Plex and iTunes

All about user-defined episode / movie / file name format expressions
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UKenGB
Posts: 49
Joined: 04 Jan 2017, 09:26

Plex and iTunes

Post by UKenGB »

Since iTunes and Plex have very different ideas about file naming of TV series, it's going to be hard or impossible to share TV Show media between them. Unless I use links.

So I could clone the iTunes' TV Shows folder, but using links for the actual media files, named suitable for Plex. So iTunes still has all the original files and can read and write to them without complaint, but Plex will also be able to read the same files, but with different names so it can import them more easily. The ability of Filebot to create links makes this possible. But...

Can I, in a single pass create suitably named symlinks in folders determined by the genre of the original file? So A TV Show with genre that contains Sport would be symlinked to the TV-Sport/etc folder, while a documentary would get symlinked to the TV-Docs/etc folder, but ONLY if the desired symlink didn't already exist (i.e. continue and not halt with an error)?

My albeit limited understanding of Filebot suggests that this is indeed possible. Am I wrong?

Assuming not, is there a better way to create the format string than in the editor dialog that only allows a single line of text? I know I could compose in another text editor and copy it in, but it's slower to test and troubleshoot that way. A multiline text box would help.
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rednoah
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Re: Plex and iTunes

Post by rednoah »

1.
Always use hardlinks. Symbolic links will come back to haunt you eventually.


2.
You can generate any path you want:

Code: Select all

{genre =~ /Sport/ ? 'TV Sport' : genre =~ /Documentary/ ? 'TV Documentary' : 'TV Shows'}/{plex.path.after('/')}
However, tools like FileBot, Plex, Kodi, etc may expect standard folder names such as Movies or TV Shows for the various content types.


3.
The Format Editor does support multi-line formats. It'll show as many lines as necessary.

e.g.

Code: Select all

{n}
 - 
{s00e00}
 - 
{t}
:idea: Please read the FAQ and How to Request Help.
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