Please add option to exclude specific folders from sharing

Submitted by pcf on Thu, 03/27/2014 - 10:56
Forums: 
Soulseek General Discussion

Hi there.

I'm on a Mac and I love SoulseekQT, but one of the things I really miss about the program is the ability to exclude specific sub folders from sharing.

In my case there are at least two uses for this:
---
1) I make music myself and add my unfinished tracks to my iTunes. This means that anyone can download them, something I don't want. I want to exclude the sharing of this whole folder.

2) Because I'm a DJ and sometimes don't need complete albums, I "slaughter" releases by deleting unwanting tracks from them, and I add "Selected Tracks" to the title. For example: "The Singles Collection 1981-1993 (CD) (Selected Tracks)".

But sometimes I actually keep the whole release in totally different directory (not iTunes) in case people want to copy it from me. So in those cases I wanna exclude the slaughered iTunes folders, and add the complete folders from other places.

Hope you can implement this feature - thanks!

thescarletfire's picture

Submitted by thescarletfire on Fri, 03/28/2014 - 08:14.

Why can't you create a new folder called "My DJ tracks", outside of iTunes? That solves the problem right there. Why does it HAVE to be in iTunes if you don't want it to be.

Submitted by pcf on Fri, 03/28/2014 - 11:15.

...as I said I'm a DJ, and all of my DJ library is organized through iTunes, with correct tags and BPM's.

There is no way I can move these files outside of the iTunes library.

thescarletfire's picture

Submitted by thescarletfire on Sun, 03/30/2014 - 10:20.

There is a way, you just don't want to move them :)

Submitted by pcf on Sun, 03/30/2014 - 10:36.

Please stop trying to convince me that my need is not real.

Just because YOU don't need this feature doesn't mean there aren't countless others who do. Stop wasting your time interfering in matters that have no relevance to you.

Thank you.

thescarletfire's picture

Submitted by thescarletfire on Sun, 03/30/2014 - 10:59.

Haha, calm down there buddy. All I was saying is that "there is a way", when you said there is not. It's just YOU are choosing not to. YOU don't want to move them. It's called tongue in cheek. Relax.

Submitted by pcf on Sun, 03/30/2014 - 11:29.

The point is that for ME and my workflow there actually is no way to move the files out of the directory.

Also I mentioned that I have other files in there that I don't want to share.

Now please just stop wasting time for both of us, unless you're trying to say that no one will ever need this feature.

thescarletfire's picture

Submitted by thescarletfire on Sun, 03/30/2014 - 18:40.

Good luck with that attitude. Quit it. If you want a feature request, submit it correctly. There is a link on the sidebar. You should talk nicer to people. You'll get more in life.

Submitted by microwave on Mon, 03/31/2014 - 11:27.

Certainly there would be some advanced users who would make use of a "shared with: Nobody" feature in the folder-sharing config, or some other regex or file-glob method of telling Soulseek to exclude certain folder paths or path prefixes from indexing.

However, generally speaking, it is common and routine to ensure that the folders you are sharing contain only what you actually want people to have access to, because folder sharing usually means making available a whole folder and its contents, with no user-specified exclusions. That's true of OSes, Bittorrent (sorta), Soulseek, etc.

Lots of us are maintaining separate folders for our always-shared, sometimes-shared, and never-shared content, and it does require sacrificing some tidiness, convenience, and disk space.

So although I agree folder exclusions would be a nice feature, I wouldn't look at the absence of such a feature as a failing of SoulseekQt or its developers. It's certainly nothing to get upset about. Just file it as a feature request in the appropriate forum. Maybe they'll like the idea and will find it easy enough to implement, and maybe they won't.

In fact, there is already this one, which you could star: Better "Share Folder" interface

Submitted by sysmaster01 on Tue, 04/01/2014 - 09:53.

Well, this feature would really make sense to me too.

Many times I had to move folders or whole trees out of the way because I didn't want these shared to all and sundry.
Especially if you're a rarities collector and you want to prevent sharers of nothing but cookie-cutter tunes from grabbing these from you without even contacting you first, this is great.

So this feature would enable the user to use a setup like this:

+ reggae_dancehall
+ + rare vinyls
+ + 2000-now
+ + 90s
+ + 80s

The user might now make use of two user groups: one of them being "reggae_all" (for all users) that has the "rare vinyls" folder (and subfolders) excluded; and the other being "reggae_special" that does include said folder.

The question is now, isn't there a much easier way to accomplish this task? Just by moving the "rare vinyls" folder OUT OF THE WAY?
Well, not necessarily. And that's because many users have sorted their music by genre, and it feels a bit ugly to use two separate, independent structures like

+ reggae_dancehall
++ ...
+++ ...
++ ...

and

+ reggae_dancehall_rare_vinyls
++
+++

in parallel.
Let alone that it obstructs an otherwise neat view when browsing a user.
Hence I absolutely vote for this feature (even though it's in the wrong forum).