I'm relieved to learn this. I have a two other queries to improve my understanding of how the system works.
- I've done a backup since importing my library to the Zen MkIII. If I were to execute the restore procedure from this backup, would it replicate the folder structure that I have now (with the longer pathway to most of the music folders), or would it reorganize the folders to the default structure of an empty disk?
- When I bought my Zen MkII (pre-Sense app), the MUSIC folder was in the root directory and contained separate subfolders for Redbook CD and Hi-res recordings. However, I've noticed that albums imported more recently no longer seem to be sorted by resolution or even placed into a MUSIC folder; the folders for each album are placed in the root directory. Is this the default for the Sense app?
1. To my understanding, yes the existing folder structure is basically maintained even during backup and restore transitions. The folder layout will persist.
2. Yes, within the Music folder you would have fixed folders; compressed, cd-quality, high-res. However, the import process does not organise music by resolution to these folders automatically anymore. To give a bit of historical context...
Going back a few years, our import process did used to quite intelligently 'tidy up' imports into a correct artist/album structure, truncate overly long files names, and then place the folder into their respective resolution folder (compressed, cd-quality, high-res). Personally, i always quite enjoyed this.
However, quite a few users found this quite invasive and did not want changes like this to be applied, especially if they had a pre-determined folder layout that they did NOT want to be altered - they just wanted the Innuos to bring the files and folders in precisely as they were left. The only workaround at the time was manually drag and drop the folders in via computer, then perform a library rescan.
To help with this, we introduced 'Quick Import' which functionally is what you experience today - we bring the folders straight in and perform no changes to them. The layout remains precisely the same as they were on the original drive, the imported folders just gets placed in its own named folder for easy identification (eg USB-12.08.2024) in the root Music folder.
The trouble here is that users would find two import options; 'full import' and 'quick import' and people did not really understand the difference or know the correct one to choose. A cautionary tale in more choice and options very often just equates to more confusion.
In reality, we also found that everyone was just using the Quick Import anyway because it is actually faster, and the majority of users did not actually care about having the folders restructured and tidied upon entry, since it made no difference of how things were displayed to you in Sense/Roon etc.
Therefore, when we transitioned to innuOS 2.0 over from 1.x, we removed the 'Full Import' and 'Quick Import' options, and instead treated all imports under a 'Quick Import' design.
This is why you still see folders based on resolution, and to this day CD rips do indeed still go in the CD-Quality folder. On a system root level, it's not really worth the disruption to remove the existing fixed folders, so they remain. I myself actually still use these folders to separate folders by resolution, i just have to move the folders around manually via PC which is pretty quick.
Hope that explains it!
