Beginner's help.

[theShaggy]

Hello, I think this is far longer than intended it to be.

I'm having real trouble understanding this program. I've tried searching the forums, google searching, et al, but nothing comes up as an idiot's guide to this software. It looks like exactly what I need, but unless I can figure these problems out, I can't find any use for it.

1. Will xlobby automatically scan specified directories each time I load it up? If not by default, can that option be turned on?

I am trying to set xlobby up on my computer to run with Foobar and VLC. Foobar seems to configure without a problem... here is my audio question:

2. When I try to browse my MP3s, it gives me a few folders with covers, and a million squares with "Various artists/various albums." This doesn't help me at all, as I have over 1700 MP3s and would really like to browse them all in one list. I do have many of them organized into subfolders, but xlobby doesn't seem to recognize the subfolders, only specific album files that I don't understand.

Anyway, the video is giving me the most problem.

3. I don't know switches, I don't know any of that, but when I try to load up VLC it gives me an error, something to do with vlc_b64_encode_binary. This could have to do with the nightly build that I am using, but it doesn't give me problems when I play outside of xlobby.

4. I have imported my video files, but nothing is listed when I go into directories (note that they list the subfolders, which the music directory doesn't). It tells me that there are so many files, but won't give me a list of them. If I choose the directory, they all cue up in VLC's playlist. What gives?

4a. Also, some folders won't queue the files up, they will cue up the name of the folder. Each word, each symbol, will queue up in my VLC and not play.

Help me? I keep looking through the forum, but honestly have no idea what I'm searching for. Installation documentation seems really sparse, as well, so I'm confused over here.

[sharp_1]

The best thing you can do at this point is read through baddabing's guide for his KISS skin...that should give you a great start. Guide is here http://www.xlobby.com/files/badabing/fi ... _Guide.pdf

[Marbles_00]

There's also this guide:
http://www.xlobby.com/files/jowaldo/doc ... /index.htm

2. When I try to browse my MP3s, it gives me a few folders with covers, and a million squares with "Various artists/various albums." This doesn't help me at all, as I have over 1700 MP3s and would really like to browse them all in one list. I do have many of them organized into subfolders, but xlobby doesn't seem to recognize the subfolders, only specific album files that I don't understand.

Usually that's a sign that the music files are tagged the same. Yeah, you can have them all tagged, but unless the are totally tagged the same, Xlobby will consider them as Various artist because not all the tag match up.

Example:
Let's say you have two ACDC songs from different albums or from different dates, they both reside in the same directory. You tag them:
Artist: AC/DC
Songs: (what ever)
Ablums: (choose your two)
Dates: one from 1980, the other 1995

Xlobby won't be able to group them together, so it considers them as Various.

What I ended up doing if I had a bunch of singles for any particular band, was to tag the Artist, Track, leave off dates, keep genre common, and for Albums, I would make sure they were all tagged as Singles. This way all the tracks are considered common, and Xlobby would group them together as an album.

Concerning VLC:
Xlobby works natively with Zoomplayer, and TheaterTek. This is not to say that it won't work with other video players. People have used MPC, and even VLC (though I don't know of a skin to actively use it that is downloadable at this time).

Here's a thread on VLC which may help you out:
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... hlight=vlc

Check the search on VLC for other posts.

Hope this was helpful.

[bmblank]

I think a better way to get your music in order is to have it in a file structure that xlobby likes. Unless you have your mp3s tagged JUST RIGHT it doesn't like them in one singlular directory. If you have them in the following file structure (or something similar) it should do alright:

c:\music\artist1\album1\songs
c:\music\artist1\album2\songs
c:\music\artist2\album1\songs
c:\music\artist2\album2\songs
etc..
Then direct xlobby to your C:\music\ directory and it should pick up all your albums.
Unfortunately, when you have thousands of MP3s and they're all just sittin in a c:\music folder then that is a heck of alot of work.