listening "dragged" music in the original firmware

[adicm]

Hi everybody!  Well, I just want to to said Thank you as you were the reason i decide to buy my iPod, as i know I was not selling my soul to iTunes....  Thanks Thanks Thanks  !!!

Now, my question...  I have been using rockbox since the first day i got my ipod... I never used the iTunes database (i tryed once some time ago and it was in my lap for five minutes...Viva Foobar2000!).  I just update the ipod and close it and it has been closed since then.

Yesterday, I downloaded an old build (I had not find the daily build yet)... I do something strange and I get a black screen saing that ther was not .rockbox dir....  As I was at home, I just reinstall all (with the more recent build, this time) and everything returns to normality, but i wonder.... If i lost rockbox again, and i'm on the road, I will not be able to listening my music, as the original firmware just can't see my folders...  

So, Is there any way to listen music in my folders, in the original firmware, Just in case of emergency? I mean, something like "emule" the iTunes database, or create a iTunes playlist with my folders locations?

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, but I just can found a more apropated one.

Thanks for your help and regards....

(And Again, Thank you, Thank you, Thank You!!!!)

[krazykit]

As far as I know, the "emule" delegation in iTunes is just another playlist, nothing special.  There's no way to listen to files on the iPod with the original firmware that were not added with iTunes (or other program that writes to the iTunesDB).

The only way to listen to music with the original firmware AND Rockbox (using the same files) would be to sync the music to the original firmware using iTunes (or foobar2k or whatever supports this) and using the Rockbox's database.

[sadffffff]

i wonder if there would be a way to forcibly crosslink the files on the filesystem so that the OF will play them because it looks as though theyre in the correct directories. but i doubt such a thing would ever be considered, since any error checking program would definately find these, and either destroy one link, or make a working copy in both directories.

maybe one could write a .rock to manage them. have a simple on/off. but again im sure it would never be included with a release, becuase of the error checking.

since we cant influence running any code from within the apple firmware we couldnt do something tricky like creating the crosslinks when loading the OF, and then deleting them when going to USB mode in either firmware.

maybe someday i'll try to write such a plugin for personal unsupported use.

[soap]

What you are describing are symlinks or hardlinks.
FAT filesystems don't support them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link

[adicm]

well... I thing I will need to be very carefull with it then...  I will not even think in use the absurd and no logical way that itunes uses to save MY files in MY iPod (or is apple's iPod???)...

Anyway, thanks for your help...

[sadffffff]

soap: interesting read and it'd be handy to do it. but i am refering to an error in FAT filesystems, crosslinking.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/83140

which would achieve the same thing, except it would be caught by error checking utilities since its out of FAT spec, basicaly creating an error.

[elborak]

soap: interesting read and it'd be handy to do it. but i am refering to an error in FAT filesystems, crosslinking.

Which is essentially the same as a hardlink, as soap noted. However as FAT has no link count attribute, there's no way to properly support it.

[sadffffff]

well you could keep a seperate database of these "links" so deleting, renaming, and moving files etc could be handled. if you wanted to make it system wide.

but the problem would still be down to the fact that this is creating filesystem errors, and I can't think of a way to remove them before going into USB mode (from the OF), which would be necessary to dodge the disk being recognised as corrupt.

for me, that would be fine, since i dont scan my player's file system all the time, and i would know enough to manage it. but it would be problematic/impossible to make official