It seems that several people would like to have a folder view in the clip. Sandisk has been great so far with firmware updates for MSC and other things, though I have the impression that this might be harder to do. Sandisk, if you can, please add this feature. It would be very useful for podcasts - I currently use Juice/Allways Sync to get podcasts onto the Clip, however many of them get “lost”, and aren’t showing up in the Podcast genre. So I have to rummage around for them. However I keep them all in the a folder cleverly called “Podcast”, so that would be make it very easy.
I think it’s likely that if this feature is added, it will probably only show songs added to the player in MSC mode.
I agree.
The clip is a great little device and it would be a shame to see it held back by this. Organising files with folders is the primary way most people think about file organisation. For the Clip’s target market – normal people, not propellerheads – to fix and standardise all their ID3 tags is just asking too much.
Great work, otherwise, Sansa!
Cheers,
TH
tracerhand wrote:
The clip is a great little device and it would be a shame to see it held back by this. Organising files with folders is the primary way most people think about file organisation. For the Clip’s target market – normal people, not propellerheads – to fix and standardise all their ID3 tags is just asking too much.
I guess we’ll never really know the answer to this question, but my guess is that the average portable music device user does NOT organize their music files into folders. That’s probably one of the reasons that iPods/iTunes is so popular… people don’t have to think about organizing their music at all. And I bet that most people who actually are prompted, at some point during the music purchasing process, to save a music file to a directory just dump it into their “My Music” folder. I don’t think most people take the additional steps to create an artist folder, album folder etc. Maybe people who have the ability to subscribe to forums, post into them and follow threads … but we’re in the minority, I think. Most people, you mention “Windows Explorer” to them and their eyes glaze over.
The fact that the Clip requires various ID3 tags be present etc. isn’t a propellerhead requirement, it’s a bug in the Clip’s firmware, IMO. I’ve got several other portable players that have no problem with MP3 files missing the album tag, for example. It’s only my Clip that won’t add these MP3s to its database.
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 12-18-2007 08:57 AM
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 12-18-2007 09:00 AM
tracerhand wrote:
The clip is a great little device and it would be a shame to see it held back by this. Organising files with folders is the primary way most people think about file organisation. For the Clip’s target market – normal people, not propellerheads – to fix and standardise all their ID3 tags is just asking too much.
I guess we’ll never really know the answer to this question, but my guess is that the average portable music device user does NOT organize their music files into folders. That’s probably one of the reasons that iPods/iTunes is so popular… people don’t have to think about organizing their music at all. And I bet that most people who actually are prompted, at some point during the music purchasing process, to save a music file to a directory just dump it into their “My Music” folder. I don’t think most people take the additional steps to create an artist folder, album folder etc. Maybe people who have the ability to subscribe to forums, post into them and follow threads … but we’re in the minority, I think. Most people, you mention “Windows Explorer” to them and their eyes glaze over.
The fact that the Clip requires various ID3 tags be present etc. isn’t a propellerhead requirement, it’s a bug in the Clip’s firmware, IMO. I’ve got several other portable players that have no problem with MP3 files missing the album tag, for example. It’s only my Clip that won’t add these MP3s to its database. And how many popular providers of music files do NOT supply artist, album and title tags? The only sources, that I’ve seen, of music files with missing tags are Internet radio stream rippers.
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 12-18-2007 09:05 AM
I’ve left out some ID3 tag info on my Sansa Clip and the database just created an “unknown” category for that item. So it does handle some missing items with grace.
Having used folder and database organized MP3 players, I find database much more useful. The only time folders (and sub-folders) might be useful is for hard drive MP3 players with, say, 40 GB of storage. A 2 GB Clip holds about 500 songs or 50 albums but on a a 40 GB device there can be 1000 albums so the branching structure of folders and sub-folders would be better.
For a 2 GB clip, the database using ID3 tags is perfect.
firefly wrote:
I’ve left out some ID3 tag info on my Sansa Clip and the database just created an “unknown” category for that item. So it does handle some missing items with grace.
Yep, could be, but I definitely saw a situation where a file with an empty album tag, synced to the Clip in MSC mode, did not show up in the Clip’s database. I used Mp3tag to fill in the song’s album tag (not sure whether I did it directly on the Clip or on disk followed by a re-copy), rebooted the Clip so it would refresh its database, and the song was added to the Clip’s database. Not sure whether this happened with the latest firmware or the previous firmware … and it could be that MTP handles missing tags more gracefully.
Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 12-18-2007 02:36 PM
I think folders should be an option. Yes, many times songs have “albums” tags. OK. But some legal, home-ripped music does not. If you’ve made a library w/o Album tags (you used folders) then it’s an army of work to add album tags. I had a Zen Nano Plus which used folders. Within a folder, the Nano Plus sorted by track (if not empty) or file name (if track = empty). It worked fine. A folder also lets you put things together which are not songs - episodes of a talk show, etc. If you can sort by Artist, Album, etc, it seems like a small step to sort by Folder as another option.
Just use one of the ID3 editing programs to put the folder name in the “genre” field. Then you will have a browse by folder solution.
You can also edit the ID3 tag by right clicking on the track and editing the extended properties.
Hi,
I owned a Clip and recently bought a Clip+ (for my girl).
The Clip+ has folder browsing, how hard could it be to implement this in a new FW update for the Clip?
@picotosansa wrote:
Hi,
I owned a Clip and recently bought a Clip+ (for my girl).
The Clip+ has folder browsing, how hard could it be to implement this in a new FW update for the Clip?
This is a very very old thread…
Anyway… it’s very very very unlikely this will ever make it to the clip. Development is focused on the clip+.
Thanks for the reply. I did a search in the forum before posting my question, and didn’t check the date of the thread.
Anyway, it’s sad to read te Clip is not going to have folder browsing
picotoSANSA wrote:
Hi,
I owned a Clip and recently bought a Clip+ (for my girl).
The Clip+ has folder browsing, how hard could it be to implement this in a new FW update for the Clip?
Gawd! Please, please, please . . . for the love of all things good & decent, don’t start this up again! 
Tapeworm wrote:
picotoSANSA wrote:
Hi,
I owned a Clip and recently bought a Clip+ (for my girl).
The Clip+ has folder browsing, how hard could it be to implement this in a new FW update for the Clip?
Gawd! Please, please, please . . . for the love of all things good & decent, don’t start this up again!
Don’t make me break out the horse! 
Marvin_Martian wrote:
Gawd! Please, please, please . . . for the love of all things good & decent, don’t start this up again!
Don’t make me break out the horse!
“O-o-oooh, Wil-l-l-b-u-r-r-r!” :smileyvery-happy:
