Windows shortcuts in file browser

[Pandamasque]

My music collection is alphabetised. So, say 2 artists made a collaboration album. Instead of duplicating the entire album in both artists' folders I store the files only under Artist A and then just add shortcuts to each relevant album to the folder of Artist B. Same is useful to keep track of various side projects of prolific artists.

Makes sense?

The trouble is MediaMonkey won't display those shortcuts in its browser.



Is there a setting to change that? If not, there should be.

[Peke]

Hi,
Shortcuts are not folders and that is why they are not listed You should use Music -> Artist node to show all, instead of shortcuts you should use something like http://www.pearlmagik.com/winbolic/ , but be aware that if you scanned both Sym Link and source folder it will end up with duplicates in MM and if you delete one (physically from HDD) the other one will be Grayed (non accessible as it was deleted).

READ WARNING BELOW!!!

FROM Winbolic App HELP:

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What are Links?

Links essentially allow access of one copy of data from several locations on your computer. When a link is created, that link
looks as though it contains the contents of the original file or directory, but it is really just a “pointer” to that content.

If you open up Windows Explorer (with the folder tree on the left), you may see that the “My Documents” folder is a subfolder
of “Desktop.” This is actually a link to the real location of your documents folder which, depending on your version of
Windows, may be in a location such as C:\Documents and Settings\<Your login name>\My Documents.

Example: Use of links for convenience
Suppose you have a folder named “My Downloads” in C:\Program Files\Downloader (so the full path is C:\Program Files\File
Downloader\My Downloads). Since it can be cumbersome browsing to this folder, you may want create a link named “My
Downloads” in C:\. Now, when you browse to C:\My Downloads, you will see the contents of C:\Program Files\Downloader\My
Downloads. The new folder isn’t a copy of original; any changes you make in the new folder (create, modify, or delete files) will
happen in the original folder.

Example: Use of links because a drive is full
Your main hard drive (C:) is nearly full, and while your secondary hard drive (D:) has plenty space you have something that 
absolutely needs to be on C. There are no files that you can move to D without breaking something, especially programs. But 
with a Junction, a special kind of link, you can move programs to D and have windows think that it’s still on C. Start by creating 
a new folder named “Program Files” in D:\. Move your C:\Program Files\OldProgram to D:\Program Files\, then create a 
junction called “OldProgram” in C:\Program Files that points to “D:\Program Files\OldProgram”. Now, that program actually 
resides on the D drive but it still looks as though it’s still in its original location.

What are the differences between Windows’ shortcuts and links?

Folder shortcuts and links are both convenient ways to access folders which may be cumbersome to browse to manually. 
Since Windows only supports “links” for folders, they are compared only to folder “shortcuts”, not to file or program shortcuts 
(shortcuts that open files or start programs).

A folder shortcut is a special file that contains the full path of a folder, for example C:\Program Files\File Downloader\My 
Downloads. When you run (e.g. by double-clicking) this shortcut, you are taken to that folder. If you look at the address bar of 
your file browser, you will see that you are in C:\Program Files\File Downloader\My Downloads.

A link, on the other hand, is a folder which is an alias for another folder. If you have a link named “My Downloads” in C:\ to 
C:\Program Files\File Downloader\My Downloads, the address bar will say C:\My Downloads but show the contents of 
C:\Program Files\File Downloader\My Downloads. 

The benefits of a link over a shortcut are most readily realized when using Windows Explorer with the folder pane, or for cases 
such as moving programs (see “What are Links?”).

What are the differences between Shell links and Junctions?

Overview
Unix users may be familiar with the two types of links that are typically used, hard links and symbolic links. Junctions are 
similar to hard links, in which the file system keeps two entries for one set of content, and the link is indistinguishable from 
the original folder entry. (Unix hard links normally only link files and not folders, while Windows’ Junctions may only link 
folders and not files.) Shell links are more like symbolic links, which are special folders that act as though they are the original folder.

Shell Links
A shell-link folder only acts as though it is the original (target) folder. When you open up the linking folder, it will usually show 
you contents of the target folder. However, on the file system, the folder actually just contains two files that tell Windows to 
display the folder as though it is the target folder. Not all programs are aware of this type of link and may show as the content 
of the folder the two files instead of the content of the target folder. Deleting a shell-link folder will only delete the link, and 
leave the target folder intact.

