TINT-based filing

Overview

TINT-based filing is an audio track filenaming scheme that uses only the track's TINT as the distinguishing segment of the full pathname, as follows:

<root>\<TIN>\<Side#>\<Track#>.<ext>

where \ represents the folder name separator appropriate to the filing system.

For example, track 1 of CD 1 of the album having TIN 00008637207120 may have the pathname

C:\My Music\00008637207120\1\1.flac

Since a track's TINT is fixed forever, so is the TINT segment of its pathname. The pathname contains no metadata, so metadata variation (e.g. correction) cannot cause incompatibility or breakage of references from e.g. playlists. The TINT segment is constant across multiple libraries, allowing playlists to be transported e.g. interpreted unambiguously in the absence of the original library; played on a library having the same file extension, subject to coverage.

The fact that TINT includes the side segment even for single-side albums ensures the folder tree level of track files is uniform for all albums, allowing uniform access to and creation of TIN fields e.g. in scripted processes.

Examples

• single-CD album
  • C:\My Music\00828766933420\1\1.flac
• double-CD album
  • C:\My Music\08427328146067\1\1.flac
  • C:\My Music\08427328146067\2\1.flac
• double-LP album
  • C:\My Music\02480002926l24\1\1.flac
  • C:\My Music\02480002926l24\2\1.flac
  • C:\My Music\02480002926l24\3\1.flac
  • C:\My Music\02480002926l24\4\1.flac

Use in Windows Explorer

To ease identification when browsing the folder tree directly, each album folder may contain a file named <Album> - <Album Artist>.txt or .htm. This can contain track metadata.

To ease location of a particular album, the root folder may contain additional subfolders holding descriptively-named links/shortcuts:

• "!Explore by Album title" holding links/shortcuts named <Album> - <Album Artist>.lnk
• "!Explore by Album Artist" holding links/shortcuts named <Album Artist> - <Album>.lnk.

Use in librarians

• MediaMonkey - to find a track by TINT, into the quick search box (on the Search toolbar), enter TINT followed by . (dot).

Use in Mp3tag

• Within Mp3tag script, TINT path fields are accessible as the following placeholders:
  • TIN - %_parent_directory%
  • Side# - %_directory%
  • Track# - %_filename%
• TINT fields may be copied from path to tags:
  • Convert | Filename - Tag, Format string: \%TIN%\%discnumber%\%track% (Note: %TIN% is a custom field.)
• TINT fields may be copied from tags to path i.e. the path is changed to TINT-based:
  • Convert | Tag - Filename, Format string:

    C:\My Music\$regexp(%album%,'.*\[(\d{14})\]',\1)\$regexp(%discnumber%,(.*)/.*,\1)\%track%

    (where Album contains [TIN], and discnumber and track fields are filled.)
  • Convert | Tag - Filename, Format string:

    C:\My Music\$regexp(00$regexp(%album%,.*\'['(\d{12,14})\']',\1),.*(\d{14}),\1)\$regexp(%discnumber%,(.*)/.*,\1)\%track%

    (where Album contains the album barcode as UPC, EAN or TIN, and discnumber and track fields are filled.)

Partially TINT-based schemes

Concise

• C:\My Music\08427328146067-2\1.flac [TINT]
• C:\My Music\08427328146067-2-1.flac [TINT]
• C:\My Music\08427328146067\2-1.flac [TINT]

Verbose

• C:\My Music\828766933420-1_El_rey_del_compas_(1941-1943)\1 El rey del compás.flac
• C:\My Music\40 Grandes Exitos (CD1 of 2) 8427328146067-1\01 Patotero sentimental.flac
• C:\My Music\08427328146067\2-9_de_julio.flac - would be ambiguous if context scheme was undefined.

Non-TINT-based schemes

• C:\My Music\08427328146067-002\1.flac
• C:\My Music\El rey del compas (1941-1943) 828766933420\1 El rey del compás.flac
• C:\My Music\828766933420_El_rey_del_compas_(1941-1943)\1 El rey del compás.flac

From filesystem to file

(this needs clarification!)

Windows

1. At Start | Run, enter the command

DIR  C:\your-path-name\*.flac /b/s > C:\your-path-name\myflacfiles.txt

1. The output will be written to C:\your-path-name\myflacfiles.txt

See also

• pathnames