GUI music sync tool for RockBox, any programmers out there with spare time?

[jimbilly]

I've searched and searched and just can't believe it but apparently a simple music(or file) sync tool does not exist.

I currently use a robocopy script that I wrote to handle sync's to rockbox.  Thats fine and good,  until you run into the issue where the device can not hold ALL of your music.  I have a folder that i keep my new stuff in and keep it under the 8GB limit of my device, but should't there be a better way?

You're faced with picking/choosing manually dragging dropping, etc. onto the device or else a staging folder, moving albums in and out of that,  there should be a better way!

I've tried various sync tools/toys, etc. none have fit the simple idea I have of what it should do which is:
*  allow GUI based file tree selections and saving of such selections (for future syncs)

For example it would look similar to windows 'NTBackup.exe' utility, where you browse the file tree, turn on/off folders to be synced.  All subfolders/files would be included with a checked folder.  It would have a save selection dialog box, load selection button(default to last selection for quick future syncs).  Target field(default to last), and a GO button.

Why doesn't this exist?  I suppose you could use ntbackup and back up to a temp location then restore to your rockbox, but that just cumbersome?

My perfect sync tool experience:
* I connect my rockbox to my pc.
* I run MSCsync (or whatever you decide to call it), it has my previous default selections checked, my last target default.  I go through my music with this GUI and turn off an album here, turn on one there, checking/unchecking effortlessly, i'm done,
* i click sync, the unchecked albums get deleted from the target, the newly checked ones get copied.

Is that too much to ask?

Is there any programming gurus out there that could make this gui sync tool a reality?  Or know of one that exists that does this?

[saratoga]

Apparently Songbird can sync to rockbox:

http://getsatisfaction.com/songbird/topics/step_by_step_how_to_sync_your_apple_ipod_ipod_1g_through_5_5g_ipod_mini_and_ipod_nano_1g

Theres also a work in progress MTP driver for rockbox, which would let any software USB target sync to WMP or other MTP aware software.

[jimbilly]

saratoga,
Thanks for you input,  however,  i'm not looking for a new 'music library',  i'm interested in a simple sync solution that would work regardless of what music library/player app you may have on your pc.   just files/folders  copy/delete,  thats it.


portable, simple  ==  bliss  ==  ignorance? (perhaps)

[JdGordon]

having 12 DAPs obviously has got me tihnking about this. The best I've thought about doing is putting plaitext files in directories which say whether the folder should sync to the currently attached device (by name, or by available storage space).

The problem is I'm hugely lazy (to code it and then do the work of making those files) so I havnt done anything about this.

[jimbilly]

JdGordon,

My idea for a sync tool would work great for you.  You could have a saved selection for each device, run the tool, pick your saved selection by name, modify it via the tree view(add/remove albums/tracks/etc. by checking/unchecking) then sync.

Now,  just need that guru.

Do you have Windows?  Run ntbackup.exe and click on the backup tab, you'll see the tree view selector that I'm looking for.   You'd think there'd be a canned app library that just does that just need someone to string it together with the file sync functionality.

[jimbilly]

hmm, no takers yet?  this thread is red hot.   don't tell me i have to figure this out myself...

I did make a script that I could feed a dir list output (after some text editing) to sync (copy items from my list, unless they're aleady there), but that is so cumbersome, and i still have to manually delete on the device to remove folders

[[Saint]]

hmm, no takers yet?  this thread is red hot.   don't tell me i have to figure this out myself...

I did make a script that I could feed a dir list output (after some text editing) to sync (copy items from my list, unless they're aleady there), but that is so cumbersome, and i still have to manually delete on the device to remove folders

Generally speaking, requests for "Hey, can you do this for me...? I think it would be cool" go unanswered.

If a developer with the know-how thought this was worth doing, or had the time to do it instead of spending time working on things they enjoy working on...it would already be done.

It seems at this point, the ideal person to do this is yourself...read a few tutorials and start coding
If someone pops up in the near future that is also interested in this, you might have some code to share with them.



