Library

In this chapter, you will learn how to use the library part of mAirListDB to add and manage playlist items in your database.

The library part of mAirListDB can be found on the Library tab in the database application.

Library View

The library window consists of two parts:

• A tree-like structure to navigate through the library (on the left-hand side), and
• the list of items, with various columns (on the right hand side).

Overall, the library window works pretty much like Windows Explorer, with folders (and more) on the left-hand side, and items on the right hand side.

Library Tree

The tree structure on the left-hand side consists of the following nodes, most of which can be expanded to access additional sub-nodes or filters:

• Folders: Expand to see and manage the virtual folders and the items assigned to them. See below for more information on virtual folders.
• Artists: When you expand this, you see an auto-generated list of all artists of which there are items in the database. Clicking an artist will show all items of that artist in the item list.
• Types: Expand to see a list of available item types (e.g. music, jingles, etc.), and click a type to filter the items by that type.
• Attributes: This contains a list of all attributes (keys) assigned to any item. Further expanding an attribute will show all values that are used in any item, and clicking a value will filter the item list by this key and value.
• Storages: Expand to see a list of all storages set up in the configuration, and click a storage to filter all items by that storage.
• Advertising: This provides quick filters to access all items of type “advertising”, optionally filtered by campaign.
• Everything: As the name suggests, this will just load the entire list of items into the item list on the right-hand side.

The current view can be refreshed at any time by hitting the F5 key.

Search

In the lower left corner, there is a search box where you can search the library for specific terms. Enter a search term and press Return to start the search.

Clicking the magnifier glass icon in the search box will open a popup menu with additional options:

• You can choose whether to search the entire library, or just filter the current view (e.g. the folder you navigated to in the tree).
• You can limit the search to specific fields, e.g. artist or title.
• When Full Text Search is enabled, mAirList will return all items that contain the search term anywhere in the included fields. Turning this off will only include items which contain the term at the beginning of the fields, which can speed up the search significantly, due to the use of SQL indexes.
• The Advanced Search option toggles how the search deals with multiple search terms (separated by spaces). With Advanced Search turned on, the search will return all items which contain all of the search terms, in any fields. With the option turned off, search will look for the exact term, as entered, in any included field.

Managing Folders

Adding Items

This section covers the process of adding audio files to your library, by defining storages and then using either synchronization or file import.

Manage Storages

Before audio files can be added to the library, one or more storages must be defined in the database settings. This is done in the Database app: Go to Administration -> Configuration and switch to the Storages tab.

A storage is basically a Windows folder, which can either be a folder on your local hard drive, or on a network share.

Future versions of mAirList may offer additional storage options besides Windows folders, this is why the more general term “storage” is being used.

As soon as a Windows folder is registered as a storage, all audio files in that folder, including all subfolders, will become part of the database library.

Audio files in the storage folders can be added to the library in one of two ways:

• Synchronization: mAirList will scan the storage folder for new files, and create items in the library for them. The original audio files will remain untouched. This is perfect when migrating from another software (you can add your existing audio folder as a storage, and have mAirList synchronize/scan it), or if you plan to manage the audio files in a clean file system structure on your own (somewith we actually encourage you todo).

• File Import: Alternatively, mAirList can copy new files into the storage folder, and create the item in the library at the same time. This is what happens when you e.g. drag files into the database app with the mouse.

More details about these two methods can be found in the sections below.

Generally, we recommend that you use separate storages for your different types of audio. A common structure for new libraries would be using three separate storages for music, jingles and advertising:

• C:\Audio\Music
• C:\Audio\Jingles
• C:\Audio\Advertising

The advantage is that mAirList remembers some preferences (e.g. the last item type set in the Synchronize dialog) on a per-storage basis.

Add Storage

To add a storage, click the Add button, and the Edit Storage dialog appears. The required fields are:

• Name: Enter a name for the storage. This will be used in menus etc.
• Default location: This is the Windows folder that will be used for the storage.

Hint: The Name field is populated automatically with the folder name when you select the default location, and no name has been entered yet.

The three other settings - Redirect to, Backup location and Cache location refer to Storage Redirection. They cannot be edited from here, but only from the database connection properties in the configuration app or Control Panel. See the section on Storage Redirection below.

Edit Storage

Clicking the Edit button will bring up the Edit Storage dialog again, where you can change the name and/or default location for an existing storage.

It is easily possible to move a (Windows) storage folder to a new location, e.g. from a local hard disk to a network share, and then edit the storage location here (and restart all mAirList instances).

This works because mAirList does not store the absolute path for the audio items, but only the numeric ID of the storage, plus the relative path within the storage folder. Just make sure that you move the storage folder as a whole.

Remove Storage

Before a storage can be removed, all of its items must be deleted from the library first. Then click Remove in order to remove the storage from the configuration. Again, you must restart all mAirList processes to reflect the change.

Storage Redirection

In a typical SQL-based multi-computer setup, audio files usually reside on network shares, and each mAirList computer in the LAN has direct access to the files, either via an UCP path (\\server\share) or a mapped drive letter, using the Default Location set up in the storage configuration.

