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#242842 03/06/14 03:36 AM
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I want to reduce the number of files in the BB directory (win 7). Will BB still function if I move the style files to a styles folder for example. Does BB recognise and work with sub folders.

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Hi Lynn,

Someone with much more experience than I will know the answer to this.

My feeling is that it's not possible to move the style files because they and their demos need to be in the \bb folder. I'm not sure about this, though.

What I do is to store all my music creations in individual folders outside of \bb. That way I never need to browse the \bb folder to find my songs so it doesn't really matter what is in there.

All the best,
Noel


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Welcome to the forum. It's been many years since this was last discussed, but I believe those style files need to stay in the /bb folder. You can put your songs in folders wherever you like, but the various 'system' files must stay where installed. At least, that's the way it was last time we discussed it, and I don't recall anything changing.


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In the Mac version they are in folders thank God !
as there are thousands of files in the root. I suppose eventually you will be able to set the style folder as you can with the RealTracks.

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It's a good Wishlist item.


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Originally Posted By: Lynn Hill
I want to reduce the number of files in the BB directory (win 7). Will BB still function if I move the style files to a styles folder for example. Does BB recognise and work with sub folders.


You would have to use the Stylepicker REBUILD button on every single folder after doing that - and make sure that the "include sub folders" is checked in that dialog. BB will take a bit of time to rebuild the Stylepicker database, but once that's done, it should work the same as before.

However, there may likely be a few features that may not work anymore if you do that.

*You might encounter the "Style Not Found" situation when attempting to load songfiles made previusly, to include the pgmusic Demo songs, etc.

*It won't do much in the way of conserving Disk Space, consider that, even though there are a lot of them, the Style Files inside my bb folder proper are only around 115MB in total, just took a look at that to see what it was.

*Doing such would put you into what would basically be "uncharted territory" - and any problems you may have and report here without including that information every time would likely make troubleshooting or finding a solution to that problem near to impossible for others who have not done that with their Style files.

I have found over the years that changing the Explorer View of the bb folder to "List" and then "By Type" makes it far easier to navigate around inside that folder without resorting to moving things from where the pg music developers intended them to be. Much easier to find things as opposed to the Windows default large icons view.

So my bottom line is that I would NOT recommend doing this.



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Style file (*.sty) can be located in two (actually three) different places.

BIAB StylePicker will find them if they are located either in the C:\BB (or wherever you installed BIAB) folder or in the C:\BB\Styles folder. So yes, you can move the style files (only) to a C:\BB\Styles folder. You'll have to rebuild the list after you do that though.

The only other option is that if you have a song that already exists, the style(s) associated with that song will be found also if they are in the same folder as the song itself. This is good for when you might create one-off user styles that you don't need to have picked up when you rebuild the StylePicker list, since StylePicker will only find styles in the two folders mentioned above.

Keep in mind, however, that when you upgrade to a new version of BIAB in the future, you may find all the PGMusic files getting re-deposited back into the main folder again.

What I do is to keep all my PGMusic styles in the main C:\BB folder and keep all my third party styles (from Norton, FineTuned, and others), along with my own user styles in the C:\BB\Styles folder. Helps keep them separated.

I generally don't worry about the number of files, because I don't work out of the C:\BB folder, but I manage all my song files in a completely separate song data folder (which is actually on a completely different drive than the BIAB folder.


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There is only 8,000 or so files in the root dir.

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>>I want to reduce the number of files in the BB directory (win 7). Will BB still function if I move the style files to a styles folder for example. Does BB recognise and work with sub folders.


Yes, you can move the styles to a c:\bb\styles folder.

If you do that, you should move STY and STX files (not ST2 or ST3)


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Thanks Peter, that's good news. What happens, though, when there is an upgrade? Will the installer understand that the styles are in Styles folder, and not give you a new second set back in the /bb folder?


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Thank you everybody. This is excellent forum for a brilliant program.

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>> Thanks Peter, that's good news. What happens, though, when there is an upgrade? Will the installer understand that the styles are in Styles folder, and not give you a new second set back in the /bb folder?

The installer won't understand that, and would give you the styles again in the BB folder. We do have plans to clean up the BB folder in the future, but as Matt pointed out, its not a trivial issue, since installers would need to be aware of multiple locations for files etc.


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Well, you could let the Installer go ahead and do its thing during a version upgrade, then go into the folder and Move all the newly installed sty files to your own styles folder and just tell Windoze Explorer to go ahead and Replace All files with same name.

That way, if any styles have been the subject of any repairs or fixes in the new version, you'd still be good to go.


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