Question On Media Categories Management

[sun7radio]

Hello,

Coming from StationPlaylist, I'm having hard time to understand how to work in PFOA (I would say how to "think" in PFOA).

For instance, how do I manage "Virtual Categories", meaning categories containing several other categories ? How can I work in a hierarchical way ?

In SP I can create a "container" category which includes a list of categories so I can insert this container category into a rotation then it will choose a random song from all the categories included inside this one. Very simple. How do I do this with PFOA ?

Also, how could I add a song or a list of songs (even perhaps a folder) into several categories ?

(sorry if this is obvious or has been already mentioned, but it's not that easy to understand the way of thinking of PFOA especially with an incomplete manual. perhaps there are some tutorials somewhere ?)

Cheers,
Guy.

[radio42]

Within ProppFrexx all looks as if all organized/grouped by media libs.
E.g. one media lib groups certain tracks 'belonging' together.
In addition you might also define a so called 'Category' and further group certain media libs to that.
Within the Media Library dialog you can right click on any library and assign that lib to another Category or to a new one.

Within a Script you can (for e.g. the Random action) now either choose a certain Media Library or even a Category.
If a Category is select a random track is picked from any media lib contained in that the categories - sounds pretty much like SPL.

Furthermore you can also define per script-line a 'Filter'.
A filter allows you much more...it allows you to define additional selection/filter criteria's when querying entries from a media library.
Ses here for more info:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27

As such you not only cluster tracks vertically in Categories and Media Libs but also horizontally by using meta data attributes then being used in Filter rules.
Like 'Mood' should be 'Mellow' or 'Genre' should be 'Jazz'...whatsoever...

[sun7radio]

Within ProppFrexx all looks as if all organized/grouped by media libs.
E.g. one media lib groups certain tracks 'belonging' together.
In addition you might also define a so called 'Category' and further group certain media libs to that.
Within the Media Library dialog you can right click on any library and assign that lib to another Category or to a new one.

But then the library is *moved* to another Category or to a new one. We cant have one library in several Categories.

Within a Script you can (for e.g. the Random action) now either choose a certain Media Library or even a Category.
If a Category is select a random track is picked from any media lib contained in that the categories - sounds pretty much like SPL.

No, its not, because in this case you can only choose *one* Category, not "among several Categories". In SPL we can create a Category that contains several other Categories.

But let me explain how I organize my songs, for example:

Code: Select all

/funk
  /easy
    /000+
    /100+
    /108+
    /etc.. (bpm)
  /suspens
    /000+
    /100+
    /108+
    /...
  /traveling
    /000+
    /100+
    /108+
    /...
  /...

This is an exemple of my songs folders structure (dont even try to understand 'suspens', 'traveling', etc.. those are purely subjective and for the purpose of our content).

You can clearly see that the songs are organized in a hierarchical way, which no radio automation software that I've used allow.. So inside each application I have to translate this hierarchical structure to "flat" categories:

"funk - easy - 000+" (funk/easy/000+)
"funk - easy - 100+" (funk/easy/100+)
"funk - easy - 108+" (funk/easy/108+)
etc..

In your MediaLib, if I load my folders "as is" as libraries, I only get a bunch of '000+', '100+', '108+', etc... which are not very practical to read and search.. so I have to create one Category per "library" like this one: "funk - easy - 100+" for the library in the folder 'funk/easy/100+'.

Now in the MediaLib I can read the Category name "funk - easy - 100+" which contains the library "/100+" which is much more readable/manageable.

But now, keeping this flat Categories organisation I would like to create a "funk - easy" Category which contains all the BPM folders inside /funk/easy.

And this is were I failed to do so. I can't. There is no point to "move" say the "funk/easy/000+" library into a new "funk - easy" Category or else I will loose the "funk - easy - 000+" Category which I still need.

What I usually did with some other software was to create a new folder called "all" like this: funk/easy/all and put shortcuts of all the song files from the other folders, then create a new "funk - easy" Category referencing this folder as a library. Unfortunately, PFAO does not recognize symbolic links/shortcuts as actual song files (which SPL does).

So, for now, I'm stuck with my hierarchical categories organization because it seems no software want to work in a a hierarchical way when it comes to Categories

But perhaps its me again, not thinking the "proper" way. In this case I would be very please to understand how to retrieve my hierarchical categories inside PFAO.

What I would love, for instance, is to be able to create "instances" of a libraries into several other "categories", and also to be able to create categories that contain other categories, directly inside the MediaLib, which would be very powerfull and then simple to use from the Random script line. This way the MediaLib would look like an explorer with hierarchical organization.

Furthermore you can also define per script-line a 'Filter'.
A filter allows you much more...it allows you to define additional selection/filter criteria's when querying entries from a media library.
Ses here for more info:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27

As such you not only cluster tracks vertically in Categories and Media Libs but also horizontally by using meta data attributes then being used in Filter rules.
Like 'Mood' should be 'Mellow' or 'Genre' should be 'Jazz'...whatsoever...

Yes this seems very powerful, I'll try to get my head around this.

Thanks.

Cheers,
Guy.

[radio42]

We cant have one library in several Categories

That is correct.

you can only choose *one* Category, not "among several Categories"

Yes and No, as nothing prevents you to place the same track(s) into multiple media libs.

You can clearly see that the songs are organized in a hierarchical way, which no radio automation software that I've used allow

As ProppFrexx allows 'Folder-based' media libs you can (I guess). E.g. use the sub-folders as media libs (e.g. '/000+', '/100+' ...) and the head-folders as 'virtual' Categories, like e.g. 'Funk - Easy'.

