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How to rename and move a project?
I've got a project named foo saved to ~/projects/foo/foo.qtr
I want to rename it. I open the project, use 'save as' to save it to ~/projects/bar/bar.qtr. Now when I look at the actual .qtr file, there's a bunch of references to .mid files which:
1. Are named with a prefix that uses the old name.
2. Point to the actual .mid files in ../foo rather than in the current directory.
In other words, my "save as" did create a new .qtr file but I'm still 100% dependent on the directory containing the data I want to move away from (in name and location at least)
I feel like Qtractor is just not doing the right thing here. When I save a project, the software should save everything about that project in a place that I specify. If that location changes, all dependencies (the .mid files) should be recreated in the targeted directory. If qtractor is content with simply pointing to files in another area of the system, that old directory may be deleted by the user and then the project would be unusable.
A new user to Qtractor would never suspect a .qtr file could contain references to other files that it would need.
re. How to rename and move a project?
Yes, regular session files (*.qtr) only store file references so that if you save it to another filename (Save As...) ALL file references will still point to the very same file locations, although in relative paths to the session directory, whatever it is at the moment you execute the save operation.
Note that the said "session directory" is about the place where new media files (audio or MIDI) will be created and stored on recording at a given moment--it doesn't mean at all that any files used by that session are in the same place or directory--again, only new created and/or recorded material will be stored there.
Yes it's true, you can set the session directory to any, even the same, directory or folder, all the time, for all sessions. You may find it ludicrous but it's how qtractor works since its conception, and pardon me, it won't change any day soon if ever. Sorry.
However, there's one particular exception to this scenario, one you ought to try and use whenever you wish to move away and/or rename the session directory in a self-contained format: the session archive/zip bundle (*.qtz): just rename the session file suffix (extension) from ".qtr" to ".qtz" in the File > Save As... dialog and you'll see what it gives ;)
hth.
cheers
cheers
Woah. The "self containing"
Woah. The "self containing" format is exactly what I want and now realize I should have been using all along. This is a killer feature. Basically, it takes the place of the directory I've been storing my .qtr files in on a case by case basis. I can see how moving to .qtz will also let me version things if I want (not that I ever really do). This is great! Thank you :)
Is it just me or is it not
Is it just me or is it not possible to merge clips when working in a session opened from a .qtz file?
Thanks in advance
re. Is it just me ...
yes it's perfectly possible to merge clips on a session opened from a .qtz file.
when loaded the so called ".qtz" session is like any other, so there's no reason on having any different behavior.
there's something going on in there and I quite frankly don't know what it is...
as always, more (lots of) information is due ;)
seeya
FYI, there's a serious bug
FYI, there's a serious bug somewhere in this .qtz feature as I just experienced data loss. I don't have time to test and document in detail now as I need to recover but there's something serious happening here.
I'm basically now left with a file that when opened, left me with no choice but to accept some missing files. This results in some clips showing up blank where they used to contain data. It is these empty clips which are now preventing me from exporting the entire project as MIDI (qtractor seg faults).
I'm extremely fortunate that I'll be able to recover since the lost data represents work I did last night. I'll need to delete the "empty" clips and forge ahead. That said, there is definitely something extremely dangerous happening here with regard to this .qtz functionality. The feature is clearly renaming and/or deleting files somewhere in the process and should be refactored if I'm right.
Best,
re. serious bug somewhere...
Can you relate whether is anything you might find special on those disappearing clips? specially regarding their original filenames and file type and format?
what kind of steps did you go through before and until you notice the missing data?
I hope you still have the original regular session file (.qtr) and all the files and clips from there are still OK. If that's the case, try to reproduce the said "bug" by saving to and loading from another or new archive/zip bundle file (.qtz).
please?
Appreciate the feeback and
Appreciate the feeback and sorry if I went into a bit of a rant as I found myself scrambling to recover. Next week, I'll try to reproduce this along with complementing documentation.
All the best,
re. Appreciate the feeback...
it is me who's most interested in sorting this out
i'm totally aware that software as complex as this is no piece of cake or walk in the garden, quite the contrary!
i just hope to strike the hammer on a nail that's still nowhere to be found :)
cheers & thanks
re. serious bug somewhere...
any findings?
eagerly awaiting still :)
cheers
Thanks for the follow-up. At
Thanks for the follow-up. At this point, my goal is to simply test the behavior of working with the .qtz format. I'll start by creating a new project in .qtr and then saving it to .qtz for the purpose of making the project portable. I'll document the steps as I go and see where I land...
