Character Flag to say "Don't look at me" ?

[Lighthammer 80]

Greetings,

 

I didn't see any help files or threads that outright talked about this. If I am in error, please smite me and point me in the right direction.

I was wondering if there was a character or character pattern you can add to a folder or file to outright tell media browser "Don't look at me" similar to adding a period in front of a file name in Linux to hide folders. 

 

Thanks!

[AdrianW 1053]

Try adding an empty file to the folder with the name ".ignore"

Edited August 8, 2014 by AdrianW

[Lighthammer 80]

Try adding an empty file to the folder with the name ".ignore"

 

I tried adding a flash file named .ignore in a music folder, but because of another problem with the server right now Luke mentioned in another thread they are working on, I'm not readily sure if it worked.

 

Why flash file? Because I have my auto-organizer set to remove .txts, .jpgs, .gifs, and those sorts of files while cleaning directories. .as files are one of the few files on my create new context menu I don't readily clean using auto-organize. I'm interested if this will work.

 

 

I believe you can still set files/folders as hidden in properties too.

 

Though this is useful to know, I'd prefer to not do it this way. Thanks for the info!

[Maleficarum 68]

I believe you can still set files/folders as hidden in properties too.

[Luke 37271]

is there an xbmc convention for this? we could always adopt that too

[Lighthammer 80]

Honestly, if we were going to talk conventions, I would suggest using the Linux established convention.

Folders with leading periods should simply be ignored.

Example of folder added to database:

Star Trek - The Next Generation 

 

Example of folder ignored (note the period in front)

.Star Trek - The Next Generation 

 

Here's a reference for those looking for more info:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/107934/how-can-i-make-a-hidden-file-folder

Edited August 9, 2014 by Lighthammer

[AdrianW 1053]

When I mentioned a file named .ignore I meant that should be the entire filename - i.e. "ignore" is the file extension.

[Lighthammer 80]

IE "redact.ignore" ?

Also, have you tried this and confirmed it working or just suggesting it should work ?

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

IE "redact.ignore" ?

Also, have you tried this and confirmed it working or just suggesting it should work ?

 

There is no filename technically. The entire file would be ".ignore". It is just like the Linux dot file convention.

 

Windows won't actually allow you to create these in File Explorer. You need to use a text editor like notepad++ to create them because File Explorer requires a filename not just an extension. Once created the Windows kernel handles them properly though.

[AdrianW 1053]

IE "redact.ignore" ?

Also, have you tried this and confirmed it working or just suggesting it should work ?

 

I actually meant the entire file name is just ".ignore" (i.e a blank file name with "ignore" as the extension).

 

I just tried this and it does work - MB ignores the folder entirely.

 

This method was used in MB2 and it's obviously been brought over to MB3 as well.

 

You can create one of these files by opening notepad and saving the blank document and just type ".ignore" as the filename and change "Save as type:" to "All files (*.*)".

 

-edit-

Beaten by Wayne Luke 

Edited August 9, 2014 by AdrianW

[Lighthammer 80]

Ok, so I got an additional question here about the functionality. 

 

Do I need to stick .ignore in EACH folder I want ignored or can I stick .ignore in the TOP folder I want ignored allowing allow child/sub folders to be ignored too?

I conveniently have my collections organized as such that anything I wouldn't want to show up (which is usually nested inside other stuff, IE Series Extras) already have their own folders independent from series folders. But in many cases I have other folders inside those I also want ignored. 

 

The results I'm getting (and mind everyone, I'm doing a full rescan because of a lot of recent structure changes; PS kudos to the data engine --- it's pretty sturdy all things considered) seem to be making me think each and every folder I want ignored needs that file. I'm just not getting the results I am expecting unless their is a hidden option to deal with this identifier some where. Alternatively, I wonder if those of you who said they weren't sure if it was still inn and tried it may have upgraded from MB2 to MB3 and some functionality carried over as a result?

I should also note that I am tossing this file into folders that are already indexed and I wonder if that causes them to remain seen even though the setup I am using leads me to believe I shouldn't be seeing them.

I hope that's clear enough! Pardon me for some rambling!

Edited August 11, 2014 by Lighthammer

[AdrianW 1053]

The PC I tested it on was a brand new install of MB3 with no trace of MB2.

 

I'd added a movie recently - and it appeared on the server, I then added the .ignore file and re-scanned and the movie disappeared. Deleting the .ignore file and re-scanning made i re-appear again. So, it's definitely working in MB3 for individual folders, but I haven't tried it for nested folders.

[Lighthammer 80]

Ok, I'll have to see what happens when all the rescanning is done.

 

Notably things are a mess right now because of changing brackets around.

Do you know about the nesting issue I asked about ?

 

Thanks for the verification. 

[Lighthammer 80]

As a follow up, this is certainly a bug:

 

The .ignore function seems to be really hit or miss the more media you have active.

 

It seems like having .ignore in the a top level folder will SOMETIMES ignore the bottom level stuff, sometimes you need .ignore in each folder you physically want ignored and sometimes it doesn't work at all.

It seems like while scanning is going on, all bets all are off, though I haven't been able to completely nail down weather it normalizes with sub-sequential scans. 

For instance, I just added ~3,000 songs across ~240 folders back into library after cleaning them and making sure all other albums currently in the system were properly recognizes, identified and ignored if I wanted them to be ignored. Of those, I've spotted Of those there ~46 albums I flagged with .ignore inside a folder named [Not Albums] (they are remixes, EPs, LPs or other files, that ilk) and there is a .ignore file in each one of the subfolders. Essentially no folder root I want ignored doesn't have a .ignore in it.

I've spotted at least 20 of those albums indexed and live on Media Browser. 

I know I've read some commentary that suggests to me music hasn't been the primary focus of the project to date and may not be currently. I wonder if there are some bugs being caused by code in various stages of completition? 

[ebr 14960]

This is probably specific to music and is related to the fact that we changed the scanning of music a while back from top-down (how most everything else is scanned) to bottom-up.  Therefore, when discovering your music, we are seeing the bottom level before the upper ones and, thus, not seeing the .ignore.

[Lighthammer 80]

Thanks for the confirmation. That makes sense. 

[Luke 37271]

Actually it's only metadata refreshing that is bottom up. The detection process is still top down.

 

The .ignore convention is something we don't hear about users utilizing all that often. It has possibly not been tested in a while, so I'm guessing something has just been lost along the way.