View media library as sorted in file system

[c3r 0]

Hello,

 

I just tried Emby and installed it on my WIndows desktop machine. What I tried seems to work, but I am missing something: I did not find a view where I can browse my library like I do with the Windows file manager. E.g. I have a folder "series" where each series has it own folder and each season is putted in its own folder too. Is there any navigation point or setting that i did not find yet? The tagging system seems not very useful for me yet.

 

Best regards

[Happy2Play 9781]

Have you looked at the "View Styles" in User Preferences?  Click the user icon in top right corner-Home Screen Settings-View Styles

[c3r 0]

Thank you very much! That solved my problem. Though not very intuitive to find.

[rrrn 3]

How did that solve your problem? I'm also trying to get Emby to recognize menu sub-libraries based on Windows folder structures. I went into the "View Styles" area as Happy2Play suggested and unchecked the box next to my "Documentaries" library. Emby now displays each sub-folder as a single box, but still thinks each folder is a show, not a sub-category of the parent library. For example, I have a "Documentaries" folder with "Science" and "History" sub-folders. The server downloaded metadata for the "Science" folder, thinking it was "Mystery Science Theater". The "Horizon" and "Wormhole" documentaries in my "Science" sub-folder were listed as seasons within "Mystery Science Theater". 

Media Browser 2 was able to automatically recognize a sub-folder that didn't contain a media file as a sub-category of the parent library. Emby (server or Theater) doesn't seem able to do this. What am I missing?

[ebr 16184]

How did that solve your problem? I'm also trying to get Emby to recognize menu sub-libraries based on Windows folder structures. I went into the "View Styles" area as Happy2Play suggested and unchecked the box next to my "Documentaries" library. Emby now displays each sub-folder as a single box, but still thinks each folder is a show, not a sub-category of the parent library. For example, I have a "Documentaries" folder with "Science" and "History" sub-folders. The server downloaded metadata for the "Science" folder, thinking it was "Mystery Science Theater". The "Horizon" and "Wormhole" documentaries in my "Science" sub-folder were listed as seasons within "Mystery Science Theater". 

Media Browser 2 was able to automatically recognize a sub-folder that didn't contain a media file as a sub-category of the parent library. Emby (server or Theater) doesn't seem able to do this. What am I missing?

 

If you want sub-folders inside a TV library, I believe you will have to define that library as "Mixed Content".

 

Then, in the user settings as mentioned above, you will want to disable the "Enhanced Presentation" for those libraries.

[rrrn 3]

I deleted my libraries and created  "Docu"  as a new "mixed content" library. I pointed it to the documentaries folder, which contains Food, Science and History sub-folders after deleting all of the metadata from all of the folders. I did a re-scan of the library and it downloaded the metadata. It still thinks the science sub-folder is a show called "Mystery Science Theater", and Horizon and Wormhole are the names of seasons inside that show. It also thinks my History sub-folder is a show called "Drunk History". I've disabled the "Enhanced Presentation" so each folder is a single image, but Emby is still mistaking sub-folders for media content folders. 

[Luke 42079]

Please give specific examples including screenshots of both the apps and folders. Also, please refer to our naming wiki:

 

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki

 

the wiki lists what is officially supported. Please keep in mind, the more you deviate away from supported naming guidelines, the more side effects and quirks you can expect to encounter. If you need true plain folders, then home videos will be your best bet.

[rrrn 3]

I re-read the wiki, and the only thing I found that referenced using subfolders was the following section:

 

 

The above text recommends that I combine multiple sub-folders into one library. It says nothing about displaying sub-folders as sub-sections in a library. Are multi-level libraries even possible in Emby like they were in MB 2? Here are some screenshots of what's happening:

 

 

This is my folder structure. I'm sure my naming conventions are OK because Emby downloads all metadata perfectly when I get rid of the subfolders and put all 6 programs into the documentaries folder. I should also mention that I use the movies.xml format for metadata, not the nfo format. I made the changes in Emby for xml and it works fine. My problem is with subfolders, not metadata.

 

 

 

I create a TV type library and scan it.

 

 

When I open Theater, I see that Emby server thinks the subfolders are TV shows and labels them as such.

 

 

When I go into what should be the "Science" sub-folder, I instead go into the "Mystery Science Theater" show. Horizon and Wormhole are listed as seasons instead of the programs they are.

 

 

When I go into the Wormhole "season" it displays metadata for Mystery Science Theater.

 

Does Emby support multi-level sub-menus? If so, what am I doing wrong? I'm looking forward to moving my main content over from Media Browser 2, but I have a complex library structure with lots of subfolders. Thanks for your help.

[Luke 42079]

The difference is that MB2 had a much smaller feature set. Emby has a much larger feature set and it's very easy for conflicts to arise that prevent automatic detection. So that's why we have documented structures for each content type. Your best bet is probably home videos but then you'll lose support for internet metadata. If you really want a complex structure along with internet metadata, then you're going to have to go with the unset content type, and then follow the above wiki and specify the content types at various levels of your tree.

[c3r 0]

Note: I unchecked this checkbox (to find under the user settings --> "Home screen settings"):

 

Now if I go to the Homescreen and click on the only entry under "My Media" ("Videos") I see the folders of my file system and can browse through. My library consists of two folders, each stored in its own harddrive. Emby merges these two folders to one view.