Create a new project named test1.qtr with the following:
- 3 tracks, each with 4 bars filled with 16th nodes. Each track's notes are sitting on a unique MIDI note number.
- No outputs have been configured as we're only testing how data is saved based on the format used (.qtr or .qtz)
Now, with the .qtr open, I'll save it in the compressed format as test1.qtz
Performing a unzip -l against the .qtz, I can see what I expect in terms of the .qts, and the subdirectory holding the related .mid files
Next, I close everything, move the .qtz to another path and attempt to open it.
This works as expected. This tells me I must have done something dumb and/or reckless when I brought up this issue last week? I'm certain I must have been in a state where the .qts contained references to .mid files that were "outside" the directory of the .qtz itself but I can't seem to piece together the exact steps to recreate the scenario. My takeaway here is that I probably needed to be more careful as I was exploring this awesome feature. I'm totally good with that :)
Hypothesis for the data loss
Hi,
As I'm testing Qtractor to possibly make it my DAW of choice, I just tested the archive feature because renaming a whole project (name of the session, files and folder) is something I absolutely need.
So I tried to find the good steps in order to do that. I finally did but during my tests, I experienced 2 ways of proceeding that led to weird stuff with the file paths that could have been in cause with your problem, windowsrefund :
Let's say we have a project called song1 that we want to rename to song2.
1. Open song1.qtr. I you change the session name to song2 before saving as an archive called song2.qtz, the file names in the song1 folder will be changed. That's not a big deal but one should be aware that changing the session name changes file names instantly (even without saving).
2. Open song1.qtr. Save as an archive called song2.qtz. Now the title bar says that the opened file is song2.qtz but the used files are still the ones from the song1 folder. If you change the session name at this point, you will change the file names from the song1 folder. If you really want to open the song2 archive with the auto created song2 folder, you will have to reopen it.
So you might have followed one of these 2 wrong ways and mess up with your files names. If Rui reads this, maybe the 2nd point could be considered a bug. FYI, I'm using version 0.9.12 from the Ubuntu repos but I haven't found anything new relating to this in the changelogs.
I'm quite sure I went down
I'm quite sure I went down either 1 or both of those roads but couldn't reproduce it after the fact. Your insight is very much appreciated though. Thanks for the follow up.
re. Hypothesis for the data loss
hi @funkypou, @windowsrefund, many thanks for your trials, really appreciated.
re. ... changing the session name changes file names instantly (even without saving).
yes that is correct and a feature brought in since v0.9.4; take note that this *only* renames the files that are present as clips in the timeline and have the old session name as prefix; if any file already exist with the same name, the new filename will get an incremented number suffix; last but not least, the session renaming is a undo/redo-able operation.
there's nothing wrong on either way, 1. or 2.: when opening and saving to a .qtz (bundle archive/zip file), you're warned and asked whether you wish to cleanup an existing session bundle folder or leave it all there as is... the later might be troublesome, all depending on what you want to do with all the junk that is left behind (files and folder).
I really don't wish to dismiss any of your insights, or no bug lurking in there: I'm just saying that all is--or seems to be--working as intended.
cheers
Archive saving
Hi Rui,
Thanks for your answer. No problem with the 1st point. It just surprised me when I discovered it worked this way but that's fine when you know it. And this is cool to learn that it's undo-able.
However, regarding the 2nd point, I don't get any warning message when I save as an archive even though I have unused files. The only message I get happens after reopening the archive and closing it again and is about the deletion of the archive folder.
As I'm using version 0.9.12 from the Ubuntu 20.04 repos, I just tried to reproduce the steps with the last AppImage (0.9.18) and the same things happen. So let me try to be clear about these steps :
Our root folder is named qtractor.
Open song1.qtr in sub-folder song1.
Save as song2.qtz in the root folder. No warning. At this point, I think there's a problem : title bar says song2.qtz but the files used in the session are still the ones from the song1 folder so I shouldn't rename my session to song2 and the most careful thing to do is to close this session.
Reopen song2.qtz. The sub-folder song2 is auto-created. I can rename my session to song2 and nothing is related to song1 anymore. Close the session. Warning about the deletion of the song2 folder.
In my opinion, the problem is that when you just saved as an archive, qtractor should behave the same as when you reopen it, that is to say, using the auto-created archive folder. Or there's another way, it could save the archive without opening the archive session and keep the previous one opened (with song1.qtr in the title bar).
I hope this is clear and helps. Thanks for all your work on qtractor.
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