Getting to the bottom of MediaBay 'Set up Results Column'/'Include...Subfolders' WEIRDNESS

I love MediaBay, but this mechanic always bugged me a little and could never wrap my head around what was going on.

I’ve now taken the time to figure it out.

Unfortunately I have to do this in multiple posts because of forum restrictions disallowing multiple pictures per post

The problem lays within two areas mostly I believe
1.) similar/dissimilar folder structures either mirroring or not mirroring changes to attribute columns
and
2.) ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’,

Let’s start with 1.) ( ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’ DISABLED)
TEST Mbay-a

As you can see, changing the attributes column for ‘Test 1’ mirrors to ‘Test 2’ but not ‘Test 3’ because ‘Test 3’ has an additional sub-folder/different structure.

Ideally, and logically, if this behaviour were to become more consistent, I think I would want to be able to have separate different attribute column setups for Test 1 and Test 2 and Test 3.

An argument could be made however, that for user workflow efficiency reasons, it might make more sense for them to mirror.

In that regard, I think the way to mediate that, would be to develop some new MediaBay features that give the user more control over this protocol:

  • If to mediate away from setup mirroring and instead have manual per-folder level user customization, then have a ‘Copy’ and ‘Paste’ Attribute Column Setups, AND OR, an Attribute Columns Setups preset menu.

  • If to mediate away from manual per-folder level user customization, then create a feature that allows to ‘Store’ or ‘Remember’ setups per folder level once they have it set the way they want.

or, you could just ignore all of that, and just let the user customize per-folder without these new features. imo, that would just be fine… but maybe some wouldn’t like it.

Please await posts 2 and 3 and maybe more below…

As you can see, this problem occurs with the more top level folders as well
TEST Mbay-b

I’m having trouble recreating the ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’ problems, they are maybe more intermittent. I’m pretty sure there is a bug where changing the columns in this mode affects unintended folders. Either way, the protocol here, bug or not, needs some improvement… which I will get to shortly in a following post…

I still haven’t been able to recreate the bug/problem I’m suspicious of, it’s fairly elusive or I’m just confused.

But I have figured out a way to display what is perhaps confusing about the ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’ protocol and what I think would be a better method.

What I’m figuring out with the current developed intention of this feature, is that it is essentially it’s own MediaBay-Global attribute column setup. Ie, it is a separate memory and setup regardless of whether you are at the top most folder level, or the deepest folder level in the directory tree.

This can be seen in the gif:
TEST Mbay-c

The issue with doing it this way I think, is, the user might want to use the ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’ feature from within a deeper subfolder directory, in which they want to see their customized attribute column setup.

See picture in next post…

'Include Folders and Subfolders' improved protocol

As discussed in the previous post, my discovery process shows that ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’ is a global separate memorized attribute columns setup.

I think it would be better however, if it referenced the user customized attribute column setups per folder, and essentially, uses the setup of whichever folder is selected in the ‘File Browser’ directory tree.

Inconsistency problem

Okay, so I think I’ve maybe found the bug or at least, a glimpse of it. It is very random and unpredictable.

So just as I thought ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’ was a global columns setup for all of MediaBay, and it does generally appear to be that way… I see that it is not the case with all folders/directories for some reason as seen here
TEST Mbay-d

@Matthias_Quellmann I would greatly appreciate and be grateful if you could pass these posts on to the devs responsible for MediaBay.

edit

this concludes my posts for now, until I find more

edit

Just to add in quickly, there needs to be another feature to ‘Set Columns Setup To All Following Subfolders’. ie, this takes the setup for the - currently selected - folder/subfolder, and applies it to all the ones further down the tree (but only within that current branch).

Inconsistency problem Continued

TEST Mbay-f
You can see here for some reason ‘Drums and Percussion’ is tied to ‘All Media’ setup, but the other Favorites are not, even though they all originate from the same directory.

I really don’t understand how to bind or unbind these relationships? What causes them? It’s very random and unpredictable.

Does anyone know what is going on? Is there a specific methodology to this I’m not realizing, or is the protocol just very scattered and inconsistent?

You can see clearly for some reason, there are different relationships where changes are mirrored.

TEST Mbay-g

@Martin.Jirsak do you know how this happens? what is going on? thanks!

@avviano
[MediaBay: Set default Columns for all Folders and MAKE THEM STAY! - Cubase - Steinberg Forums](https:// forums.steinberg. net/t/mediabay-set-default-columns-for-all-folders-and-make-them-stay/702083)

@Matthias_Quellmann I’d greatly appreciate some insight from a dev on whether I am doing something wrong, or if indeed MediaBay is a bit sketchy with this aspect of the program? It is a huge database I am managing with MediaBay, and this is triggering for my OCD :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah I’ve spent multiple days troubleshooting and trying to fix this and it’s not happening.

The issue is mainly in ‘Include Folders and Subfolders’ being activated, and for some reason… Some folders setups are mirrored to each other. And then other folders are mirrored to other folders, and they are stuck this way.

ie for some reason, changing the Setup for ‘All Media’, will affect ‘Drums and Percussion’ and ‘Multi-Tracks’, and any new folder created as well as a bunch of others (and vice versa, it’s two way)… and then, a bunch of other folders mirror to other folders… ‘Vocals’, ‘Strings’, ‘Guitars’, etc share setups.

It’s very random. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get ‘Drums and Percussion’ to share the same folder setups as the other instrument type folders… And they are all rooted in the same parent directory, on the same drive.

There is something definitely broken here.

It’s almost as if at a certain point, MediaBay stopped behaving the way it is supposed to, and so now there are this factions of folders that share setups instead of having individual setups, or at least logically shared setups for folders contained within the same subfolder level.

Please look into this.

Conclusion

If MediaBay is supposed to store column setups per folder, I’m concluding this aspect of MediaBay is

BROKEN

I‘ll check with the team.

4 Likes