Junctions
Junctions, for all intents and purposes, are invisible to Windows. Virtually all programs, including Windows Explorer, will 
interpret the linked folder as though it were the target folder. This makes Junctions dangerous because deleting the link in a 
non-junction-aware program such as Explorer will cause a recursive delete, deleting the contents of the target folder as well as the link.

Bottom line differences
Shell Links
+	Supported by all post-Windows 95 operating systems.
+	Can span fixed disks and network shares
+	When deleted, only the link is deleted.
-	Programs must know how to interpret shell links (if they don’t use the shell to browse the file system.)
-	Slightly lower performance since they are interpreted by the shell.

Junctions
+	Virtually invisible, and thus works in virtually all applications.
+	Slightly better performance since they are interpreted by the kernel.
+	Suitable for moving programs.
-	Supported only on NTFS-5, thus only on Windows 2000 and above.
-	Can only be created only on local fixed disks (may span from one fixed disk to another). However, a Junction created on a 
file server is invisible to the client computer, and thus *does* work over network in some sense.
-	Can be dangerous, as the target folder is deleted when the Junction is (unless a junction tool, such as this one, is used).

!!!!WARNING!!!

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Warnings About Junctions

!!	Junctions are virtually invisible implementations of links. This means that if you try to delete the junction, a recursive 
delete will be performed on its contents, meaning the data is actually being deleted from the target directory.
!!	A circular Junction (one in which the target is a parent directory of the Junction) will cause recursive traversals to cycle 
forever. This could cause a find function to traverse forever (or close, since path names are limited to many thousand 
characters in NTFS-5), or a backup utility to back up the same data repeatedly.

[Barry4679]

My music collection is alphabetised. So, say 2 artists made a collaboration album. Instead of duplicating the entire album in both artists' folders I store the files only under Artist A and then just add shortcuts to each relevant album to the folder of Artist B. Same is useful to keep track of various side projects of prolific artists.

Makes sense?

Doesn't really make sense (to me).

One of the main benefits of a Media Manager, like MediaMonkey, is that it is powered by a database which takes over all the work related to where your music is stored, so that you can just focus upon what the music is, eg. Artist, album, genre, rating, etc.

In your illustration you have navigated to the Folder node. That is not looking at your database, it is looking at the file structure on your disk. You are missing almost all of MediaMonkey's power there. I would only use that node if I was going to move the music to some other place.

Go to the music node, right click a track, and select "Properties".

There is only a single copy of this track in my collection. It is stored under Robert Fripp.
In the MediaMonkey database it is indexed twice in the AlbumArtists node; under Robert Fripp, and also under Brian Eno.
This is automatically triggered by having the two artists in the AlbumArtist tag, separated by a semi-colon and a blank space.

MediaMonkey will manage the situation, and store your tags, including multiple value tags, into your actual tracks.
NB. You need to have the option "Update Tags When Editing Tags" option check at Tools>Options>Library>Tags&Playlists
This information is therefore available other Music Manager tools you may use or migrate to.

I could have done the same thing in the Artist tag. ... I didn't do that because I never use the Artist index.

All of the Music Managers will abstract themselves from the files physical location names and file name.
You don't need those things to browse music, or to play music, or to build playlists.
You don't need those names anymore for anything, unless you are moving or deleting or creating backup of tracks.

It may feel comfortable to use the names of the folders and the files, but there is nothing special about them. They are an just an abstraction also. Any individual track will likely be split into pieces, and be poked into little gaps across the various platters that make up your hard drive. The Windows Operating System gives all these little pieces a single name so that you can access it. ... A Music Manager takes this further again, by allowing you to assign multiple attributes, which are meaningful to yourself, to your track; like Artist(s), album, date release, rating, etc etc. You can navigate to the track using any of those attributes.

So this a Red Pill vs Blue Pill situation. .. Good luck.

[Pandamasque]

You are describing a perfect scenario when someone starts a music collection from scratch, as opposed to having recently switched to using MediaMonkey to deal with a 500GB collection built up over 20 years and synchronised with a backup drive.

The very reason I chose MediaMonkey is the folder view with letter>artist>album + current playlist use case, while seemingly every other player caters to the itunes type of audience.