Volumed (multiple part) Compilation Folder Creation

Support
#1

I have searched through the forum and even checked the foobar help section as well as MP3Tags help file indicates that some of the ideas are based on their ideas...but to no avail.

Here is my issue..I have numerous Compilation files (for Example: Orkus! Compilations, Amphi Festival, Dark Spy and Cold Hand Seduction) Where they all have a Volume or Part number in the title eg: Cold Hands Seduction Vol. 182. If I leave the actions as they are now and put run them as is I get some very long file names when I get down to the end of it as you can imagine
(eg: Z:\Media Library\Music\Various Artists\Digital Recovery\Digital Recovery Part 10.1\DISC NUMBER\TRACK NAME (USUALLY HAS A SPECIAL REMIX NAME FOR COMPILATIONS))

As you can see I have been able to shorten up part of the name by partitioning a harddrive to create a network drive and have been manually renaming folders the way that I want them but would love to be able to create an action just to do this....

Now I have ACTIONS set up for creating folders based on the Album Artist ( In this case the Folder generated would be "Various Artists" which the action fills in if this is a compilation) than it generates a folder for the album title (than if required a folder for each disc in the collection). Now this creates an issue as I would like to do the following but am unable to figure it out:

Folder: Various Artists (remains the same for move to Library once all necessary adjustments such key and bpm determination and corrected/verified tags)
Folder: "Compilation Master Name" EG (Orkus! or Cold Hands Seduction)
Folder: "(%year%) Volume Number" EG: (2000) Volume 182
Folder(s): Disc numbers if more than one...

Presently I have:

format %_directory% as $validate($replace(%albumartist%\%album% $num(%year%,4), , ), ) %mediatype% which creates the Various Artists folder as expected

than for single discs: format %_filename% as $num(%track%,2) - %title%
for multi-discs: format %_filename% as Disc $num(%discnumber%,2)\%_filename_ext%

I have been playing around with formatting and what not but have been unable to figure out just how to auto create a folder between the 2 Actions for the Volume number...as the original formatting takes from the Album title which has the Compilation Group Name AND the Volume number I need to remove the Volume number from the folder and creating a sub folder without compromising the album name.

Basically I want my file structure to look like this for the above example

Various Artists
-Cold Hands Seduction

 - (2000) Volume 182
    - Disc 1
        -tracks
     - Disc 2
         - tracks

Is this possible? IF so I am stymied as to how it is to be done...I thought about running an action after all the others even using $left() to look for volume/comp/part in the folder title and than generating a folder underneath it from that and than renaming the parent folder without the volume/comp/part number....everything else I want to do (until I come up with another idea) works fine but I have tried every angle I can think of so any suggestions would be great on how to create this new folder structure.

#2

See the FAQs for creating folder structures: /t/8016/1

If you use fully qualified filenames like
Z:\Media Library\Music\%albumartist%\%album%[\%DISCNUMBER%]\%TRACK% %title%
you will get the folder structure without the need to rename each folder level separately.

If you have problems with the length of the resulting filename, perhaps an expression like
$left(Z:\Media Library\Music\%albumartist%\%album%[\%DISCNUMBER%]\%TRACK% %title%,252) might help.

#3

Long speak short.
Once you have stored all the necessary data in own temporary helper tag fields, then creating a file path is easy. After moving the files, the helper tag fields can be removed.

DD.20170504.0750.CEST

#4

True it was very long winded...but I wanted to make my point that I have been trying this from multiple angles and have not been able to figure it out...to say that it is easy is great but if you could elaborate as I suppose I may not only be writing too much but also over perhaps overthinking the process.

#5

Thank you for the response...I am aware of how to create folder structures as indicated earlier, I am already creating the folder structure that I desire for Artists and Albums it is the one extra structure for Volumes/Grouped Collection Compilations that it perplexing me...

That one extra step that to some may not be necessary but has frustrated me for quite a while trying to get it working...

#6

WHich field holds the information that this as a grouped collection and the name of that grouping?

#7

I have been pulling from the album title for folder creation and that is the issue...As indicated what I have now is this folder structure created by my actions

Various Artists
Cold Hands Seduction Volume 182
Disc 1
Tracks
Disc 2
Tracks

What I am after is

Various Artists
Cold Hands Seduction
Volume 182
Disc 1
Tracks
Disc 2
Tracks

Without compromising the album name as found in Discogs or Bandcamp or whereever...

#8

How does the individual title/file know that it is part of a family of compilations?

An expression like

[$regex(%album%,'.*Volume (\d+)','Volume $1')]%album%
Would create an extra level of folders called e.g.
Volume 182\Cold Hands Seduction Volume 182
(The [] enclose an optional part of the string that is only filled if the enclosed expression returns a result)

But how does this file know that there are Volumes 180 and 181?

#9

I process each album/compilation individually so, I don't really need it to know if there is Volumes 180 or 181 just need to know how to create the folder structure that I am looking for.

#10

So I attempted to use your suggetion unfortunately my result was not as hoped....

