Rockit 4
- Thread starter SoftJock Rick
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Hey Rick, wanted to let you know that I did have some tagging issues. Got them all cleaned up and everything is working just fine now. Just completed the full purchase and if everything goes right, I'll be using RockIt for my Jan 4th gig. (Want to make sure I get some practice before going live with it!)
Put a new skin up on the website, if anybody wants to check it out 
Looks like this (widescreen 1280x768). It has minimal controls on the player decks, and works well for folks who use the AutoMix a lot, and has lots of list room. Link to skin page: Rockit Skin Page. You may need to refresh yer browser cache if you've been to the skin page recently.
Looks like this (widescreen 1280x768). It has minimal controls on the player decks, and works well for folks who use the AutoMix a lot, and has lots of list room. Link to skin page: Rockit Skin Page. You may need to refresh yer browser cache if you've been to the skin page recently.
Hey Rick,
What's the best way to update the RockIt library if you've already added your songs and then move them around in the folders afterwards.
I did some moving and now I have all these bad links.
It's probably something easy!
What's the best way to update the RockIt library if you've already added your songs and then move them around in the folders afterwards.
I did some moving and now I have all these bad links.
It's probably something easy!
I think I found my answer. I'll need to run the 'broken link' and delete the bad links and readd with the new locations.
The easiest way (at least for me), is just go into the Library Manager, and delete all tracks, and re-add them.
I keep a large library around for testing -- not something I would gig with, but has about 60,000 tracks, and I can add them back in, in the time it takes to feed and walk the dog.
Rockit, as most software does, uses the full path and filename as its key to finding a song, hence the broken links when you move them. If you only move a few songs, you can just re-add those, without trashing the lib.
As policy though, I no longer bother with trying to keep folders in any sort of order, I leave that to the software. I just have one Music folder in the root of each drive, then under that, the usual Artist\Album subfolders. I stopped trying to categorize them in folders myself ages ago, as the software does it on the fly.
The key in Rockit, is having good tags, so the software can do the work, and not you. Play around with the Multi-File tag editor in Rockit -- it's much easier than moving files around...
K
Kirby Ball
Guest
Dammit! Am I gonna have to read the manual? :sqerr:
YES!
Print out a copy and enjoy!
Actually, I only touch on the things Rockit's library can do in the manual -- it really deserves its own book, in my humble (yet biased) opinion...
I really want to write a book about DJ chat boards though -- far more drama
I really want to write a book about DJ chat boards though -- far more drama
Another question.
Is there an option that when you add new songs, that you can have RockIt look at the source and add the new ones?
For example, I store all my music on an external hard drive. And, let's say I spend a couple of days ripping/downloading new music onto the drive. I'd like to be able for RockIt to look at the drive again, identify the new songs added and then add them to the library.
Or, at least to be able to tell the 'search function' where to search --- whether it's the RockIt library or my external drive, without having to use the advanced search function.
Is there an option that when you add new songs, that you can have RockIt look at the source and add the new ones?
For example, I store all my music on an external hard drive. And, let's say I spend a couple of days ripping/downloading new music onto the drive. I'd like to be able for RockIt to look at the drive again, identify the new songs added and then add them to the library.
Or, at least to be able to tell the 'search function' where to search --- whether it's the RockIt library or my external drive, without having to use the advanced search function.
So would I -- you feel like coding it...
Actually, Rockit doesn't work that way by design, otherwise we'd get all the complaints those other companies do, that use record cases that take 3 days to refresh, skips yer music, etc.
The old version of Rockit had a duplicate checking feature on the ADD, but I removed it from that section, because it would become exponentially slower as it progressed, and had to check each new song added, against every single record in the entire database -- not very good for robustness
So, you can do it 3 ways now:
1) If there are not a whole lot of new folders, just add them folder by folder.
2) Have it search and add the entire drive, then do a Duplicate Scan in the Library Manager Utilities. Then just click remove all dupes. That effectively adds only the new songs.
3) My favorite
-- Delete all tracks, and re-add the drive.Which way you do it, will depend more on what makes you comfortable, and also the number of tracks in your library...
Shsssh -- he gets mad when you try to tell him things...
The two types of searches are totally unrelated. The drive search (Adv Search), is similar to the search function in Windows, and is threaded to run in the background, because it is very slow to recurse through drives and folders.
The regular search can only function on the library, and contains lookup tables, which is what makes it so fast
Thanks Rick!
Even though I thought you were the coding guru!
Here's my set up.
I use a lappy for the gig rig. I have my desktop where I like to do my music work -- upload, catergorize, update, etc. I use a 300 gig external hard drive for my music (with back up to another).
I think I'm finding it easier for me to just put my playlist folders together within my external hard drive and not thru RockIt's playlist and library feature. This became very apparent when I had created some playlists within RockIt and then moved some songs around on the hard drive, thus causing broken links and useless playlists.
And, I don't care to have to worry about making sure I get the right folders or songs that I might have added to current folders added into the library each time or updating broken file links when I move a song.
I know you encourage the use of the tags, but I like to keep things organized and visual. That works best for me.
Even though I've had to tweak some things for my liking with the software, it's by far the best dj software that I have sampled, for my needs.
But, that's a good thing to me. It's very easy to tweak. I really liked that I was able to change the skin to set up things the way I wanted them. That's an awesome feature!!
