The Problem
I finally made the switch from WinAMP to Songbird. I had tried it on a laptop, so wasn't too surprised...and liked most of what I saw. That is, until I realized I couldn't watch multiple folders. Oh no!!!
This would have been fine if I could watch the 'My Music' folder...but Songbird seems to disapprove of watching libraries. Something about file duplication issues...whatev.
The Fix
Shortcut (failed)
I first tried to make standard shortcuts (right-click > new shortcut) to the other folders I wanted to watch within the watched folder. No go.
Symlink (worked)
I had recently run into a problem on my Linux box that I had to utilize Symlinks to address. Why not try something like that for Windows?
I came across this link:
It showed how to, using an (elevated) command prompt, make a Symlink in Windows. This is only available for Vista or later. I successfully used it for Windows 7.
Using the following code for the 4 additional folders I wanted to include in my library, new Symlinks were created in my watched folder which allows Songbird to successfully see songs added to those places.
mklink /d c:\media\music\extra_folder d:\music
[watched fol] [Symlink name][folder to watch]This has to be run in an elevated command prompt:
A Visual
...they look like shortcuts, but they are Symlinks!
Conclusion
Symlinks seem to be the solution to only one available watch folder in Songbird. This was verified on Windows 7 and Songbird 1.10.1 (Build 2160). Presumably, the same idea would probably work in Linux.
