Folder that contains Collections

[dtc]

Unfortunately, my main disk drive froze and I had to replace it. I have  a copy of the folder that has the collections, but it is was in a non-standard location. So, two questions. First, where should I put the folder for VS to see it automatically. And, second, how can I tell VS to use  a non-standard local. I must have done this once, but do not remember the details. Fortunately, I had 2 copies of all the music files on other external discs, so I have all the music. All I have to do it get the collection data recognized and I should be back in business.

Thanks.

[dtc]

OK - some sort of magic happened. I open VS and now it knows where my collections are stored. No idea how. It asked me to create a new collection, but I backed out of that dialog since I did not want to create anything new.  Now, VS knows where my collections are. Somewhat of a mystery, but I am good to go!

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Magic indeed, because I don't know either.

For the record, you can go Menu -> File -> Open Collection to open a collection that's located anywhere on your machine.  You just need to know where it is, and you can probably track it down by searching for .mcf files in Explorer.  Those are the files you need to open (there's one per collection) to access that collection.  VinylStudio knows where everything else is from there.

[dtc]

Thanks Paul. Not sure what happened, but it works.  I think the issue is that this was a new install and there is no option to connect to an existing collection folder for a new install.  An option to set the location for the collections folder would be nice going forward. But I am good to go. Fortunately, my backup systems seems to have worked and I do not think I lost anything of importance. And the advantage of a completely new install of the OS and everything else is that it gets rid of all the junk that I have accumulated over the past 5 years on the system drive. Thanks again, as always.

Tom

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi Tom,

Yes, I agree with you, and it's something we've been meaning to do something about but you know how these things go.  What I think we should do (and I'll take this more seriously now) is to offer two options after a new install:

  - Create new collection (which would be the default)

  - Open existing collection (which would be another button in the same dialog)

Then it will be clear what to do for people like you.

You can open an existing collection now, but you have to cancel out of the 'create' dialog and then go through the menu in the way I described.  This is not exactly intuitive and we really should change it, because someone might just get confused and end up deleting their existing collection.  That's never actually happened, but we would not be very popular if it did so thanks for the prod.

[dtc]

Thanks Paul. Obviously I am OK now, but I like your suggestion- when you have some extra time Hopefully my new disk is good for another 5 years, so no rush.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

No, I think we should change it.  It's a bit silly as it is and it would be very little work, so I've put in on the list for the next release.  I might get it in there, and I might not.  There's no great rush to get an update out, so I should be able to.  I just like working late at night.  It suits me and I get a lot done.  It annoys my partner a bit but she can cope, and we have an agreement that I don't do actual programming.  If I did, it would surely do me in.  You can only do it when you're fresh.

So I'll do it if I can, but I'm not promising - Paul.

[dtc]

Thanks Paul.