
Comment 11 Michael Knepher 2008-11-19 01:00:44 UTC
Getting back to the topic of "multiple library" support, this is a feature I would very much like to see in banshee. Here are some notes I've made for my own particular use case:

‣ My wife does not like jazz, with only a (very) few exceptions. I like jazz a lot. 
‣ We have a small collection of children's music, most of which we generally don't want in a standard shuffle. 
‣ I also like to keep my classical music collection separate from the "main" collection (pop, rock, folk, country, etc.). 
‣ I define multiple libraries in the preferences - "Classical", "Jazz", "Children's", and "Main". Each library draws its music from a different source directory. New files added to each are automatically found and added to the appropriate library.
‣ The libraries are displayed under the "Music" section of the left side pane. Currently playing music can be drawn from all of the libraries, only one of the libraries, or from any combination. 
‣ When my wife is home, so I double-click the "Main" library to play music from. I may also want classical pieces to be in the mix as well, so I ctrl-click the "Classical" library to make it active along with "Main".
‣ My wife is in bed, and I am working on the computer alone. I want banshee to draw from all of my music, so I double-click the top-level Music Library. 
‣ Around Christmas we're hosting a party with some friends, so I create a "Holiday" music library. I double-click it in the side pane, and a nice mix of holiday songs plays. When the holidays are over, I remove the library from banshee, but don't have to move any music files around on disk.

∘ Current Working Examples
‣ Rhythmbox is the only program I have used that has some support for multiple libraries. They can be set using a gconf setting. An arrow appears next to the Music Library and the libraries can be viewed by toggling the arrow to open the branch.
‣ Rhythmbox only offers "one or all" selection of the libraries. Possible solutions could be checkboxes (visually unappealing, perhaps) or allowing ctrl+selecting as in the album pane
‣ Rhythmbox avoids excess clutter in the library pane by placing playlists below all of the music sources. Banshee places playlists as a sub-branch of the Music Library source, and adding "sub-" libraries could create a bit of a mess. 
Comment 12 Wouter Bolsterlee (uws) 2008-12-07 16:15:10 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> Getting back to the topic of "multiple library" support, this is a feature I
> would very much like to see in banshee.

I'm using smart playlists for this. This is how I do it:

- All my music is in /storage/Music/
- I keep the files I want as a "separate library" in separate
  directory trees, e.g. classical music in
  /storage/Music/Classical/
- I created a smart playlist with [File location] [starts with] [Classical/]
- Repeat these steps for other "sub-libraries"

Now I can just double click the smart playlist and e.g. shuffle all the Jazz tracks. Note that you can also create smart playlists based on the Genre tag of your music files.
Comment 13 Wouter Bolsterlee (uws) 2008-12-07 16:18:58 UTC
Oh, and I forgot to mention that you can also create smart playlists containing all music from multiple other playlists (if you want combinations), e.g.

  [Smart playlist] [is] [Classical] [or] [Smart playlist] [is] [Jazz]
Comment 14 Kevin 2009-02-05 01:24:09 UTC
I, too, would love to have an option to browse by Genre. Not sort by genre, which, obviously, already exists, but to browse in the same manner as one can Artist and/or Album.

Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an option to view the browse window for each of these three options. I am thinking in the manner of the Listen application. Why? Because I albums are a complete waste to me. And with the number of app's that do not include genre to begin with, I'm assuming genre is a waste to others. Therefore, customize your browse window with only the options you do want. For me, Artist and Genre only.
Comment 15 Kevin 2009-02-05 01:27:04 UTC
Uhm, yea, so this was a comment for a different bug. I do not see a way to delete, so please just disregard. My apologies.
Comment 16 Kevin 2009-02-05 01:31:01 UTC
Now for my relevant comment:

I would love to see multiple library options. I tried to work the key in the configuration editor with no success. I figured it was like Rhythmbox in that I could add it there. The only difference between the keys is the "Type." In Banshee it is String. In Rhythmbox it is List.

As far as why, since Banshee is a MEDIA player and not just a music player, I keep my videos and music seperate. And my audiobooks as well. Which I do not want to combine in one location. Having seperate ones gives me a lot more versatility in my folder organization and control.
Comment 17 Alexander Kojevnikov 2009-03-02 08:07:19 UTC
*** Bug 570786 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 18 Alexander Kojevnikov 2009-03-07 01:40:52 UTC
*** Bug 529006 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 19 Alexander Kojevnikov 2009-08-05 11:39:22 UTC
*** Bug 590821 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 20 Alexander Kojevnikov 2010-03-13 01:33:18 UTC
*** Bug 612699 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 21 Alexander Kojevnikov 2010-04-08 23:33:37 UTC
*** Bug 615224 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 22 Michael Martin-Smucker 2011-01-26 16:45:47 UTC
*** Bug 640648 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 23 johnwheaton2 2011-02-23 15:37:43 UTC
Providing a way to cache the status of a library on removable media would be awesome.  It is incredibly annoying to have 8K+ songs re-cached every time I start banshee.  For me, this makes something like Audacious superior.  I lose some complex functionality, but I can just play my music without waiting 10-20 minutes for banshee to scan the collection.

Storing an XML or JSON file of the previous state of the removable media would be pretty easy... at least, so it seems from my POV.  Rescanning the removable media's collection in a less application-stalling fashion could then update that cached information.

This would be a usability plus.
Comment 24 Thomas 2015-07-10 07:54:58 UTC
I would like to have a possibility to manage multiple librarys for me and my girl friend without having to create another user account on my computer and switch between them, especially it is not totaly functional in Linux Mint because of Cinnamon.
Comment 25 André Klapper 2020-03-17 08:17:39 UTC
Banshee is not under active development anymore and had its last code changes more than three years ago. Its codebase has been archived.

Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping to reflect
reality. Please feel free to reopen this ticket (or rather transfer the project
to GNOME Gitlab, as GNOME Bugzilla is being shut down) if anyone takes the
responsibility for active development again.
See https://gitlab.gnome.org/Infrastructure/Infrastructure/issues/264 for more info.