What Management Software?

[CodeMonkeyX]

Ok so I have been using Rockbox for a little while now, and it's a great player but I am having some problems.

Firstly what programs do you guys use in Windows or Linux to manage your iPod with Rockbox on it? Whenever I start up a program like Winamp, or Rythmbox on Linux, they always see an iPod. They do not let me treat it like a generic USB player.

So any files I try to add get put into the iPod/iTunes style database.

Also, are there any applications that will allow me to manage my playlists from outside of the Rockbox interface? I do not want to sit there staring at my iPod nano for hours setting up playlists with a click wheel. I would like to use a 3rd party program to organize my music and sync that with rockbox.

Has anyone else run into these problems and found any fixes? Because right now I have to manually copy my music to the player, and set up playlists on the player.

And don't get me started on podcasts, I have not found a way to view only unplayed songs or organize by newest files first. That is the main reason I want a 3rd party program, so I can let that application sort and update my podcasts.

[soap]

Firstly what programs do you guys use in Windows or Linux to manage your iPod with Rockbox on it? Whenever I start up a program like Winamp, or Rythmbox on Linux, they always see an iPod. They do not let me treat it like a generic USB player.

You need to kill the iPodService.exe, and any other iTunes background services.  Then you will be able to use the iPod as a generic USB mass storage device.

I believe there is another option, somewhere in iTunes itself to accomplish the same thing, but having never used iTunes I don't know where to direct you.

[L]

With ITunes 7 installed and your Ipod plugged in.

Click on your Ipod under Devices.

At the summary page, tick Enable Disk use

[bk]

With Linux, if you want to use the ipod as a generic UMS device just plug it in without running rhythmbox or gtkpod or whatever. If you're running GNOME/udev you'll be able to just plug it in and mount it normally as a user and copy files to and from it like any other USB device.

[Yotto]

Also, are there any applications that will allow me to manage my playlists from outside of the Rockbox interface? I do not want to sit there staring at my iPod nano for hours setting up playlists with a click wheel. I would like to use a 3rd party program to organize my music and sync that with rockbox.

I personally did this (though there's likely an easier way, this is easy enough to not bother finding a better solution.  This also doesn't require any programs except what is on your windows box)

(in windows, on your ipod, in your music directory)
ATTRIB *.MP3 /S > ALL.M3U
NOTEPAD ALL.M3U
do a search/replace for D: (or whatever your drive is) with nothing.  It will erase the d: at the beginnnig of every line.

Save the file.

That's it.  you now have a playlist of all the music in your \music\ directory, or whatever you named the directory.  To "manage" it, just open it in notepad and copy things around.  You can copy them to other files, and save them as something else (Notepad likes to slap .txt on the end, so you may need to rename them when you're done).  If you add new music, just recreate the master file the same way as above.

And don't get me started on podcasts, I have not found a way to view only unplayed songs or organize by newest files first. That is the main reason I want a 3rd party program, so I can let that application sort and update my podcasts.

For my podcasts, I put them in a totally different folder and navigate to that folder and "select" (On my 5G ipod, I don't know if the button is the same on others) a track.  With bookmarking turned on, it just starts playing the last podcast I was listening to, so long as I "stop"ped it, which I've gotten into the habit of doing.

Another habit I've gotten into is deleting the show as it gets close to the end.  So long as it's cached (which in the last couple minutes it almost always is) it'll still play all the way through.

I wish there was a way to know if a file was fully cached, or force recache, but other than that, this works perfectly well for me.  However, I've never managed my music any other way, so it comes easy.

[Llorean]

You can check if a file is fully cached by checking the audio thread screen in the debug menu, and seeing how many files it's telling you are in the thread. If there's more than just 1, that means it's cached past the end of your file, or should be.

Of course, it's a bit of a hassle.

[Yotto]

Yeah.  Slightly.    I was hoping for something like %mc for the WPS screen.   Though I suppose most people don't care if the file is cached, so it'd be a bit overkill.

[mightybrick]

I've been in your postion.  I had been hunting for months to find an app that will organize and sync my music in all formats, and the best music (all media, in fact) management software I have found is J River Media Center.  It will allow you to set-up your iPod (or any DAP) as a generic USB device.  I have configured mine to sync a playlist with my nano, and store the music in my nano's root directory as /music/artist/album directory structure.  It will also sync photos, videos, or any files to any pre-specified directory, automatically or manually, to any device.  It also organizes and downloads podcasts and such.
Another nice thing about it is you can store music in flac or another lossless format and Media Center will transcode it automatically upon sync to another format for your portable device.  I have a lot of music in FLAC, but with a 2 gig nano, I have it transcode to ogg vorbis -q4.
Check out more here: http://www.jrmediacenter.com/features.html

[Benway]

Try out MusikCube (www.musikcube.com). I think it's one great piece of software.

[baobab68]

I use MediaMonkey. Although it has an iPod plugin, it also has a generic UMS device plugin.

The gold version has cool features like Autoplaylists etc (which I believe is a function of iTunes)

[CodeMonkeyX]

Thanks a lot everyone, I have a few cool things to try out now.

[hiro]

I personally did this (though there's likely an easier way, this is easy enough to not bother finding a better solution.  This also doesn't require any programs except what is on your windows box)

(in windows, on your ipod, in your music directory)
ATTRIB *.MP3 /S > ALL.M3U
NOTEPAD ALL.M3U
do a search/replace for D: (or whatever your drive is) with nothing.  It will erase the d: at the beginnnig of every line.

Save the file.

That's it.  you now have a playlist of all the music in your \music\ directory, or whatever you named the directory.  To "manage" it, just open it in notepad and copy things around.  You can copy them to other files, and save them as something else (Notepad likes to slap .txt on the end, so you may need to rename them when you're done).  If you add new music, just recreate the master file the same way as above.

thanks for this!  nice and easy - just the way i like it!  

[Yotto]

I actually left out a bit, now that I'm rereading.

The lines will actually look something like this:

Code: [Select]

   A          d:\music\foo.mp3

You have to search and replace everything before, and including, the colon.

Doesn't make it any harder, just more correct now