Windows Shortcuts in movie folders no longer working

[Deathsquirrel 745]

Simplest way I describe my need for shortcuts. I just added Batman v Superman. I want it in my movies folder, my son wants it in his Batman and his Superman folders. I've had to put a copy in each folder instead of just adding shortcuts.

 

You can save space and accomplish the same thing with junction points, just a heads up.  Personally I'd do it with collections or genres in Emby instead but if you want it to work exactly like you describe but without eating up 3X the space use junction points.

[pünktchen 1409]

And here's an easy tool to create junctions: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html

[LiquidFX 144]

Getting rid of features that a majority of the users like is a bad thing, getting rid of features that a small amount of the users like is a bad thing because ultimately we all want Emby to fit our specific needs. I liked being able to use the shortcuts mainly for TV shows because I never got around to doing anything with movies. Here is what my folder structure was like.

TV SHOWS> mine

                     wifes

                     mutal

 

That way we didnt have shows in our screens that we didnt actually watch. Now we just have the one account since the shortcuts no longer work.

[Luke 42077]

It's not so much that we wanted to drop it, it just became a casualty of something wise more important, and there's not enough people using this to justify us holding that other thing up. If there were more people using it then obviously we would have to reconsider.

 

Unrelated to this, we are always going to excitement with new features and if they don't gain traction then we may have to rethink them and focus our energies in places that will serve more people.

[colchar 10]

Do you have a metric for how many people are using it? Or is just feedback on the forums?

[Luke 42077]

Think of it this way. A large percentage of users nowadays run their apps at default settings. Now do the math on this particular one. It's limited to the windows server, it's not configurable in the ui, and has zero documentation, which by definition means that hardly anybody even knows about it.

 

We preserved it from the mb2 days as long as we could but now it needs to be reborn in a way that can be managed in the ui and will work on any operating system.

[ebr 16169]

Getting rid of features that a majority of the users like is a bad thing, getting rid of features that a small amount of the users like is a bad thing because ultimately we all want Emby to fit our specific needs. I liked being able to use the shortcuts mainly for TV shows because I never got around to doing anything with movies. Here is what my folder structure was like.

TV SHOWS> mine

                     wifes

                     mutal

 

That way we didnt have shows in our screens that we didnt actually watch. Now we just have the one account since the shortcuts no longer work.

 

1) You can still do this without shortcuts.  I do the exact same thing

 

2) If you feel you must use shortcuts, then you can use the junction points mentioned above.

[LiquidFX 144]

Download another piece of software to fix what was taken away from Emby...pointless

[ebr 16169]

Download another piece of software to fix what was taken away from Emby...pointless

 

No other software is required.

[bfir3 117]

mklink /j "Batman\Batman vs. Superman" "S:\Path\To\Movie\Batman vs. Superman (2016)"

mklink /j "Superman\Batman vs. Superman" "S:\Path\To\Movie\Batman vs. Superman (2016)"

[Deathsquirrel 745]

No other software is required.

 

Hah!  It requires WINDOWS!!!  Are you saying that's not software?!?

[Happy2Play 9780]

Hah!  It requires WINDOWS!!!  Are you saying that's not software?!?

For the post ebr was quoting the statement is true.

[colchar 10]

mklink /j "Batman\Batman vs. Superman" "S:\Path\To\Movie\Batman vs. Superman (2016)"

mklink /j "Superman\Batman vs. Superman" "S:\Path\To\Movie\Batman vs. Superman (2016)"

 

 

This doesn't work when all the drives are externally on a NAS.

[Deathsquirrel 745]

This doesn't work when all the drives are externally on a NAS.

 

You can use MKLINK to create junctions to network paths.  I have to imagine the results with NAS will vary by configuration but have no way to test as all my storage is in a file server.

[colchar 10]

You can use MKLINK to create junctions to network paths.  I have to imagine the results with NAS will vary by configuration but have no way to test as all my storage is in a file server.

 

When both paths are network paths it is not possible.

[Mustang Dave 5]

Luke... any word on when the new shortcut replacement feature that you mentioned will be available?

