[shentar]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

The '.ext' file type is often used as a generic, only old never die Norton Commander fans would have any of those

I tried using symlinks sometime back, but I got into trouble with renames (via changes to Title and Author) and functions like Copy to Library - the symlinks would become copies.

I overcame those issues by using Windows .LNK (shortcut) files, but to sidestep Windows shortcut processing I had to add them via Windows Send to or the command line. Which was a bit of pain.

I then used file:\\\blah blah URL's in a long text custom column that I displayed in the Book Details panel - the advantage was that I could have multiple files of the same format in the one 'book'.

I now put the file inks etc into an Evernote note and link to it from calibre with an evernote:\\\blah blah link. Evernote has 'richer' editing facilities than calibre's comments editor - but the main reason is that I can get at them on the web or on my tablet where I can add dictated audio to notes.

BR

Symlinks are probably not a good idea for what I want to do. It might work if calibre were running on the same box as the files but the current plan is to have calibre on a small linux box and the files on a Synology NAS. Fortunately the Synology also runs linux and you can log onto it and use it as a limited function linux PC. This gives me the option to use hard links which are more or less indistinguishable at the linux app level from genuine files.
The Evernote technique is an interesting idea, although I don't need it for this as all access will be from within the home. I don't use Evernote currently but several people have recommended it so I should probably revisit it.

Originally Posted by jgoguen

You want to take software based around and making assumptions about book files and make it work with videos?

That should be interesting, I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Don't expect too much. Most video container files carry little or no metadata of interest concerning their content other than technical info such as format, resolution and the availability of audio & subtitle files. At least initially I have no intention of interrogating the file itself hence my plan to parse my DVD Profiler database. In fact, one of the reasons for using calibre as a starting point is that it provides a neat way of associating an externally stored metadata with the files and searching on it. I'll turn off the option to attempt to extract metadata from the "book" files and to calibre the video files will simply be black boxes.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Simply do a search for .nef in windows explorer in the tree you are interested in, and then drag and drop the results into calibre.

Sigh. I could say "why didn't I think of that" but TBH it has never occurred to me that calibre supports drag'n'drop as an entry method. With a complex piece of software it is too easy to keep doing things the way you always have and not realise there are alternatives. Thanks!