it will be able to grab the ID3 metadata and album covers (if available in the ID3 tags), but for now Music Collection needs to read directories that are IN the site, that is, in the site's root or subfolders...
so this means that in your case you should move them...

otherwise it is not possible, not out of the box at least. you may need some custom coding work for that...!

Hi Germi

Wow what a quick response!

You say "for now", so i take it that scanning folders outside the root may be implemented in future.

Its just that I have 600GB collection and it does not bear thinking about.

Kind Regards
Michael
GatesOfDelirium

well, I simply meant that now is not included... I don't know if it may be included in the future. maybe it will, but for now there are no plans..!

yes I understand you don't want to move 600Gb of files... :S :S

Hello !
I have the same problem, with 1.5 TO of mp3 and flac... I have many devices (EVA 8000, iPad, Phones, PS3, TV...) connected, and it's hard to move all my music and change parameters on devices...
Today I'm using Drupal with Zina module for Music, but I would prefer Joomla and your Component !!!
It would be nice to implement this feature.
Best regards

hello zitton

ID3 tag reading is already available, for files in the SAME server.

Germi,

I can not get this to work on the same server. ONLY with files that are within the web directory.

For example, windows box, web folder is:

c:\\testserver\\www\\

music is located at

c:\\music\\testmusic\\

Both on same server, both on same drive.

In the configuration for MC, I put my song folder path as:
c:\\music\\testmusic\\

It can not find any of the files as it automatically hard codes the full web server path to my song path.

MC tries to find:

c:\\testserver\\www\\c:\\music\\testmusic\\

yes, it only works for files within the web directory as you already knew... changing the scan function would not be a problem to allow non-root scanning, the problem is that files couldn't be played as you know...

I found a temporary work around on my test server in case anyone is interested. It only works as far as i know on folders that are on the same computer, though they can be on different drives.

One could always create a symlinks for the music folder so it shows up within the web path. I believe this is something that *.nix has done forever but something that is fairly new to win vista and win 7. Supposedly xp can do it as well, but requires 3rd party software.

For example if one has a drive on their webserver, say d:\\music, they can add a symlink so that it also shows up in their c:\\www\\songs folder. That way in MC all you have to do is keep the songs path as \\songs, and it can read all the files.

I got it to work well on my test server. Here is a well written blog on it as well i came across, http://waxideal.com/blog/2010/03/29/using-windows-7-symlinks/