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 Post subject: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:30 pm 
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Hey Hector,
I'm not sure if there's already an easier way to do this but I'll lay my thoughts on the table anyways.

I have coollector portable on the hdd I keep my series collection on. The drive letter was 'H' when the series were first added however when it is plugged out then in (or used in another computer) the drive letter changes.

Is it possible for you to add the use of environment variables or something similar so that i can replace the drive name with a string (eg. %THISDRIVE%) to ensure that no matter which computer is used or which drive letter is assigned coollector portable will play videos from the hdd on which it is installed.

This would bring an end to constantly changing the addresses in .cool or reassigning drive letters. I am not requesting any interface changes of anything like that. I would simply like to replace my drive letter with something that would work no matter what path my movies are in.

Kinda like how the variable %systemdrive% works

What do you think?


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:56 pm 
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First thing to know, is that you can mass edit all the locations fields in your coollection by pressing CONTROL + L ("L" like "L"ocation). This will allow you to replace a string by another. For instance, you can replace "G:\" by whatever you want.

I haven't tried, but using the environment variables could be a solution. You would have to define your own variable and to use it.

But I know a better solution, which is to use the network name of your drive.

When you select a location to scan your video files, select "My Network Places->Entire Network->Microsoft Windows Network->Workgroup". There you should find your NAS. For instance my D-Link NAS is called "\\Dlink-df5dcf" on the network.

You'd use CONTROL + L to change the locations already in your coollection. And after that, you'd scan your files by pointing directly to the network name.

What do you think ?


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:02 pm 
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http://www.coollector.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=374


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:17 pm 
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Would that make it possible for me to move around with coollector and my movies on my external hdd (without having to use Ctrl-L each time)?

If so how, please explain?


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:54 pm 
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kakashi wrote:
Would that make it possible for me to move around with coollector and my movies on my external hdd

Sorry, I thought you shared your drive on a network.

If you're physically moving your hard drive from one computer to another, then you have no other choice than creating the same environment variable on each of those computers.


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:10 pm 
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no, i just travel around with my portable alot. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:26 pm 
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I made a quick search, and it's possible to assign any letter you want to your hard drive. If you assign it the letter "Z", you should be fine.

Here's what I found (I made the test, and it works):

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/555 ... ve-letters

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window ... tached/631


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:32 pm 
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I only had a quick look, but there are also programs to make this more easily:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-Enhancements/DriveLetterView.shtml


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 12:42 am 
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I just made a program to launch instead of coollector. All I do is run this application from within the coollector folder. :D

It automatically edits MyCoollection.cool changing all drive letters to whichever drive the program is being run from (since that drive also has coollector and my series on it) then executes coollector.exe.

Now all i have to do is run my launcher instead of coollector and everything is taken care of automatically.

After i got it working i accidentaly messed something in the code. I hope i have time to fix it soon. :worried:


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 12:51 am 
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This is basically how it works:



rename "MyCoollection.cool" to "MyCoollection-Backup.cool"
if theres an error print "Error renaming file"

read last drive used in "moviedrive.ini"

find the current drive letter of this program

replace old drive letters in with letter of this drive and save as MyCoollection.cool

write new drive letter to "moviedrive.ini" ( so i know what to replace next time)

execute "Coollector.exe"


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 1:41 am 
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That's ingenious. It's a good idea to save the last used drive to check if it has changed.

I'll probably add this feature to Coollector when I'll find time.

Thank you very much for this idea !


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 1:56 am 
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Another way that I could do it, is when you click the play icon, Coollector would check the existence of each video file, and when a video file can't be found, the program would try the 25 other possible drive letters. This method would work even with the non-portable version of Coollector.


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 1:58 am 
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No prob,I just wish i could figure out what i did to make my app suddenly stop working. It seems you're a lot better with bugs than i am. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:01 am 
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Is Coollector still working ?

At first I was afraid that you might corrupt the coollection file. But if you only replace one letter with another, I think you should be fine.


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 Post subject: Re: Portable on hdd
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:03 am 
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Man am i glad I don't have your job :D I can just imagine finding and fixing all the bugs you come acoss. :P


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