Ludek wrote: ↑Fri Feb 01, 2019 6:53 am
In true, I have never understood your (so propagated) use case of scanning only GPM content that is already included locally. What is the purpose of this? Why one would want to scan a content that he already has locally? I guess that much more typical use-case is that user wants to scan GPM content (playlist/tracks) that he hasn't locally yet.
OK, here is my Use Case. It is also the Use Case of many of the people who contact me about my MediaMonkey add-on application, which includes some GPM integration.
nb. I notice that quite a few people read these threads. If there are other Use Cases, please feel free to contribute, or disagree.
We are owners of local music collections, and are committed users of MediaMonkey.
Often we have spent many hours curating and tagging and tidying up our collection with MM... we want to preserve this state.
We have uploaded our music collections to GPM. We did this for the following reasons:
- primary goal: so that we can stream from our whole collection when we are commuting or away from home ... is very attractive, because it is offered at no charge, and has been available since approx 2012
- secondary goal: as an offsite backup of our music collection
For the primary goal, the problem is that we have become used to the great browsing and playlist building tools within MediaMonkey.
The browsing and playlists building tools in GPM are crappy ... we want to build playlists using MM, and publish them into our GPM library for use when away from home.
But now we have our music collections in two places, and this results in duplicated work to build playlists, and keep our collection in sync ... and this is difficult due to the primitive state of the existing GPM tools. amd the lack of any integration between our local and our web music collections.
As MM fans, MM|GPM integration is something that we have been wishing for, for a long time.
But we have spent many hours curating and tagging, and caring for our music collection ... so we want sync on our terms ... ie. we don't want pollute our collection with whatever tag crap is in the GPM version of our tracks, or all the tracks that we once added into our GPM library, from the 30+ million tracks available at GPM.
The first step is to sync. to provide connectivity from our MM collection, to our GPM collection ... nb. note direction;
from MM
-> GPM .... this is so that we can build playlists using MM superior tools, and then publish these playlists to GPM, so that we can listen to our own music collection, using the GPM music client when we are commuting, or away from home. ... to achieve this MM needs to learn the GPM IDs for our tracks ... so we need sync just Google ID's for matching MM tracks ... don't screw up our MM database with all the other bits and pieces from our dirty GPM library ... you have delivered this
The second goal is to take advantage of some of the 30+ million tracks that GPM has to offer.
We are
Music Collectors .... we can't relate to a collection of 30+ million tracks ... that is
not a music "collection" ... that is an overwhelming fire hydrant of music ... it would be just like listening to whatever an FM radio decided to send us.
The problem that we are looking to solve with MM|GPM integration is this ... we are used to being able to build smart playlists with MM ... smart playlists that may include how long we owned the track, or how long since we heard it, or what its user rating is.
So if these selected new Google tracks are to become part of our "collection", they need to be in MM .... but on the other hand we don't want to pollute our MM library ... we would prefer to pick and choose which new tracks get added collection ... aka sync'd into our MM library
I add lots of tracks to my GPM library .... I listen to them .... a few of them I want to add to my MM library ... most I don't .... some I am still considering whether I want them to be part of my "collection", others are just sitting there because i have not spent the same effort on my GPM library, that I did with my local collection, because GPM lacks good housekeeping tools, and because GPM is not my "real" music collection.
So in this Use Case:
- we want manual control over which tracks or tracks get inserted into our MM database ... MM5 delivers this
- and we are using MM to design and publish MM playlists into our GPM library, and for use against our local collection .... it is unnecessary and confusing and annoying, for you to enforce them coming back the other way
Ludek wrote: ↑Fri Feb 01, 2019 6:53 am
Only include content that matches files already in the database' it only imports the playlists that include local tracks and imports them grouped under the 'Google Play Music' parent playlist (starting from 2153). So they are not of any mess in your local library, you can remove the whole 'Google Play Music' parent playlist anytime later.
Maybe this is OK ... I have not seen it yet.
Ludek, this isn't a deal breaker for me. ... I am just reporting what i would prefer, and find less confusing.
Sorry if this post is long, but you seemed to asking for the background to the Use Case that I am seeing.