[gradient]

I swear I read the instructions for doing this on these forums ages ago but I can't find them. What I want to do is have apps recognize my Movies folder as existing on a seperate volume.

I keep all of my movies on a seperate drive called MediaHD, up to now I've just used a simple workaround by dropping an alias to my MediaHD/Movies folder into my Home folder. Recently, though, I've started using Sailing clicker quite a bit and the alias trick won't work with it (trying to open movies in VLC, for example).

Can anybody direct me to the solution?

Thanks.

[Max_Doubt_M'Wham]

Hi gradient,

Is it possible that an AppleScript to browse and lauch the movie/s on the external is all that's needed?

Clicker is really bound only by the limitations of AppleScript

The best part is that you can write scripts to do new things for you as you think of them.

Sailing Clicker Development Resources

[gradient]

Possibly, but I'm also looking for compatibility with Front Row as well. Alias' do work with Front row, but having to add a new alias every time I add a movie is a pain in the neck.

[besson3c]

Have you tried using a symbolic link rather than an alias?

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by gradient 

Possibly, but I'm also looking for compatibility with Front Row as well. Alias' do work with Front row, but having to add a new alias every time I add a movie is a pain in the neck.

Make an alias to the folder where the external movies live. That's what I did and it works just fine.

[gradient]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Have you tried using a symbolic link rather than an alias?

Sorry, I"m not sure what you mean by a 'symbolic' link.

[gradient]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

Make an alias to the folder where the external movies live. That's what I did and it works just fine.

Ya I did do that for Front Row and it works ok aside from the slight annoyance of having to navigate to yet another subfolder instead of having all the movie files show up in Front Rows movies folder. This, though, doesn't help with VLC or Quicktime access using Sailing Clicker so it's a bit of a moot point.

[Max_Doubt_M'Wham]

Originally Posted by gradient 

Possibly, but I'm also looking for compatibility with Front Row as well. Alias' do work with Front row, but having to add a new alias every time I add a movie is a pain in the neck.

My answer was directed at using Clicker to play your movies through Front Row using Scripts, which is what Clicker runs off anyway.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by gradient 

Sorry, I"m not sure what you mean by a 'symbolic' link.

A symbolic link is the Unix equivalent of an alias, except it has different properties:

macosxhints.com - A brief tutorial on symbolic links

[gradient]

Originally Posted by Max_Doubt_M'Wham 

My answer was directed at using Clicker to play your movies through Front Row using Scripts, which is what Clicker runs off anyway.

Right, I do use sailing clicker to control front row, but part of what I'm trying to get is Front Row to recognize my Movies as existing on a seperate volume, not in my home folder. As I mentioned, I can accomplish that through aliasing the original movie files in my home folder but it's pretty cumbersome.

I had thought there was a way to point all apps to a seperate volume when searching for a certain home subfolder. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[zro]

Why not just add them to iTunes with the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option checked off?

Front Row should pick them up fine.

[gradient]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

A symbolic link is the Unix equivalent of an alias, except it has different properties:

macosxhints.com - A brief tutorial on symbolic links

Thanks for the tip! Creating a symbolic link has acheived exactly what I wanted.

As someone who's never seriously delved into UNIX, I find it pretty interesting that the GUI doesn't offer this command. Now that I know about it, it sure does seem usefull. It's even more interesting, though, that on the surface Finder doesn't recognize the difference between a Symbolic Link and an Alias; when I get info on the symlink I just created, Finder simply calls it an Alias.

Thanks again.

[gradient]

Originally Posted by zro 

Why not just add them to iTunes with the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option checked off?

Front Row should pick them up fine.

If I did that (assuming that all my files are iTunes compatible, which probably isn't the case) my movies would be stuck residing in my home folder, not on the seperate volume where I want them.

[zro]

Completely false. If you keep the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option off, a copy will not be placed in your iTunes Music folder. The original stays where it is not matter what you do.


Oh, and if Front Row can play them, chances are excellent iTunes will take them. Especially if you use a tool like QTAmateur to export hinted movie files of them. Worth a shot and would prevent the tragedy of you having to navigate into one more folder in Front Row.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by gradient 

Thanks for the tip! Creating a symbolic link has acheived exactly what I wanted.

As someone who's never seriously delved into UNIX, I find it pretty interesting that the GUI doesn't offer this command. Now that I know about it, it sure does seem usefull. It's even more interesting, though, that on the surface Finder doesn't recognize the difference between a Symbolic Link and an Alias; when I get info on the symlink I just created, Finder simply calls it an Alias.

Thanks again.

Yeah, the Finder is retarded about anything you do in Unix, whether it be moving a file, creating a symlink, whatever...

Actually, you might say that the Finder is retarded and just stop there

A symlink has different properties than an alias, they are not identical. An alias can be moved around and that link left intact, a symlink cannot. A symlink can link across multiple volumes, don't know whether an alias can or not. A symlink is recognizable on other Unix file systems, an alias is not.

One thing you have to be careful about is whether you are using any utilities (say, a backup utility), that may not recognize the symlink and simply "follow" it. The problem this creates is that when you are backing up a directory with a symlink in it, a copy of those files being linked to are made.

In other words, a good utility that properly recognizes symlinks would see the link and say "oh, this is a symlink... I don't need to treat these linked to files as a new set of files, because they must exist elsewhere. Therefore, I'll preserve the link itself, and just ignore all of these linked to files".

