Creating media.xml manually

[pepak]

Does anyone have an insight into how to build the media.xml file in reader memory manually? I can modify the file generated by the reader, but if I make my own file from scratch, it doesn't get used - the Reader simply rereads everything.

Specifically, I am interested in:

1) Which attributes of <xs1:text> need to be present? I hoped I could get by with id, path, title and author, but apparently that is not enough. I added date and size but still the file gets regenerated. The same after adding mime, status and sourceid. What else must I fill in?

2) It seems that id must be in sequential order for <xs1:text> but can contain any value for <xs1laylist> - the reader will change the IDs in playlist to make them sequential again, but they will work, while a <xs1:text> with a non-sequential ID gets deleted and replaced with a new one.

(The difference means that in the case of playlist with non-sequential ID the playlist retains all books while a book with non-sequential ID gets removed from any playlist it is in.)

Is that so?

[JSWolf]

BUMP!

[jamesjmunro]

going to bump this again. I'm running into the same problem with the xml being regenerated every time. I thought that I had read that this is something that came up in the last firmware (but I may be wrong), but assuming I'm not, has anyone goten this to work?

Also, even if I do fill in metadata for text files, would the reader even display it?

[pepak]

Originally Posted by jamesjmunro

going to bump this again. I'm running into the same problem with the xml being regenerated every time. I thought that I had read that this is something that came up in the last firmware (but I may be wrong), but assuming I'm not, has anyone goten this to work?

I got rid of the regeneration by formatting the internal memory. Apparently there was some problem with the FAT and/or root directory, format solved that just fine.

As for hand modification, it's just important to remember that:
1) FAT rounds times to two-second precision.
2) Internal memory uses file creation date, SD uses file modification date in its date field.
3) For some reason my times are always shifted exactly one hour back. Don't know why.

I got rid of all the manual work by writing a small command line utility to do it for me.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29217

Also, even if I do fill in metadata for text files, would the reader even display it?

Yes. Until you change the underlying file, which forces regeneration of metadata, the metadata from the XML file are used.

[jamesjmunro]

Thanks for popping in pepak,

So reformatting the internal memory also kept it from rewriting the media.xml on the SD?

[pepak]

My Reader kept recreating media.xml in the internal memory, the SD card's media.xml was fine. But maybe if you reformat your SD card, you will solve your problem, much like I solved mine by formatting the internal memory.