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#164224 06/29/12 10:17 AM
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I have many songs in BIAB I tried search using the DOS command *.mgu It finds all my songs with melody but what is the DOS command that does that alphabeticly??
I tried the the other searches and I am not finding a song I know is in BIAB

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I don't have an answer, I don't use DOS commands.

BUT - There is a great little search program called "Search Everything" (http://www.voidtools.com/) someone here revealed a while back. I just tried it for .mgu and they all popped up. Great thing is the program is very Windows Explorer-like, and the list can be sorted by column headings, like name, path, dates, all that stuff. Might be just what you need. I use it all the time to find stuff I know I have but don't know where.

Good luck


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kelso #164226 06/29/12 12:09 PM
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That's easy. From a command prompt, type

DIR *.MGU

This command already defaults to a listing by filename in alpha order, ascending. It is short for

DIR *.MGU /ON

And if you want them in alpha order descending, type

DIR *.MGU /O-N

And if you want to learn why,

DIR /?


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When I put in DOS cmd DIR *.MGU, came up with this answer:

Volume in C is OS
Volume Serial No. is...

Directory of C:\Users\(name)

File not found


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Quote:

When I put in DOS cmd DIR *.MGU, came up with this answer:

Volume in C is OS
Volume Serial No. is...

Directory of C:\Users\(name)

File not found



That happened because you were searching the directory C:\Users\(name), which presumably has no song files in it. They are likely in C:\BB -- or wherever you have put them.

Really, though, Kelso's idea is a good one over the long haul. "Everything" database is a little hard to control at first, but if you hang in with it, you learn to specify the directories to search; then you find specific songs fast. Not just a huge list of .MGU but -- for example -- anything with "Baubles" or "200 BPM" in the title.

You can manage files from the program (delete, rename). You can start BiaB by clicking on the title you want to play. It's quite slick, and you needn't relapse into a DOS box.


Larry
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allis #164229 06/30/12 08:49 AM
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Yes, if you aren't in the right folder to start, it won't work. The command you want is:

CD BB

and if the song files are on another drive, you first have to go there, like this:

F:
then CD BB
etc.


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allis #164230 06/30/12 08:50 AM
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Thanks Larry
Coolest

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Thanks Matt!

John

kelso #164232 06/30/12 10:48 AM
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I tried "everything" seems like a very usefull tool.

Where you named after the famous race horse? Kelso. He was one of the very best!
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I could never memorize those DOS commands. I favored the Atari and the Mac back in the DOS days. My DOS 5 reference book was falling apart at the spine. Win 3.1 was a relief, Win 95 a breath of fresh air. By Win98 I hardly used my Mac anymore (and my Atari was long obsolete).

Funny, I can memorize music, but neither DOS commands nor strings of numbers.

If all my .mgu files were in the same folder, I'd simply open Windows Explorer in that folder -- click View->Arrange Icons By->Name (to alphabetize them) then click View->Arrange Icons By->Type and they would all be alphabetical folder.

Notes


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Quote:

If all my .mgu files were in the same folder, I'd simply open Windows Explorer in that folder




That's straightforward, and it requires no extra installations. But "Everything" is still better. It's flexible enough to search a number of specified directories for specific filenames, which is generally what I need done.

If I type in "Dreamsville", for instance, I will immediately and automatically be shown several Band in a Box arrangements of it (MGU, SG7, every wretched thing), several sheet music files in PDF and graphics formats, a couple of Cakewalk files, songs from Jammer Pro, scans of fakebooks, maybe a few MP3's, MIDI files I once downloaded and forgot, and so on. Just everything with "Dreamsville" in its name. These things can be resorted in Everything, but normally there are few enough that it's comfortable just to skim down the list and select. If you can't remember which is which, you just keep opening them until you find the one you wanted. If you see you have duplicates, some can be deleted right there while you're thinking of it, or moved to the proper folder.

"Everything" is a donation-ware program that I sent a payment for, because it has been so useful for so long. The guy deserved something for it.


Larry
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allis #164235 06/30/12 12:46 PM
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Interestingly, none of us has mentioned the built-in BiaB song librarian for finding songs. It is by no means useless, in spite of its lack of popularity here.

