Sharing issue

[jbinkley60]

I have a folder that I only want to share to a single user via the web interface so I added the new folder to Mezzmo (v5.0.3) and set up the folder sharing so that only the user and no other device can see the folder. This is working fine. None of my devices can see the folder. However, the Smart playlists I have for recently added, via by name, view by genre etc.. all will show videos in folder to all of my devices and even allow them to be played. Obviously I can go through every smart playlist I have and add a statement to exclude that folder but I would have thought Mezzmo would have logic in the smart playlists and device rendering which evaluated the sharing directives prior to sending to devices. I didn't test active playlists. is this a bug or by design ?

[Paul]

It's working by design. You have excluded a certain folder or playlist from being delivered to certain users and devices, and that's what Mezzmo is doing. However, your smart playlists and active playlists may contain these files since they aggregate files based on attributes of the files.

A better approach may be to also start using the new Shared Playlists/Folders feature in Mezzmo v5.0. Go to the Media Devices dialog and edit a device, or Web Access dialog and edit a user. On the Device Settings dialog (or User Settings dialog), go to the Shared Playlists/Folders tab. This lets you specify the top-level playlists/folders that the device (or user) will be able to browse. So now you can add (say) the "Kids Movies" folder and that device or user will only be able to browse into that folder. I think this will let you accomplish what you need to do :). Let us know how you go.

[jbinkley60]

Thanks Paul but that won't work for this instance in that I have a double logic condition I am trying to meet. I am trying to have the user only see/access the single folder (which this will address) and I don't want anyone else to see it (which this won't). It won't because Mezzmo still requires the folder or playlist to be in the library before it can be added to a user or device. As soon as I add it the Smart playlists pick it up. I can go into the Smart playlists and exclude the folder (there ae a bunch to edit) but this isn't sustainable if this became a regular occurence.

[Paul]

Understand. There is no current one step method to overcome this. As you suggest, using smart filters on your smart playlists and active playlist will filter out those files that you don't want certain users to see.

[jbinkley60]

Paul I decided to solve the problem using the keyword option. I added the keyword "noshare" to each of the videos in the folder and then am updating all of my Smart playlists to not include anything with the keyword "noshare" in it. I felt this would be more flexible than limiting to a single folder or file path going forward. What I need to do is go back and look at some of the logic for my Smart playlists and see if I can reduce the quantity. I haven't tried to update them since you added Smart filtering inside of Active playlists. In the end this is one of the main reasons why I chose Mezzmo. Your database driven flexibility is second to none. The other solutions I looked at were nowhere close to this feature rich.

[Paul]

That's a nice solution. Let us know if you have any problems doing this.

[jbinkley60]

Paul,

The keyword approach is working. We'll see if I can maintain it over time. I took a look at moving some of my Smart Playlists to Active Playlists to eliminate some of the maintenance. For instance I had a group of Smart Playlists which would display the videos by their published year (i.e. one for 2000, one for 2001 etc...). I created a new active playlist and used the nested smart playlist functionality to exclude what I don't want to see and this seems to be fine. However, one thing I can't seem to find is a sort option for active playlists like the smart playlists have. I want to sort by the sort title within the active playlist. This doesn't appear to be possible or I am missing something.

[Paul]

I want to sort by the sort title within the active playlist. This doesn't appear to be possible or I am missing something.

There is 'Sort Title (Ascending)' and 'Sort Title (Descending)' in the Sort by settings for active playlists. On the Active Playlist Properties dialog, scroll down to view the Sort by setting.

[jbinkley60]

I forgot to scroll down. Thanks. I found it.