[St.]

[fiveofoh]

Wow, has this really not been done yet?  I was just pondering hacking something up in Python, but was hoping someone had done something so simple.  So...let me know if any of you know of someone that's done something already, or if you have any code or anything, but this is going on my list of quick one-off projects.

[gbl08ma]

I think that any decent media player (even Windows Media Player does the job) can sync the music files you select with any USB mass storage device, no matter if it is a Rockbox device, a USB Pendisk, or a memory card. Songbird does it too, and so does Rythmbox, iTunes, and almost every other complete media player solution available.

Why would you need a specific software to sync with Rockbox, if the generic ones work great? One of the most important reasons why I switched to Rockbox was the ability to not needing any specific software on the PC to work - bye bye iTunes.

[jimbilly]

i'd rather have a simple sync software that only does what I need rather than some bloatware that may do some of what I need but not do it well.

I want folder structures in tact on the device to match the source, most media players copy files in their own tree structure or just dump files.   I don't want it copying stuff thats already there.

i disagree that the 'generic ones work great'

do you know of any media player solution that shows you a view of your existing library(on your pc) with folders/albums highlighted based on whether they are on your external device and where you can add/remove albums from that view?

[Llorean]

That being said, what you're describing still has nothing to do with it being specifically related to Rockbox. It still sounds like you're just looking for a generic media sync program that does things in a specific way. Maybe even just a generic sync program. Some sort of GUI based rsync alternative.

[bluebrother]

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52

[jimbilly]

Llorean, yes, you are correct, I have posted here since i use rockbox and it would be an 'other utility' that i'd like to see

bluebrother,
synctoy does not do what i have described.  I have tried that, thanks. I already have a solution to do simple mirroring.

fiveofoh, i'd be interested to see what you come up with!

[mlt]

If you want pure sync solution, give a try to QtdSync: http://qtdtools.doering-thomas.de/page.php?seite=0&sub=0&lang=en . You select folders as if like with NTBackup and then QtdSync does all the sync for you once you connect your USB device using rsync. Choose mirroring instead of differential backups! :-) It is a Win32 only solution. That software is not maintained much, but is in somewhat usable state (I switched to pure rsync+vshadow for general backups on PC).

I personally would like to use some music library organizer to sync with rockbox as music collection is bigger than memory of my device as well I tried MusicBee, but the only option is to use Playlists to sync. And when I drag those to device (I used MTP) it doesn't recreate original folder structure, so you'll end up with flat list of files if you drag playlist to device.

Thanks for songbird recommendation, I'll give it a try.

[larry_llama]

The tool you describe would be exactly what I am looking for as well. My collection is very well organized in terms of folders but the tags are not as great and I don't really care about tags as much as I do folders. A simple file list with check boxes would be great.

What would be even better is if it ran from the device itself - then when you connect to another computer (work, friend, etc), you could sync to and from that as well using the same tool and interface

Rather than a check box to the left of the folder/file list items, what would be better is a series of columns to the right of the tree, each column representing a device or a hard drive location (library) - you could add devices and locations and they would appear as additional columns.

When the scan is performed, it puts checkmarks in each column corresponding to whether that file/folder exists on that device/library location. If you click on the checkmark, it changes to a red x to indicate it will be deleted from that location when you perform the sync. If the file does not exist during the initial scan, it puts an empty box. If you click an empty box it adds a green check to indicate that the file will be copied there at next sync.

If you add an album to your device manually at your friend's computer then, you have the option of copying back to your main library.

Even better if you can tell it to use a proper naming scheme during sync and it could double as a file renamer akin to EAC's naming strings or foobar...

Come to think of it, this would look and feel more like a duplicate file scanner/remover - but the goal would not be to eradicate duplicates, but to have full control over where the duplicates are allowed to be :-)

Maybe a hunt for duplicate software would turn up something where the developer is willing to extend the functionality as a sync program?