Alternatively you might create your own logical playlists and keep them organized as you like.
E.g. there might be just a 'Funk' lib, plus an 'Easy' lib - both might contain the same tracks...plus maybe a playlist lib called 'All'...
So organizing your tracks might boil down to using playlist based media libs instead of folder based media libs.
And organizing playlists is one of easiest jobs with ProppFrexx...just create an empty one and the drag & drop all your folders into it...

However, I'll think a bit further about your hierarchical approach...may be such things can be added to a future release.

[radio42]

On the other hand you might also create multiple folder based libs, like:
- one pointing to the 'Funk/Easy' folder
- another pointing to the 'Funk/Easy/100+' folder
- another pointing to the 'Funk/Easy/108+' folder
...
- one pointing to the 'Funk/Suspens' folder
- another pointing to the 'Funk/Suspens/100+' folder
- another pointing to the 'Funk/Suspens/108+' folder
etc.
And then place them all to a 'Funk' category...

That wastes more memory (as all tracks are contained in multiple libs in parallel) - bus is a bit what you want/need I guess.
In that case I'd rather handle all the folder libs on the Media Library Server.

[sun7radio]

Thanks for your answer.

Indeed I guess I should "think" in terms of 'playlists' instead of 'hierarchical folders structure', this certainly allows total freedom in terms of organization.

However my concern is maintenance - or playlists synchronization with actual files on disk. If I delete a bunch of files or add a bunch of files, I not only have to put those files inside the right folders but then I have to retrieve all the playlists using thoses folders with now new files and update all those playlists manually which is a bit scary to me.

Perhaps I should write a tool which directly use hierarchical folders structure + horizontal 'selections' (playlists) and then automatically generate pfoa playlists, so both folders and playlists would be synchronized immediately if i add files in any folder. Or perhaps there is already such kind of tool inside pfoa ?

Meanwhile I've tried your second approach, I loaded only the 'easy', 'suspens', etc.. categories inside the MediaLib Server. I now get several 'easy' libraries, several 'suspens' library (one in funk, one in soul, one in etc.. ) and it seems pfoa does not like this because when, from pfoa, I try to 'Add Remote' I now get this error:

"An item with the same key has already been added."

I guess the multiple 'easy', 'suspens', etc.. library 'keys' are the problems ?

Cheers,
Guy.

[sun7radio]

Well, probably, yes.

But if I push your thinking further away (and play the devil advocate) why then have Categories at all ? We could just use one root folder and only rely on filters and tags.

There is nothing wrong with filters and tag though, albeit the thing is you don't know the result in advance, I mean how many potential results are possible from a filter pattern ?

Why not see the other way around:

A filter pattern (tag or not based) becomes a Category.

Imagine that everything happens inside the MediaLib which could become the tool where you prepare all your filters/conditions/scripts (new Categories) and which will show the potential results from each one of these 'dynamic' Categories. You could then create Categories inside Categories (drag and drop libraries where you want ctrl+drag to instantiate, etc.., like in an explorer).

This way you would have all your categorizations - vertical & horizontal - inside the same tool, at the same place, visually intuitive: inside the MediaLab.

Anyway, perhaps I'm thinking too far ahead.

For now I'll try the approach which does not work with the MediaLib Server (because of the duplicate keys) but works inside PFOA MediaLib. Once I'll be more used with PFOA perhaps I'll think about a better solution.

To me only this categorization issue is frustrating really. The rest of the software, I really love it, you really did a wonderful job.

Cheers,
Guy.

[radio42]

why then have Categories at all

Because other uses might use playlist based media libs or organize their music in a different way than you do...

A filter pattern (tag or not based) becomes a Category

Theoretically you are right, but that is must more static - as in such case you must already organize your categories in exactly the way you want to use the Filters...of course if that is always the case you are right...but...may be 1 year later you might think of additional Filter-Rules, and then...you haven't organized your Categories accordingly...thus 'Filters' are must more flexible and allow more Ad-Hoc options.

But keep it as you like - I am afraid there is never a 'perfect' system matching exactly 'everyone's' needs...

[sun7radio]

why then have Categories at all

Because other uses might use playlist based media libs or organize their music in a different way than you do...

That was not the point. The point was that if we rely almost exclusively on filtering patterns/tags etc.. then there is little use for Categories at first. Both are powerful ways of organizing/sorting though, I just think in the case of PFOA, Categories are underused, meaning they could be much more powerful (whatever the way each and everyone organize their music).

A filter pattern (tag or not based) becomes a Category

Theoretically you are right, but that is must more static - as in such case you must already organize your categories in exactly the way you want to use the Filters...of course if that is always the case you are right...but...may be 1 year later you might think of additional Filter-Rules, and then...you haven't organized your Categories accordingly...thus 'Filters' are must more flexible and allow more Ad-Hoc options.
But keep it as you like - I am afraid there is never a 'perfect' system matching exactly 'everyone's' needs...

Right, but nothing prevent the possibility to improve existing ones.

Regarding the "1 year later remark", that would not be a problem because Categories could be moved, drag & droped, dynamicaly recreated, adjusted, etc.. directly from the MediaLib, so I don't see a 'static' problem here. The fact you find it much more static is just the consequence of a static way/tool to organize categories. Make it dynamic and it will feel dynamic

Don't get me wrong, I'm just trying to write constructive observations/suggestions regarding 'Categories'. The rest is almost 'perfect' to me.

Cheers,
Guy.

[radio42]

I agree:
So if I understand you correctly one suggestion would be to have another possibility to 'place' the same (already existing media lib) also to other categories...
Or in other words...have a separate dialog, in which you can group your existing media libs into various/multiple/different categories.
I'll look into that...