But it's limited to BiaB files only, and it takes forbloodyfreakingever to rebuild when you have many BiaB files. My directories require an hour of rebuilding, and it's well to plan ahead. In its favor, it does offer extra information about the songs, if anybody ever entered any, and if you need it. I never seem to find that aspect useful, but others might.

I have virtually stopped updating that librarian and almost never use it nowadays.


Larry
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allis #164236 06/30/12 05:24 PM
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Copy, over and out!
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So, I give up. I am going to re-enter the song "How do you keep the music going" I need it for a wedding!

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Perhaps redundant, but this may be of use.

Windows explorer can also be used with a wild card, and additionally filtered by. Depending on which version of Windows you have, Windows Explorer will look somewhat different. In principal though, you can do this:

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Navigate to a suitable base directory (i.e., to limit/broaden the scope of the search). If for example you wanted to search all of the 'C' drive, make sure your are at the c: drive in the navigation tree. In the search field, type *.mgu (or whatever file type you are looking for). If you're songs are saved in Documents, start there. What you will get is a search limited to all *.mgu file types.

Alternatively (in Vista/Windows 7), Click the Windows button, and then in the Search field that opens, type*.mgu. If any such files are found, they will appear in the resultant files pane. Hover over that file with the mouse pointer, and the file path will appear.

There are other methods and advance search options that can be used with Windows Explore (depending on the version of Windows) that let you further filter/sort based on columns in the files pane (you can add/remove columns from the display), so check out the Windows Explorer help. However, Windows Explorer has historically had a distinct limitation (regardless of Windows OS version). That limitation is the inability to print out or save the directory listing or search results to a text file(although Vista/Win 7 can save searches for reuse later).

One of the key advantages of using the Command window option is the ability to save directory listings and filtered (like a search) directory listings as a text file. This is especially useful if you want a saved listing of one or more directories or searches with/without filtering. It's actually quite easy.

At the risk of repetition (and no insult intended to any), here is the Command window version (XP, Vista, Win 7):

1. Open the Command Prompt window (by default, the Command Prompt window opens to user's home directory, such as C:\users\Richard in my case). If you want to begin the search elsewhere, type

cd c:\path, where for example path = bb, or users\richard\documents

2. Here's an example:

dir /s *.mgu
Volume in drive C is COMPAQ
Volume Serial Number is (will be your volume here)

Directory of C:\Users\richard\Documents\BBW\NortonMusic

06/05/2012 10:06 AM 6,413 Sweet_Home_Chicago.MGU
1 File(s) 6,413 bytes

Total Files Listed:
1 File(s) 6,413 bytes
0 Dir(s) 73,114,984,448 bytes free

The /s option used above searches all sub-directories in the specified path.

By default, files will be sorted alphabetically in ascending order. There are several other options as others have mentioned.

If you want to save the results to a text file for later use, modify the command to:

dir /s *.mgu > mylist.txt

You can then open this file with any text editor or word processor. Really, the Command line for this purpose is easy once you do it a few times. And finding a file (rather than having to re-enter the song (as in your case) is worth the few minutes it takes to get comfortable with the dir command.

Either way, you don't need a 3rd party app to do this.

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Thank you very much

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The good ol' BBFinder does have an edge over the otherwise standard BB FilePicker -> BBFinder offers a convenient list over a variety of disk drives.

For your purposes the nifty BB onboard feature "File/Find File ..." may just be the ticket.


Martin
MartinB #164241 07/02/12 02:42 AM
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Quote:

For your purposes the nifty BB onboard feature "File/Find File ..." may just be the ticket.






YES!

TRY IT OUT!


--Mac

Mac #164242 07/02/12 04:13 AM
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I have often "wishlisted" for the BIAB Songpicker to be upgraded to the level of BB Finder.

Tony

MartinB #164243 07/02/12 05:57 AM
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Quote:

For your purposes the nifty BB onboard feature "File/Find File ..." may just be the ticket.



Terrific! Works wonderfully. It's hard to believe I searched BiaB files for 20 years before even noticing that.

Thanks for mentioning it, Martin.


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