Organise your music with Rhythmbox File Organizer

Basically this is a short plug for my Rhythmbox Plugin, Fileorganizer. The plugin Supports all the latest versions of Rhythmbox in current distros.

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Fileorganizer is a Rhythmbox Plugin that will move and rename files according to your tags and then update the database so you don’t lose your ratings and play counts.

Don’t waste your time organising your music collection before you get to actually enjoy your music. With Fileorganizer as long as your tags are right it will do the rest!

## ABOUT FILEORGANIZER ##

Do you have thousands of files all over your drives with no sense of rhyme or reason?
Ever use an external tagging program and move or change your file and folder names?
Do you manually name and move your music into your library?

When you move files in an external program it doesn’t update your Rhythmbox database for you. This means they become ‘missing’ and you lose everything unless you edit your database manually or put them back! 🙁

Dealing with new music in your carefully organised file structure can be a real pain and take a lot of time to manage.

That’s where this plugin steps in!
* Open up Rhythmbox.
* Set your tags
* Right click on the files and select ‘Organize Selection’
* Fileorganizer moves your files and updates the database for you all in one action!
* 🙂

To install the plugin, simply double-click the INSTALL file.
To unsinstall run the UNINSTALL file.

If you want to install manually, extract to the following directory:
 * $HOME/.loal/share/rhythmbox/plugins/fileorganizer-gtk3/

## USAGE & MAIN FEATURES ##

This plugin is pretty simple but it has a few complicated features under the hood.

Once the plugin is installed, simply enable it in Rhythmbox. A restart of rhythmbox will be required to detect the plugin if it was open when you installed.

When the plugin is enabled, you will notice an option in the right-click menu of music items (like songs) that will read ‘Organize selection’. Clicking this will organize the selected files following a defined structure (see 3. Configuration and customisation) for both folders and filenames. Thats all there is to it.

## OTHER FEATURES ##

Intelligent duplicate backup:
 * When two songs have the same name, the plugin moves the file to a backup directory.
 * If you lose a file, you’ll probably in a folder named ‘backup’ in the root of your music library.

Move all non music files with your music:
 * When enabled, Fiileorganizer will move files like text files and pictures with that music file.
 * This is great for keeping all files organised, not just music.

Import cover art into the Rhythmbox cache:
 * When enabled, the plugin will import cover art that it finds in the music folder.
 * The default cache location is: $HOME/.cache/rhythmbox/covers/

Log file for all actions:
 * The log file is an invaluable tool to see what happens when running fileorganizer.
 * By default this file is hidden in your home folder: $HOME/.fileorganizer.log

## CONFIGURATION AND CUSTOMISATION ##

The output when running ‘Organize Selection’ is set from dconf-editor using default Rhythmbox settings:
 * org.gnome.rhythmbox.library/layout-filename (Is the filename for your output)
 * org.gnome.rhythmbox.library/layout-path (Is the folder path for your output)
 * org.gnome.rhythmbox.rhythmdb/locations (Is your library path)

Using these, your final output becomes:
 * library + layout-path + layout-filename

The Locations setting can actually be multiple locations, the first value is always taken by the plugin.

The Variables for layout_path and layout_filename follow the same values as rhythmbox:
 * %at — album title
 * %aa — album artist (Album artist will use track artist if it does not exist)
 * %aA — album artist (lowercase)
 * %as — album artist sortname
 * %aS — album artist sortname (lowercase)
 * %ay — album release year
 * %an — album disc number
 * %aN — album disc number, zero padded
 * %ag — album genre
 * %aG — album genre (lowercase)
 * %tn — track number (i.e 8 )
 * %tN — track number, zero padded (i.e o8 )
 * %tt — track title
 * %ta — track artist
 * %tA — track artist (lowercase)

## COMPILATION SUPPORT ##

Fileorganizer will use the album artist tag which is a part of rhythmbox and replace the artist field. For example:
 * Path: /music/$artist/$year $album/$disc-$track – $title
 * Input: /music/new/spawn soundtrack/01 – filter & the crystal method – trip like i do.mp3
 * Set Album Artist to ‘Various’ in Rhythmbox.
 * Output: /music/Various/1997 Spawn/1-01 – Can’t You (Trip Like I Do).mp3

## PLUGIN PREFERENCES WINDOW ##

The preferences window gives you the ability to switch features on or off. The ‘Enabled’ check boxes will obviously disable these features.

Log File:
 * Set the filename of the log file (stored in your home folder)

Import Cover Art
 * List of coverart filenames that if found are imported to the rhythmbox cover cache for that album

File/Folder Cleanup
 * If enabled, files within the same folder that aren’t music files are moved as well

Remove Empty Folders
 * If the source folder is empty after moving, delete the folder

## FINAL THOUGHTS ##

I use this plugin all the time to maintain my music library and was the whole reason I took over maintenance. (Selfish I know 😉 ) I’d really like to spread the word about it becuase this plugin cuts down on the work I have to do by sooooo much that i can’t help but get excited about it.

Nerdy yes, but I’m just glad i can help out others.