I don't know if what I'm trying to say makes any sense, but this can be a problem from time-to-time.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by zro 

Completely false. If you keep the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option off, a copy will not be placed in your iTunes Music folder. The original stays where it is not matter what you do.


Oh, and if Front Row can play them, chances are excellent iTunes will take them. Especially if you use a tool like QTAmateur to export hinted movie files of them. Worth a shot and would prevent the tragedy of you having to navigate into one more folder in Front Row.

What happens when you start iTunes up, the external volume is not available for whatever reason, and you start adding music to iTunes, just out of curiosity?

[gradient]

Originally Posted by zro 

Completely false. If you keep the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option off, a copy will not be placed in your iTunes Music folder. The original stays where it is not matter what you do.


Oh, and if Front Row can play them, chances are excellent iTunes will take them. Especially if you use a tool like QTAmateur to export hinted movie files of them. Worth a shot and would prevent the tragedy of you having to navigate into one more folder in Front Row.

You're right, I just misread your post. No need to get snippy.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What happens when you start iTunes up, the external volume is not available for whatever reason, and you start adding music to iTunes, just out of curiosity?

If the option to copy the files is off, the files will remain right where they are. Same as if the external drive is plugged in.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

If the option to copy the files is off, the files will remain right where they are. Same as if the external drive is plugged in.

So, when you specify an external volume, does it automatically disable the copy files option? It would seem to me that this feature would only work properly with this option set accordingly, unless I'm missing something?

[patman600]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

One thing you have to be careful about is whether you are using any utilities (say, a backup utility), that may not recognize the symlink and simply "follow" it. The problem this creates is that when you are backing up a directory with a symlink in it, a copy of those files being linked to are made.

In other words, a good utility that properly recognizes symlinks would see the link and say "oh, this is a symlink... I don't need to treat these linked to files as a new set of files, because they must exist elsewhere. Therefore, I'll preserve the link itself, and just ignore all of these linked to files".

What's really fun is when you have circular links. Folder A has link that points to folder B, which has a link to folder A.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

A symlink can link across multiple volumes, don't know whether an alias can or not.

Just FYI, it can.

OTOH I never understood why Apple didn't piggyback the added functionaility of the alias on top of the symlink concept instead of having both stick around side by side. The symlink is a very powerful tool. Add the alias' "movability" to the symlink and you're done. No need to withhold the symlink goodness from GUI users IMHO.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Just FYI, it can.

OTOH I never understood why Apple didn't piggyback the added functionaility of the alias on top of the symlink concept instead of having both stick around side by side. The symlink is a very powerful tool. Add the alias' "movability" to the symlink and you're done. No need to withhold the symlink goodness from GUI users IMHO.

Exactly! I guess Apple was worried about OS 9 users, but now that OS 9 is out of the picture they ought to consolidate.

The other kind of kind is a hard link, which has different properties too... Hard links are very useful in using to keep incremental backup snapshots without wasting needless disk space.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Just FYI, it can.

OTOH I never understood why Apple didn't piggyback the added functionaility of the alias on top of the symlink concept instead of having both stick around side by side. The symlink is a very powerful tool. Add the alias' "movability" to the symlink and you're done. No need to withhold the symlink goodness from GUI users IMHO.

I'm not sure what you mean. Having symlinks that don't work like symlinks would not be what most people who want symlinks are looking for. If you want an alias, just use an alias. They don't work the same way. Just because you call an alias a symlink doesn't mean that's what it actually is.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I'm not sure what you mean. Having symlinks that don't work like symlinks would not be what most people who want symlinks are looking for. If you want an alias, just use an alias. They don't work the same way. Just because you call an alias a symlink doesn't mean that's what it actually is.

That's what flags are for.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

That's what flags are for.

What? Perhaps I'm ignorant of how symlinks are implemented, but I didn't realize they had flags.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

What? Perhaps I'm ignorant of how symlinks are implemented, but I didn't realize they had flags.

Command line flags... options... you know?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Command line flags... options... you know?

That would just give ln the ability to create aliases. It wouldn't unify the things.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

That would just give ln the ability to create aliases. It wouldn't unify the things.

Huh? I don't understand the confusion here.

One tool for creating references to another file, whatever you want to call it. This tool has options to create moveable links like aliases, or stationary links like symlinks. Apple could take the existing ln command and supplement it with this additional option, like they've supplemented several other Unix tools (e.g. rsync HFS crap, Apache case insensitive crap, etc.)

[Warhaven]

For completion's sake, if you want to physically change your home directory, you would type the following:

sudo dscl / -change /Users/username NFSHomeDirectory /Location/to/old/home /Location/to/new/home

i.e., if your home directory is in the default /Users folder and your short username is bobharley, and you would like to move your home directory to a partion named Mac Extended:

sudo dscl / -change /Users/bobharley NFSHomeDirectory /Users/bobharley /Volumes/Mac\ Extended/bobharley

If you'ved mucked around with things and are unsure of your home directory's location, you can type:

sudo dscl / -read /Users/username

And look for the NFSHomeDirectory entry. It's somewhere in the middle.

This is assuming you're running OS X client. Otherwise, you'd just open Workgroup Manager and change in there real quick.

[Max_Doubt_M'Wham]

I just discovered the option to create a Symbolic Link was resting in my Right-Click Contextual Menu under Scripts .... you learn something new everyday!




I have OpenMenuX installed and this may just be one of it's features ...