Play folder with all subfolders: workaround

[Tim-0]

Hi all,

I mostly browse by folders and rarely use the music library.
Often I want to play a folder with all subfolders in it, i.e. all albums of an artist.
The normal way to do this was to put the folder into the dynamic playlist, which meant clearing the DPL before and was quite a lot of work for just wanting to play the contents of a folder.
I noticed, however, that when you play a file in a folder that contains subfolders, and you have your boundary set to "folder", the D2 will continue playing the subfolders when all the files in the folder have been played.
So here is the workaround to playing all the subfolders in a folder: Put an empty music file into the folder and play it. This will cause the D2 to play the empty file, which only takes a few seconds, and then continue to play all the subfolders.

Limitations:

• When you start another track from one of the subfolders by selecting it through the browser rather than pressing "next" or "prev" the boundary will be set to that subfolder.
• The same happens when you change the shuffle mode after you started the empty file.
• I noticed some slowing and a little strange behaviour of the flash skin I'm using (coconut's DarkStage). Nothing serious in my opinion, though.
• The files will show up in the music library.

To make putting all the empty files into the folders easier I wrote a small application:
sfPlay



Features:

• Aut-detect plugged-in D2 (Currently by looking for existing folders "MUSIC", "SYSTEM", "TEXT", "PICTURES" and the file "LICENSE.DRM". Suggestions for a better method are appreciated.)
• Put an empty file into every folder containing any subfolders in the D2's MUSIC directory or any other directory you choose.
• Removing the files again

The "empty" file actually isn't empty but only contains IDv2.3 Tags. The prototype is called ~play.mp3 and has to be located in the same directory the application is in. You can replace it by another file you choose if you happen to find one that works better. Just rename it to ~play.mp3 and replace the original file. In the application you can also change the name the file will get when being copied to the D2.
Unfortunately the application is rather largish because I used Qt to make the user interface. That means I need to deploy QtCore4.dll and QtGui4.dll along with the application. There is one version with source code and one that only contains the files required for running the application. I used NetBeans 6.7.1 and Qt 4.5.3 to create the application. The folder with source code should be usable as a NetBeans project if you want to use it.
If anyone feels like writing a bash script or small console application to perform the same task, we could probably put it here as well, for all people who like it simpler (more minimalistic).

Download:
sfPlay for Windows without source code
sfPlay for Windows with soure code (should be easily buildable in linux)

I must warn you, though: Theoretically every executable you downloaded from someone you cannot trust could do about anything to your system or D2 when you start it. Especially when you start it with admin rights.
The most secure way of dealing with the application is probably checking that the source code doesn't do any bad things and then compiling it yourself. Don't ask me for help with this, though.
A little less secure would be using the application from a user account without admin rights.

I myself tested the application on Windows Vista with a Cowon D2 with firmware 3.57. It didn't do any bad things to my system or D2. However, I give NO WARRANTY WHATSOEVER on the application and anything else contained in the download packages. The use of the application is ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK!
The Program is distributed under the terms of the WTFPL. For more information see http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/.