disable auto-saving of playlists at quit?, is it possible to disable playlists folder? Options

[gasmann]

Hi,

I 'installed' foobar2000 to an usb stick. I don't want it to save the open playlist every time I quit. Is there any way to disable this feature? To disable the whole management of the foobar2000\playlists folder?

Thanks in advance,
gasmann

[Squeller]

How about write protecting files?

[TheTravis]

Hi,

I 'installed' foobar2000 to an usb stick. I don't want it to save the open playlist every time I quit. Is there any way to disable this feature? To disable the whole management of the foobar2000\playlists folder?

Thanks in advance,
gasmann

Disconnect the usb stick before shutting down foobar, so no data can be saved on it.

[gasmann]

How about write protecting files?

It's not working. It just ignores it and saves anyway
EDIT: Sorry, I did something wrong when I tested it. It indeed works! (I set readonly flag to folder only and not to all files, that was my mistake! It's kind of working now (well there's a stupid error message when quitting foobar but apart from that it's ok).
So thanks

Disconnect the usb stick before shutting down foobar, so no data can be saved on it.

Well that's not really an option for me. At school we have Windows 2000 and the write cache is enabled so... If I don't safely remove the drive I'll lose data (and that only works if foobar is closed!)

Is there no way to really disable this feature?
Please help!

This post has been edited by gasmann: Oct 1 2006, 20:45

[chelrob]

How about write protecting files?

Version 0.9.4 brings up an annoying error message when you close foobar. Anybody know a workaround?

[Zonk]

Version 0.9.4 brings up an annoying error message when you close foobar. Anybody know a workaround?

Did this change with 0.9.5.5? Are there any plans to change this behaviour in future?
I like to have foobar on CD together with my audio-files but because of this i have to stay with 0.8.3.

[kode54]

Why is it so important that it not write to the playlist files? Worried about wearing out the flash chip?

[start78]

You can set "double-click action" in album list preferences (and facets prefs?) to "send to current playlist". That way you just "kill" your current plalist and no new file is written.

If you use just one playlist: just one playlist gets stored after closing f2k.
If you use tabbed playlists: all get stored but are deleted if you close the tab.

But if you set double click to "send to new playlist" each new playlist gets a new file (makes no sense if you don't use tabbed playlists). It's quite confusing if you are used to double-click just to get the selection to the playlist just like in winamp.

I don't know why the default action is "send to new playlist" (is it still?). It took me some time to find out the "trick" with the double-click action when i was new to f2k.

With "send to current playlist" there is no need to set "read only" flags.

[Zonk]

Why is it so important that it not write to the playlist files? Worried about wearing out the flash chip?

CD-ROM, no flash chip

You can set "double-click action" in album list preferences (and facets prefs?) to "send to current playlist". That way you just "kill" your current plalist and no new file is written.

Sorry, no difference .

The files in question are foobar2000.cfg, theme.fth, 00000001.fpl and index.dat.

Zonk

[start78]

Sorry, i missed the part that you want to use f2k from a cd-rom. Imho that makes no sense at all and f2k is definitely the wrong app for that purpose.

Why not use an usb-stick? More space, less damageable, more possibilities, easier to carry, longer lifetime, cheap enough, rewriteable, faster...

The newest version is XP/Vista only, so if you stick with CDs 0.8.3 is the better option compatibility-wise.

[gasmann]

Why is it that always when I ask for something, people start questioning whether it's useful? There apparently IS a reason why I want it, otherwise I wouldn't waste anyone's time asking.
To make you feel better, I see it as a bad point of foobar not allowing me to disable that "feature". Saving makes absolutely no sense on usb-stick because the drive letter changes from computer to computer, anyway. And yes, there are people like Zonk -- I completely understand that you want to have foobar on CD-ROM, why shouldn't one do that?
More possibilities are always good. I'm not saying auto-saving should be disabled altogether, then I would understand people's complaints -- I'm merely asking for an OPTION to turn it off.
That is a feature that can't be too hard to implement. And it would definitely be used, at least by Zonk and me.
I hope foobar will support it one day.

[Squeller]

Strange, nobody coming up with the obvious answer: "fb2k is not intended to be portable" and closing the thread...
I'd say the developer isn't interested in portability things. This is no accusal. I'm thinking this because, example, it has been demanded already years ago to make fb2k default to the windows primary output device, if none is chosen. This has never been adressed. Fb2k is pretty close to being portable.
Closed source App + No interest by developer = Write your own

[Ran Sagy]

Why is it that always when I ask for something, people start questioning whether it's useful? There apparently IS a reason why I want it, otherwise I wouldn't waste anyone's time asking.
To make you feel better, I see it as a bad point of foobar not allowing me to disable that "feature". Saving makes absolutely no sense on usb-stick because the drive letter changes from computer to computer, anyway. And yes, there are people like Zonk -- I completely understand that you want to have foobar on CD-ROM, why shouldn't one do that?
More possibilities are always good. I'm not saying auto-saving should be disabled altogether, then I would understand people's complaints -- I'm merely asking for an OPTION to turn it off.
That is a feature that can't be too hard to implement. And it would definitely be used, at least by Zonk and me.
I hope foobar will support it one day.

