Forcing foobar to use relative paths in playlists

2016-10-11 19:13:52

Hi,

I've recently decided to move my entire Music library to Dropbox, and since I'm a big fan of chiptune formats, I decided to put a portable foobar installation in Dropbox as well, with all the components set up, so that I have a consistent configuration across computers, and to have all computers have teh same playlists (unfortunately I can only use foobar playlists... m3u doesn't work with certain chiptune formats like SID and NSF). I configured foobar to use the Music directory in Dropbox as the media library. Foobar correctly stores it as a relative file. So far so good

When creating playlists, I first started by using the Media library to select the music I want and add it to the playlist. I assumed that foobar would be smart enough to use relative paths here. Unfortunately it doesn't, and the playlists don't work on other machines that may have different absolute paths. So the workaround I used for this is to use auto-playlists. This works perfectly.

I have one particular use-case I couldn't quite figure out though. I have a huge playlist full of random music (SID collection, for example), and what I like to do sometimes is play this big playlists, find the music I like, and selective pick them and put them in a separate "Favorites" playlists (via drag and drop, or copy paste). This playlist unfortunately seems to use absolute paths. Is there a way I can have it use relative paths, so that it would work across computers?

Re: Forcing foobar to use relative paths in playlists

Reply #1 – 2016-10-11 19:17:43

Currently, the playlist files only have relative paths if the playlist file is saved in the same directory as the files, or at a directory above the files, but still on the same drive letter.

If you want the app itself to save relative paths internally, you'll need to use a Portable version, and you'll probably need to move the portable install inside the directory with your music files.

Re: Forcing foobar to use relative paths in playlists

Reply #2 – 2016-10-11 19:37:03

I currently have this directory structure:

My Foobar portable installation is located at
Dropbox/PortableApps/Foobar

My Music (including saved playlists) are located at
Dropbox/Music

Therefore they both share a top level directory accross all computers. This should work according to your explaination right?

In the meantime I'll try putting the foobar directory in Dropbox/Music somewhere.. hopefully that'll work.

Re: Forcing foobar to use relative paths in playlists

Reply #3 – 2016-10-12 19:19:54

I moved my foobar directory to

Dropbox/Music/Foobar

And updated my library settings.

It's now working! Thank you very much, you're the best!

relative path

Reply #4 – 2017-04-14 15:10:23

I am newbie to Foobar2000.  A lot for me to learn here...  The subject you are talking about is what's baffling me now...

I installed Foobar2000 on one laptop.  playlist files are kept at C:\Users\Jay\AppData\Roaming\foobar2000\playlists-v1.3  whereas the music library is located at C:\Users\Jay\Documents\foobar music\.  How can I move the playlist files to the the same directory as the library?  I've had over 120 playlists and they are important to me.  I realize that I may lose all of them after I move Foobar2000 to a different laptop if the folder structures are different.

Hope there is a way for me to handle this...  Many thanks!  Jay