OK.. Here's my problem. I dont have cable, so I stream everything to my TV through xbmc which is getting files from a win2k computer. The issue is that as I add files, I run out of disk space , no big deal, I can just add another hard drive. But when I want to watch something, I have to scan through 4 shares (I have 4 hard drives) to see all my files.

People have suggested I break them out by alphabet or by genre, but the maintenance on that is just going to be a big pain in the ass. I want to be ablet o boot up xbmc and select movies, then see a list of all movies on a PC even though the files may exist on different drives..

Anyone try to solve this? I am just wondering what other people are doing..

The only real solution that I have come up with is to modify the xbmc code to read in some kind of config file that lives on my fileserver and contains the name of the movie, followed by a path.. That shouldnt be too hard, but I think my xdk is way out of date..

I have tried creating windows shortcuts, but xbmc doesnt see those...

Any ideas??

You could try adding paths separated by commas. Im sure this works for <Myprograms> entries - not sure about SMB shares though.

I suspect you would do somthing like ...
<name>All Videos</name>
<path>smb://pc/share1,smb://pc/share2,smb://pc/share3,smb://pc/share4</path>

If it don't work, then post a feature suggestion, or post a patch.

If I've misread your intention, then just ignore this.

That only works in myprograms. The only thing that I have found is you have to create like a virtual folder on the computer with all the harddrives. And then share that folder. I dont have a link to it but it has been done maybe someone can throw it up. I have this same problem but my video shares are on 3 different computers so I have to search all 3 computers. So my question would be why cant we use the commas like in my programs?

Thanks
Jason

Cool.. Thanks for the keywork Virtual Directory.. It seems as though SXT can already do what I want... At least according to This Thead ... I am at work, but I'll give it a try when I get home

on *nix boxes all you have to do is make a folder and then make symlinks to the other hard drives into that folder.

% mkdir xbmcShare
% cd xbmcShare
% ln -s /path/to/hd1 ./hd1
% ln -s /path/to/hd2 ./hd3
% ln -s /path/to/hd3 ./hd3

now share xbmcShare and all the hds will be shared into one dir. Yes unix IS better than Windows. how many years is it gonna take MS to stop using stupid fake shortcuts that are useless.

haha.. actually what i think is the solution to my problem is using junction. Junction allows you to make symlinks in windows.. Well sort of.. According to the readme unlike symlinks, when you remove the link, it actually removes the files!! That is unless you use junction to remove the symlinks..

Anywho this looks like the solution for me.. Just need to script out the linking of all my files

thanks for all the suggestions!

OUCH! better watch out!

I'm sorry, i'll have to admit, my 1st post was gonna be about junctions (I use Winbolic Link) but I'm not sure you will be able to achieve the effect you want (like viewing 1 big folder on XBMC).

I deliberately included the XML code snip to 'prompt' people there 'could be' a more elegant way - and since you said you'd "modify the xbmc code", I was tempting you

I'd definately use 'paths separated by commas' if it were available!

HAHA.. I was going to look into doing that... But with junction, and a 3 line batch file to create the links, everything is exactly how I like it...