 

My library settings:

 

I am happy now and I do not have another, more complex scenario yet. I turned off the feature to get the metadata from the internet before.

 

@@rrrn Hope that could help you somehow

[ebr 16184]

The second example you pasted from the Wiki is your situation.

 

Define your "Documentaries" as an unset library and then use the metadata manager to set the content type of "Food", "History" and "Science" to TV.

[rrrn 3]

@@ebr - I had defined "Documentaries" as an unset library, but had no idea that I could set the data type of sub-folders. Once I set them to TV, the problem went away. Emby sees them as folders and everything works as it should. I thought the second example in the wiki was describing how to merge individual shows from multiple folders into a single library, and had nothing to do with the problem I was having. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

@@c3r - Thanks for the reply. Unchecking the "View Styles" box got me half way there, but you were having a different problem with sub-folders than I was. I see now that you wanted to combine multiple Windows folders into a single library, while I wanted to view multiple Windows folders as sub-divisions inside a single library.

[Kamold 1]

I have the same issue as rrrn.

My prefered folder structure which I've been using for years just totally confuses Emby now.

 

\TV

   \Comedy

        \Arrested Development

             \Season 1\Title s01e01.x

   \Drama

       \Vikings

           \Season 1\Vikings s01e01.x  etc..

 

 

This used to mean that I could select TV Series from the EHS, then be presented with my categories list eg Anime, Comedy, Drama, Horror etc, select a category and then on the next page get a list of series.  Select a series, get a list of seasons on the following page etc.

This makes for a logical, easy to navigate library of media rather than an endless list of unrelated TV Series.

 

Is it possible to reintroduce this?  The more I try to manually force the metadata manager to try and accede to my will, the more it seems to break it...I end up with all sorts of metadata weirdness where before there was none..

[ebr 16184]

I have the same issue as rrrn.

My prefered folder structure which I've been using for years just totally confuses Emby now.

 

\TV

   \Comedy

        \Arrested Development

             \Season 1\Title s01e01.x

   \Drama

       \Vikings

           \Season 1\Vikings s01e01.x  etc..

 

 

This used to mean that I could select TV Series from the EHS, then be presented with my categories list eg Anime, Comedy, Drama, Horror etc, select a category and then on the next page get a list of series.  Select a series, get a list of seasons on the following page etc.

This makes for a logical, easy to navigate library of media rather than an endless list of unrelated TV Series.

 

Is it possible to reintroduce this?  The more I try to manually force the metadata manager to try and accede to my will, the more it seems to break it...I end up with all sorts of metadata weirdness where before there was none..

 

Did you do exactly what he did which solved his problem...?

[Kamold 1]

I tried the approach of removing my libraries, then creating them again.

Eg I created a library called Documentaries, set type to unset.  Then added the subfolders to the library eg nature, sport etc.

 

Then when I go into the metadata manager, under Documentaries, there are no folders reflecting my structure, just the full collapsed list of individual shows, so I can't go and set the type to TV for them all.

Clearly I am doing something wrong, or I have so confused the metadata manager by trying to bend it to my will that I've broken it..any suggestions would be gladly accepted

 

Edited May 3, 2016 by Kamold

[rrrn 3]

@@Kamold,

 

When you create your library, the drive path you enter should point to the main (Documentaries) folder on your hard drive, not the sub-folders.  If you do that, it should look like the screenshot below.

 

 

Here's what I did, step by step:

Create your main folder on your hard drive, and your sub-folders (Nature, Sports, ect) inside your main folder.

Put your shows into the sub-folders.

In Emby Server create your Documentaries library with the Unset content type and point it to your main folder on the hard drive.

Go into the Metadata Manager on the Emby server. The Nature and Sports sub-folders should be listed under the Documentaries library as my Food, Science and History are in the above screenshot.

With each sub-folder highlighted, change the content type of the sub-folder from "inherited" to "TV" (or "Movies" if the folder will contain content without season sub-folders inside it). That's the part that I didn't know about.

If you do the above, you'll lose your "Enhanced View" for that library (You won't have the "Favorites", "Upcoming", "Next Up", divisions for your media), but you'll have sub-folders that act like traditional sub-folders. Mine looks like the screenshot below - 

 

 

I put a folder.jpg image file in each sub-folder to get the images. Otherwise you'll get a blank box with the name of the folder in it.

 

Don't forget to un-check the "View Styles" box in the user settings section as was discussed earlier in this thread. I found that you have to do this for EVERY "Unset" library you create, or Emby gets confused and displays the libraries incorrectly. If you want the Enhanced View on some libraries and sub-folders on others, create libraries with TV or Movie content types and check the "View Styles" boxes for ONLY those libraries.

Edited May 3, 2016 by rrrn

[Luke 42079]

You can only set something to content type TV if it is following the naming guide for TV libraries. If this is not the case then it's best to leave it all as unset or just home videos.

[ebr 16184]

Eg I created a library called Documentaries, set type to unset.  Then added the subfolders to the library eg nature, sport etc.

 

Yeah, that was your problem.  Your library should have had one location - the parent "Documentaries" folder.

[Kamold 1]

Thank you all for your help!!

 

Following your steps @@rrrn I was able to get back to the behaviour I was seeking, and MPC now displays my categories correctly.