Playlist basics

[Ardbeg]

Hey folks,

I'm having a hard time understanding how playlists are *supposed* to work... This boils down to a few rudimentary questions.

I'm using slimserver 6.1.1 on linux.

I configured the settings to use a /lists/ subdirectory under my music dir. I then made a few lists within slimserver web interface and saved them. They were available to both my new SB2s. But there were no files in the /lists/ subdir. OK, where are they kept? Are they not written to some file in that configured location?

I also have a couple older lists in that directory, which are just text files containing absolute links to the files (named like blah.list). Slimserver sees none of those. What is it looking for?

I browsed these forums for awhile and saw mentions of using .m3u files. I then dug for some of these I had lying around and copied them to the /lists/ subdir, and did a 'rescan' of the lists only.
Indeed, the new lists show up, but the ones I had made from the slimserver interface are now gone. Where did those go!

I tried naming one of my lists to blah.m3u, but it was not picked up in a rescan. What is it about the .m3u files that is recognized by the scan? Is it legit to make these with absolute rather than relative path names?

My goal in all of this is to use some other means (text editor, perl script, whatever) to make a bunch of playlists, and have slimserver recognize them. I would also like them to be compatible or even indistinguishable from lists made within the slimserver. I'd like the latter to be saved so that I can back them up somehow.

Thanks very much for any enlightenment you can provide,

-Ardbeg

[kevin]

Hey folks,

I'm having a hard time understanding how playlists are *supposed* to work... This boils down to a few rudimentary questions.

I'm using slimserver 6.1.1 on linux.

I configured the settings to use a /lists/ subdirectory under my music dir. I then made a few lists within slimserver web interface and saved them. They were available to both my new SB2s. But there were no files in the /lists/ subdir. OK, where are they kept? Are they not written to some file in that configured location?

Well, you might want to have them in a folder separate from your music folder. If you have them in your music folder, it could possibly cause redundant scanning.



I also have a couple older lists in that directory, which are just text files containing absolute links to the files (named like blah.list). Slimserver sees none of those. What is it looking for?

Probably the file extension. If the files are fairly simple (e.g. just songs delimited by carriage return), those could pass for M3U very likely, so renaming it to .m3u might work fine.


I browsed these forums for awhile and saw mentions of using .m3u files. I then dug for some of these I had lying around and copied them to the /lists/ subdir, and did a 'rescan' of the lists only.
Indeed, the new lists show up, but the ones I had made from the slimserver interface are now gone. Where did those go!

With the new database structure, playlists are saved in the database first and then flushed to disk after about 30 seconds I think. But I think there may have been a bug about this in 6.1.1 which is fixed in the nightlies...


I tried naming one of my lists to blah.m3u, but it was not picked up in a rescan. What is it about the .m3u files that is recognized by the scan? Is it legit to make these with absolute rather than relative path names?

Well, absolute paths are more reliable IMO, but either way has its drawbacks.


My goal in all of this is to use some other means (text editor, perl script, whatever) to make a bunch of playlists, and have slimserver recognize them. I would also like them to be compatible or even indistinguishable from lists made within the slimserver. I'd like the latter to be saved so that I can back them up somehow.

Well, you might want to try making some playlists using xmms and see how well that suits you...