Even though I thought you were the coding guru!
Here's my set up.
I use a lappy for the gig rig. I have my desktop where I like to do my music work -- upload, catergorize, update, etc. I use a 300 gig external hard drive for my music (with back up to another).
I think I'm finding it easier for me to just put my playlist folders together within my external hard drive and not thru RockIt's playlist and library feature. This became very apparent when I had created some playlists within RockIt and then moved some songs around on the hard drive, thus causing broken links and useless playlists.
And, I don't care to have to worry about making sure I get the right folders or songs that I might have added to current folders added into the library each time or updating broken file links when I move a song.
I know you encourage the use of the tags, but I like to keep things organized and visual. That works best for me.
Even though I've had to tweak some things for my liking with the software, it's by far the best dj software that I have sampled, for my needs.
But, that's a good thing to me. It's very easy to tweak. I really liked that I was able to change the skin to set up things the way I wanted them. That's an awesome feature!!
That's cool
That's why the My Computer Tree is there, for those who like to do it that way, and for example only use the library for its search functionality.
Since I still have much of my older stuff organized into folders, I find it easy just to highlight a folder, and add it as a playlist, this way I can take advantage of the Playlist Editor for moving things around. Just right click a folder under My Computer, and Create Playlist from Folder
BTW, I'm working on a new skin right now -- sort've a brushed aluminum, rack mount type thing -- looks pretty cool so far...
I liked that last look, just wrong resolution for me. I need 1024 x 768. I'm to busy thru Jan with my school accounts, but I'm hoping to take a stab at creating a custom skin in Feb.
Me again Rick.
When creating new skins, do you have something handy that gives you the X,Y,Z numbers or is just trial and error until you 'just know'?
When creating new skins, do you have something handy that gives you the X,Y,Z numbers or is just trial and error until you 'just know'?
Funny you ask that, since I'm doing one right now
Somewhat trial and error...
BTW, I use Paint Shop Pro for all my graphics (I don't like Photoshop's interface).
First thing I do is design the basic background screen, which is the width and height I want, give it a name, and create a folder under Skins with the same new name.
Then I use one of the same size XML templates I already have, copy it to the new name.xml in the Skins folder.
Then save the image above into the new folder under skins, and I usually copy all the graphics from the old skin in there as well, to have something to work with.
Go into the new template with any text editor, and basically make everything invisible except a couple buttons or something (the close button is helpful ).
Then it basically all becomes trial and error, and as I get things on the skin visible, I generally take a screen shot every so often to use for coordinates.
I'd say on average, I have to start and shutdown Rockit 400-500 times in the course of building a totally new skin (no existing skin to work with) :sqerr: -- which is why, I'm writing a skin designer program
Basically, the skin designer won't do anything fancy, as I really don't want to reinvent the wheel and do a whole Front Page like deal, but just a simple program that will display the skin exactly as Rockit does, and you can just hit the refresh button to redisplay after you've made changes to the XML file and graphics.
I'll make that program available on the website as soon as I finish it...
Somewhat trial and error...
BTW, I use Paint Shop Pro for all my graphics (I don't like Photoshop's interface).
First thing I do is design the basic background screen, which is the width and height I want, give it a name, and create a folder under Skins with the same new name.
Then I use one of the same size XML templates I already have, copy it to the new name.xml in the Skins folder.
Then save the image above into the new folder under skins, and I usually copy all the graphics from the old skin in there as well, to have something to work with.
Go into the new template with any text editor, and basically make everything invisible except a couple buttons or something (the close button is helpful
).Then it basically all becomes trial and error, and as I get things on the skin visible, I generally take a screen shot every so often to use for coordinates.
I'd say on average, I have to start and shutdown Rockit 400-500 times in the course of building a totally new skin (no existing skin to work with) :sqerr: -- which is why, I'm writing a skin designer program
Basically, the skin designer won't do anything fancy, as I really don't want to reinvent the wheel and do a whole Front Page like deal, but just a simple program that will display the skin exactly as Rockit does, and you can just hit the refresh button to redisplay after you've made changes to the XML file and graphics.
I'll make that program available on the website as soon as I finish it...
Next question? Let me know if you're getting tired of me! 
I took your grey background and placed my company name onto the sides of it, where you have your RockIt name. But, I can't seem to get it to pull into the skin. I saved it in the same folder the grey background image is in, with the same file name'v2' and updated the XML file with that file name, but I only get a black background. What am I doing wrong?
I succesfully resized several boxes to accomodate the My Computer tree, but I can't get this to work! :sqerr:
Let me know if you're getting tired of me! I took your grey background and placed my company name onto the sides of it, where you have your RockIt name. But, I can't seem to get it to pull into the skin. I saved it in the same folder the grey background image is in, with the same file name'v2' and updated the XML file with that file name, but I only get a black background. What am I doing wrong?
I succesfully resized several boxes to accomodate the My Computer tree, but I can't get this to work! :sqerr:
The first mistake, was removing Rockit Pro DJ from the image
Actually, I'm not sure, as I just did a test, doing the following steps:
1) Opened the background image, added a little V2 text on one side, and saved it as DarkGray1024x768v2.bmp, in that skin folder.
2) Opened the XML, and changed the background image to that name.
It worked fine...
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