Edited August 24, 2016 by Mustang Dave

[Schar 4]

I've used links, even on my UNRAID domain joined servers where the content is on the other server. It does work, but doesn't meet all of my use cases. Rather than have logins / libraries like the above and physically move content about (I keep a folder of stuff "to watch next" for example, and stuff we "watch but is on hiatus" so that it is faster to get to what we are watching), I'd rather have a way of linking the content somehow but not result in duplicate items all over the place.

 

My suggestion about having tag-inclusive libraries (rather than rating-exclusive libarries) would meet the need. I could tag everything the kids are allowed to watch with "Kids", and create a TV and Movie library for them that only shows content that has been tagged. Similarly I could create a TV library for "Wife".... and yet still maintain viewing history for each user between the "Wife" and full "TV" folder.

 

Once my current contract finishes I may pull the code and see how feasible it is

Edited August 25, 2016 by Schar

[colchar 10]

I've used links, even on my UNRAID domain joined servers where the content is on the other server. It does work, but doesn't meet all of my use cases. Rather than have logins / libraries like the above and physically move content about (I keep a folder of stuff "to watch next" for example, and stuff we "watch but is on hiatus" so that it is faster to get to what we are watching), I'd rather have a way of linking the content somehow but not result in duplicate items all over the place.

 

My suggestion about having tag-inclusive libraries (rather than rating-exclusive libarries) would meet the need. I could tag everything the kids are allowed to watch with "Kids", and create a TV and Movie library for them that only shows content that has been tagged. Similarly I could create a TV library for "Wife".... and yet still maintain viewing history for each user between the "Wife" and full "TV" folder.

 

Once my current contract finishes I may pull the code and see how feasible it is

 

Unfortunately that doesn't help achieve what I need to achieve. I want to have Batman v Superman in my Movies folder, in my sons Batman folder and also his Superman folder. All I need is to be able to link from one location to the other. I have over 20tb of content and duplicating any of it to achieve what I want isn't ideal.

[Schar 4]

Sounds like a similar problem - are you Batman and Superman folders physical folders that are in the same library in emby or libraries in their own rights?

 

My current setup has movies in many locations (still using MB2). Example: "Wreck it Ralph" is in the main movie folder (library), my "favourites" folder, and my kids movies folder. Once place on disk and three different libraries. That is done with shortcuts, but I could achieve the same thing by having three different emby libraries all sourcing from the same disk location, but restricting the view based on tags. That way I can also content control the kids. They are not quite ready for Rambo and Die Hard (sad, but true).

[colchar 10]

Sounds like a similar problem - are you Batman and Superman folders physical folders that are in the same library in emby or libraries in their own rights?

 

My current setup has movies in many locations (still using MB2). Example: "Wreck it Ralph" is in the main movie folder (library), my "favourites" folder, and my kids movies folder. Once place on disk and three different libraries. That is done with shortcuts, but I could achieve the same thing by having three different emby libraries all sourcing from the same disk location, but restricting the view based on tags. That way I can also content control the kids. They are not quite ready for Rambo and Die Hard (sad, but true).

I can't achieve what I need that way. The batman folder is its own directory. My movies are just all in together. My son has a Comic folder, in there is a folder for every comic or super hero. So he wants Batman movies in there, it needs it to be a link. Lots of these movies have multiple characters in them, I used to have a link in each folder of any Movie a character appeared in. Now that's not possible.

[Mustang Dave 5]

colchar.... You are not alone... I do the same thing.  Cross linking them that way...  Plus I do it to create custom boxsets... Vampire, Werewolf, Zombies...etc...

[Schar 4]

Ah yes I was doing that too (custom boxsets). Wouldn't want a library per boxset though!

 

Nested "smart" views

[dcook 299]

The Windows Shortcut support needs to be restored, there was no reason to remove it, it was not hurting anything and makes it very easy to setup custom libraries.

[ebr 16169]

The Windows Shortcut support needs to be restored, there was no reason to remove it, it was not hurting anything and makes it very easy to setup custom libraries.

 

It was hurting a lot of things.

 

Won't junction points do the same thing for you at the OS level?

[colchar 10]

It was hurting a lot of things.

 

Won't junction points do the same thing for you at the OS level?

They don't work on network locations.