By remembering that when you create a public program, You go for the greater good. You add features that most people want, or that most people will benefit from. Serving every little whim by every user causes bloat. And then those very users complain about the software being slow, heavy on resources, etc.

Can't have your cake and leave it whole.

[Morfeus]

Squeller: well, AFAIK foobar is portable. Maybe not intentionally, but it is (just look at installation). And there is option to set Primary Sound Driver…

[gasmann]

Serving every little whim by every user causes bloat.

I don't know foobar's code, but I seriously doubt this option needs more than 50 lines of code to be implemented... maybe just 20. That's not an argument.

[Squeller]

Squeller: well, AFAIK foobar is portable. Maybe not intentionally, but it is (just look at installation). And there is option to set Primary Sound Driver…

Yes I know how portable it is. I was talking about fb2k to automatically default back to primary sound driver instead of leaving it empty (when on different machines). FB2K's media library can't work in a relatives paths mode. Just wanted to show some hints why I think Peter is simply not too interested.

[Morfeus]

squeller: about media library. You can try making batch file which mounts media library as new disk (SUBST command), runs foobar and then unmounts disk. In foobar you choose library path to the new disk (like R:)

about primary sound driver. Why don't you use always Primary Sound Driver? It shouldn't change as such driver is on almost all windows-enabled PCs…

[Ran Sagy]

Serving every little whim by every user causes bloat.

I don't know foobar's code, but I seriously doubt this option needs more than 50 lines of code to be implemented... maybe just 20. That's not an argument.

That's exactly WHY its an argument. 20 code lines per feature? how about 5? multiply that by the amount of feature request threads in this forum. What do you get now?

Price vs Performance.

[gasmann]

That's nothing but ridicolous! I would make the change myself if source code would be available... foobar 0.9.5.x is bloated, anyway, but not because of such minimalistic features, but because of the new gui. It has grown bigger a lot and I could just as well as you say the feature I want is unneeded that the new gui is unneeded; the old one worked as well.
That's insanity, we're not in 1990 anymore. Who cares about some bytes today? Noone but some very strange and seldom minimalists.

[Ran Sagy]

Like i said, Interest to many users vs interest to you.

Besides, Don't take my words harshly. I'm not the developer. I'm just stating my opinion.

Any developer would know better than to say "we have lots of RAM and HDD, lets not make optimized software".

[Canar]

The new UI represents a significant increase in usability while also remaining very lean. Many of the components that produced their own windows in 0.9.4 and earlier were converted over to UI elements that integrated right into the main UI.

I don't believe it represents significantly more bloat at all.

[Ran Sagy]

I sincerely believe that. As a user that started using foobar2000 only because of ColumnsUI back in 0.7 or so, I've been a solid Default UI fan for a long time before and after the new version was released due to how friendly on resources it usually is. The new Default UI is a major improvement, and i don't feel any bloat or significant increase in resource usage.

[gasmann]

It's okay, you won. I'm not going to argue with you, given that you're not even the developer. I'll try to hack the executable to skip the procedure of saving the playlists, it shouldn't be too difficult and I can learn something.
Thanks a lot.

[Zonk]

Version 0.9.4 brings up an annoying error message when you close foobar. Anybody know a workaround?

Did this change with 0.9.5.5? Are there any plans to change this behaviour in future?
I like to have foobar on CD together with my audio-files but because of this i have to stay with 0.8.3.

I was pleased to read about the "portable" installation of 0.9.6. But it still complains about not being able to write foobar2000.cfg, theme.fth, 00000001.fpl and index.dat.
Is there no way to get rid of these warnings?

[Zonk]

Version 0.9.4 brings up an annoying error message when you close foobar. Anybody know a workaround?

Did this change with 0.9.5.5? Are there any plans to change this behaviour in future?
I like to have foobar on CD together with my audio-files but because of this i have to stay with 0.8.3.

I was pleased to read about the "portable" installation of 0.9.6. But it still complains about not being able to write foobar2000.cfg, theme.fth, 00000001.fpl and index.dat.
Is there no way to get rid of these warnings?

Any news on this with 9.6.6?