There are situation however where a particular computer must use a different path to access the file, for example when the UNC path used for the default location is not available on that part of the network, or a different drive letter is used for the mapped network drive.

Another common situation is that there are particular computers that maintain a synchronized copy of all audio files on their local hard disk, so they can keep on playing even if the file server should have a temporary failure.

This is where Storage Redirection comes into play. It allows you to modify the path used to access a particular storage, as well as setting up alternative paths where mAirList should look for the audio files.

As this is a per-computer setting, these settings must be accessed over the configuration app (or live configuration) on the particular computer. You can find them on the Storage Redirection tab of the database connection properties dialog.

To adjust storage redirection, you must first click the button to retrieve a list of available storages. Then double-click a storage to edit it.

The dialog that appears is the same as the one from the storage configuration in the database app (see above); but this time, you can only edit the following settings:

• Redirect to: If a path is entered here, mAirList will always use this path to access files on this storage. Leave empty to use the default location set in the storage configuration.
• Backup location: If a path is entered here, and a file cannot be found in the default location (or the default location is not available, e.g. because of a server outage), mAirList will look in this folder instead. Use this when you have a synchronized copy of the storage folder on your local hard disk, and you want to use this as a backup for the default location.
• Cache location: This is pretty much like backup location, however, mAirList will first try to access the file in the local “cache” directory, and only use the one from the default location if the file doesn’t exist in the cache (or the file size or modification date differs).

Note that, when making changes through the live configuration (Control Panel), they will only become active after you restart mAirList or reconnect the database.

You can verify that backup and/or cache location has been configured correctly by looking at the values on the Audio File tab in the item properties dialog - the backup and cache filename fields should be populated with the correct values.

Synchronizing Storages

Synchronization is one of two ways to add new audio files to (and remove obsolete files from) the database. It involves the following steps:

1. Retrieve a list of audio files currently known to the database.
2. Scan the storage folder recursively, make a list of audio files found in the folder.
3. Compare these two lists, to find out which files are “new” and which are “missing” (obsolete).
4. Create items in the database for all “new” files.
5. Remote items from the database for all “missing” files.

Synchronization is a suitable approach when you intend to manage the audio files in your Windows folders manually (first copy to Windows folder, then add to database), or when you want to add an existing audio library to the mAirList database library.

To perform synchronization, go to the database app, Library tab, then click Synchronize and select the storage you want to synchronize from the dropdown menu.

mAirList will now retrieve the list of files currently known to the database, and scan the Windows folder for audio files (steps 1 and 2 from the list above). When finished, the Synchronize Storage dialog appears.

On the left hand side, you see the list of new audio files that have been discovered in the storage folder, not yet known to the database. On the right hand side, there is a list of missing files - those that are registered in the database, but that cannot be found in the storage folder anymore.

Add New Files

When the dialog appears, all new files on the left hand side are selected by default. You can hold Shift or Control and use the left mouse button to (de-)select ranges or individual files that you are going to add in this run.

Before you start with the import, adjust the Import Options according to your requirements:

• Disable Auto Cue: This will disable the Auto Cue feature, not setting any cue markers (Cue In, Fade Out, Cue Out) automatically. Useful when reporting advertising etc.
• Add to folder: Select the (virtual library) folder to which the new items should be added.
• Preserve folder structure: If checked, mAirList will create subfolders in the selected (virtual) folder, and add items automatically to these subfolders, replicating the folder structure of the (Windows) storage folder.
• Set type to: Select the desired type for the newly added items, e.g. Music or Jingle.

When ready, click Import Selected Files, and mAirList will create library items for all selected files, removing them from the left-hand list.

Remove Items for Missing Files

The right hand-list in the Synchronize Storage dialog shows a list of “missing” files, i.e. those that have been imported into the database earlier, but are no longer (physically) present in the storage folder. This is typically the case when you have (deliberately) deleted some audio files in your storage, and now want to remove the items from the database as well.

By clicking the Delete Selected Items button, you can remove the library items (datasets) associated with these missing files.

Again, all items are selected by default, and you can use Ctrl or Shift and the mouse to select individual files or ranges of files.

Fix Renamed Files

As said earlier, you should never rename (or move) any files once they have been synchronized into the database. If you do, the renamed file will appear twice in the Synchronize Storage dialog: Once under its old name (as missing, on the right hand side), and once under its new name (as new, on the left hand side).

If it ever happens that you renamed a file, and what to fix the filename in the database library, select the new and the old filename (exactly one item from each list, left and right), then click Join Selected Entries. This will update the existing library item with the new filename.

If you batch renamed multiple files, you can use the Auto Repair function. It will look for files with similar names (you can adjust the “fuzziness” with the slider at the bottom of the dialog).

File Import

Adding Other Items

The database does not only manage audio file items, but also any other kind of playlist item available in mAirList, including streams, containers, dummy items, etc.

To add such an item to the library, navigate to the library folder that you want to store this item in, then click New Item in the toolbar, and select the appropriate item type. The item properties dialog will appear, where you can adjust the properties of the item, and as soon as you click OK, it will be added to the library and the folder you navigated to.

Managing Items