$regex(Cold Hands Seduction Volume. 182,.Volume (
d+),Volume $1)
Cold Hands Seduction Volume. 182

Am not sure if I am missing something, I copied and pasted directly from above and chose format _Directory with your suggestion...I even tried searching an modifying but no luck there either..

#11

Try again ...

ALBUM : Cold Hands Seduction Volume 182

Convert : Tag-Tag
Field : TEST
Formatstring: [$regexp(%album%,'^.* (Volume \d+).*$','$1')'']%album%
Result : Volume 182\Cold Hands Seduction Volume 182

See also ... /t/17049/1

DD.20170505.0641.CEST

#12

... is not quite the same as ...

If you create the filenames/folders manually, then you can easily use the function Convert>Tag-Filename with a format string that consists of the tag variables and text constants for the missing information.
For me "auto create" in actions means: no user interaction, all the data has to be present in the files somewhere or be part of the (universal) format strings in the actions.

So my recommendation would be: use Convert>Tag-Filename

(As a personal comment: I think that the folder structure is rather redundant: you get the information about the volumes at least twice. Once in the top folder and the sub folder with the number and then again in the album folder. THis gobbles up a lot of the precious maximum number of characters that you are allowed for a filename. I would keep it flat, a good disciplin in naming conventions would group these files together - and a good representation is eventually the task of the player. But that is just my personal view, you will have your own reasons)

#13

If that is an accurate copy then you have inserted a dot after "Volume" in the string that is not reflected in the search pattern.

For the string "Cold Hands Seduction Volume. 182" you would need "Volume. (\d+)"

Also you missed the ".*" in front of "Volume".

#14

What I do is I look at each ALBUM/FILE INDIVIDUALLY and apply the necessary action groups required. Some are missing the album cover, some the track numbers are messed up, some have weird characters substituted in and some have erroneous tags added...so I use the action drop down menu to choose which action to apply to the folders as necessary..this is one that I would like to apply.
To your personal note, I am note sure that you quite understand my final result that I am looking for...I am looking to create the sub folder for the Volume THAN removing that "folder name (Volume 182) from the parent file it is in so I can get my Various Artists folder (used for compilations as I do not break out tracks individually to Artist by compilation):

Cold Hands Seduction (Volume and number removed) - (Parent folder Collection grouping name only)
Volume 182 (Sub folder with dics and track folders underneath as required)
Volume 183 (Next Volume)
Volume 184 (Next Volume, etc as required)

#15

It is not quite clear to me which dropdown menu you use: the "actions" or "actions (quick)".

Anyway: if you assemble an expression for each file or even all the files of a folder then I would like to point out that the functions from the Convert menu correspond to actions of various types
Filename-Tag = "Guess values"
Tag-Filename = "Format value" for _FILENAME which also creates new folder structures
Tag-Tag = "Format value" for a given field and also for _DIRECTORY to rename a folder and move all the files in it.

So if you have the requirement to use individual sets of data that is gathered with a lot of user interaction, then the Convert functions may suit you better as you get a preview and can also recycle already used expressions. This feature is not present in the dialogues to create or edit actions. Actions are excellent for routine jobs that have to be carried out the same way each time.

And just to expand my personal note a bit:
I still would not use a folder structure with (at least) 2 levels: as soon as you want to transfer one (or more) member(s) of that family of albums to another storage location, you would have to rename the folder again as "Volume 182" then would not reveal that is is actually part of that great colletion of "Cold Hands Seduction" volumes. OK, admittedly: even the Bravo Hits have not reached volume 100 yet, so it could be that it is absolutely clear, that volume 182 can only be from the "Cold Hands Seduction" series. But for lower volumes, like 1, 2 or 3, it becomes hard to separate them.
But as I said: just my opinion. If your order suits you: fine.

#16

This works however the results are reversed:

Result : Volume 182\Cold Hands Seduction Volume 182

looking for

Result : Cold Hands Seduction (with Volume and Number removed)\ Volume 182

#17

So I have been able to get the Folder tree desired result now just need to know how to remove the Volume 182 from the original folder?

#18
ALBUM : Cold Hands Seduction Volume 182

Convert : Tag-Tag
Field : TEST
Formatstring: $regexp(%album%,'^(.+)\s(Volume\s\d+)$','$1\\$2')
Result : Cold Hands Seduction\Volume 182

ALBUM : Cold Hands Seduction 123
Convert : Tag-Tag
Field : TEST
Formatstring: $regexp(%album%,'^(.+)\s(Volume\s\d+)$','$1\\$2')
Result : Cold Hands Seduction 123

DD.20170506.1952.CEST

#19

Thank you however I am not looking to compromise the Album title...what I am trying to adjust is the DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
end result being...

(folder) Cold Hands Seduction
(sub-folder) Volume #
(sub-folder(s) as required) Disc(s) and associated tracks

#20

That what DetlevD showed does not do anything to the field ALBUM but saves the result in a field called TEST.
Instead of using TEST as target, enter the field that you really want to modify.