Playlists, hidden folders, radio stations

[klaymen]

Hi all,

Since yesterday I'm also a proud owner of an iAudio 7 (the 4GB model in red-black). I got it as a free (!) replacement for my G3 that I bought an year ago and was defective - quite a good service by the dealer I must say, after all the G3 had only 2GB of flash memory [yes]

Anyway, the only thing I'm missing (also on the G3) are playlists in the form of m3u files or similar. They don't seem to be implemented. I know about the dynamic playlist, but I'd like more than one playlist.

On the PC I also tried to create shortcuts (symbolic links) to music clips instead, in order to simulate playlists using directories without full copies of the clips themselves. But shortcuts are ignored by the iAudio 7...

My final idea was to copy the dynamic playlist folder on the PC to another folder in the hope that I could clone the dynamic playlist to a "static" playlist and then navigate into it. But nada, the DPL folder is hidden on the PC and can't be copied.

But maybe there's some other workaround for it (except for folders, I know about random shuffle)? Some way to create another DPL-like folder in the root for example?

Also I'm wondering if there's really no way to copy hidden folders (DPL, bookmarks, radio stations, etc)? This would be useful for backup purposes and manual editing, eg of radio stations. I'd really like to edit radio stations on my PC (I'm not sure, but I think I didn't find this feature in JetShell, it was there for the G3 though) and copy the settings onto my PC. When I'm traveling, I'll probably change the radio stations and would like to be able to easily restore my original settings when back at home. No problem on the G3, as radio stations were stored in a file that was accessible by PC - but on the iAudio 7, this file seems to be hidden... [mad]

Thanks for any hints, klaymen

[b0ng0]

I'm not too sure about creating playlists to be honest. Maybe if you created one on the fly in the player and viewed the file in a text editor afterwards to see what the format was.

[klaymen]

I'm not too sure about creating playlists to be honest. Maybe if you created one on the fly in the player and viewed the file in a text editor afterwards to see what the format was.No, as said, this folder is not visible when connected to the PC.

One thing I noticed though is when the navigator is in music mode (as opposed to file mode), the normal DPL appears under "Favorites"; but in addition to this, there's a "Playlist" entry that's all empty, so I thought this might be used somehow? Maybe it's possible to add ID3 tags to mp3 files in a way that iAudio sorts them into different playlists, like special structures in "comments"? Any ideas anybody?

Well, of course, one workaround would be to abuse the "Year" tag as playlist tag and then use the sorting-by-year in music mode for accessing the pseudo-filelists. I don't need the year-information anyway.

[GSV3MiaC]

If you want to experiment you could try the D2 workaround for playlists which involve putting the device into MTP mode and using WMP to send playlists down (if I remember right).

Nowhere in the I6/I7 documents do playlists get a mention, so I am not optimistic, but feel free to explore.

[klaymen]

If you want to experiment you could try the D2 workaround for playlists which involve putting the device into MTP mode and using WMP to send playlists down (if I remember right).Hmm thanks, I never used MTP before and have no idea how to use it. When I change to MTP and attach teh iAudio (note that I upgraded to WMP 11), the device is found, but when I open it with the explorer, I only see an empty "RECORDS" folder in its internal storage, but none of the files I put to the iAudio before (using UMS). WMP tells me something about syncing beforehand, but I found no was to sync anything *from* the device, only *onto* it - and I see none of the files either. Is this normal behaviour? Can I only see files I put onto the iAudio using MTP and everything on it beforehand remains invisible, maybe it does require reformatting the device - which I don't want to do because I'd probably loose the radio stations I configured manually..? That sounds quite stupid... either there's some kind of bug, or this MTP is extremely intransparent.

[jancortenbach]

I believe the folder is not just 'hidden', it's entirely virtual. There probably is a system file somewhere with a list of the files in the DPL, and the player then creates a virtual folder.

[coya]

I am quite confused (and a new owner) of a 16gb, FM1.15.

What is the best approach to at least navigate to the right thread or a least someone throw me a help line to understand where are the FOLDERS that I sent from my PC to the iAUDIO7? I know they are there because I can see them when switching between "File" and "Music" mode in the iAUDIO 7.

I am simply wanting to achieve an organized music library in with Folder alphabetical use, not File alphabetical use.

I am reading many different threads about UMS, MTP settings,, ID3 tagging, etc., that are adding to further confusion.

How has got it right?

Again, just looking for a pointer for to get my music folders that I am sending over from my PC to the iAUDIO 7 in an organized fashion.

What is the approach to do this correctly?

Anyone please... thank you,
Coya

[GSV3MiaC]

1) you can only see/use folders if the I7 is in file/folder view. In music library view they are ignored, pretty much.

2) They show up on the I7 only in alphabetical order, so get them organised that way to start with. I find it most helpful to organize by /genre/album artist/album (all under /music) but you might want different.

Tracks also play in alpha order even within a folder, so you want you tracks names with the track number first, eg 01 track1, 02 track2, 03 track3, etc. (Unless you don't care about the oder they play in).

Put the device into UMS transfer mode and file/folder view and everything works fine.

[coya]

GSV3MiaC, thank you for your help. I was not figuring out how to get to the sub-folders within the iAUDIO 7. Once I figured it out, I renamed my albums using JetShell, and renamed individual tracks starting with numbers for file organisation.
I am just using JetShell now to simplify the process, and have the iAUDIO 7 set to UMS with file/folder view.

Cheers..
audioL

[GSV3MiaC]

I wouldn't know how to do it from Jetshell myself, since I use Mediamonkey, which works much better (albeit only for music files) when you are playing with 10 or 15 thousand tracks. You can resynch them all to the device with a completely new structure with a couple of commands (OK, and a 2 hour wait for the transfers to happen).