Where are template files located?

[Lexridge]

I am so glad I was an Amiga user in the early days, and not a Windows user (ie. Windows 3.1). Having used the Amiga for many years made moving to RedHat Linux back in 1996 so much easier. I always used an Amiga shell at first, then I found CShell (csh). It was a Posix shell app for the Amiga which I ended up using exclusively. It made my move to Linux nearly seamless. Of course I had never heard of BASH at the time, but BASH was mostly the same as cshell (csh), so I really felt quite at home.

Then in 1998 at my workplace, we purchased and installed 7 Power Macs with PPC CPUs at the TV station I work at, for news and commercial editing. They ran Final Cut Pro 4.5 at that time. I was lost!! That is until I found the Mac terminal. It was enough like BASH that I quickly was able to manage the systems from command line alone. What a relief! I loved the MacOS at that time. However I hate it now, but that is another story. Microsoft and Apple switched positions regarding their OSes since then. I once hated MS, now I hate Apple (I can tell many crazy tech support stories about Apple, and how they offered to pay me to tell them how I installed a working FCP 7 on Snow Leopard). I told them to go fsck themselves and have never called Apple tech support again since. They were eventually upgraded to to MacPros with x86-64s and now are dying a slow death, being replaced slowly by Grass Valley Edius on Win10. Thank GOD!! Never thought I would hear me say that regarding Microsoft lol. But MS is a better company now in many respects, just not worth as much on the stock exchange now lol.

Microsoft has now added (but not by default) a Windows Linux shell. I have it installed on my work workstation running Windows 10, and it is not missing anything! I LOVE it!

Anyway, my point is, finding hidden (dot or otherwise) folders and files should not be rocket science by any means! Every file manager in Linux and Windows has an option to show them. I am amazed this thread went so long. There is no need to get rid of the .ardour(n) folder. Just learn to use it as is. Sure a template manager would be nice, but also it would be so easy to create one in python by anyone interested in doing so. And no, I am not volunteering as I rarely use templates.

[rdesanti]

This is a real PITA. Regretting even bringing this up. I'll just live with the old templates. Thanks for everyone's help anyways. BTW it's a piece of cake in Reaper and probably any other DAW.

[jonetsu]

Anyway, my point is, finding hidden (dot or otherwise) folders and files should not be rocket science by any means! Every file manager in Linux and Windows has an option to show them. I am amazed this thread went so long. There is no need to get rid of the .ardour(n) folder. Just learn to use it as is.

They principle is not 'sound'. dot folders are hidden folders and there's a reason for this. People did not create them just to annoy users and keep stuff for geeks. They are meant not to be visible for the common usage as they are mostly if not always written-to by software, not by users directly (1). Going against that principle is a bad decision. People are using templates. They update their templates.

It easy to understand that Ardour saw a need for templates, if only because everybody else had them, and it was put in there quickly. That's fine. Now's the time to make it a feature and make them open and supported by a real template file dialog for saving and managing.

Sure a template manager would be nice, but also it would be so easy to create one in python by anyone interested in doing so. And no, I am not volunteering as I rarely use templates.

You realize that hacks are not an industry standard. There's competition out there which is good for users as they get access to better products. In Linux it's a bit like a captive market, but in the greater Windows and Mac markets, the competition is very present.

Cheers.

(1) Which always made me wonder why the guys at wine have chosen .wine/

---

Hell that's of course elegant, why didn't I have the idea? (because I press ctrl+h in Thunar I guess haha)

I had to look it up. OK, it's a GUI file manager. Never use any of those. I use the console, that's good enough for most uses and when needed I use emacs. Emacs quite good at managing files you know.

[madmaxmiller]

Hell that's of course elegant, why didn't I have the idea? (because I press ctrl+h in Thunar I guess haha)

I had to look it up. OK, it's a GUI file manager. Never use any of those. I use the console, that's good enough for most uses and when needed I use emacs. Emacs quite good at managing files you know.

Yeah I'm getting lazy sometimes... I once found myself editing fstab in Mousepad (graphical ascii editor) using easy c&p Actually... EMACS is also good at Mixing! LOL

MMM

P.S. Nice title you posting freak

[jonetsu]

Actually... EMACS is also good at Mixing! LOL

Well, not directly emacs perhaps, but "Snd is a sound editor modelled loosely after Emacs."

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/snd/snd/snd.html

[x42]

Necroposting anyone?! I suggest to rename this thread to "Rant about template locations" and replace it, so that anyone who is interested to actually find the template files, finds them.

The canonical answer to "Where are template files located?" for Mixbus 4.x is:

They're stored below MIxbus' config directory. A folder "route_templates" for track/bus templates, and "templates" for session-templates.

Mixbus' config folder is
Windows: %localappdata%\mixbus4\ -- usually: C:\Users\YOUR-USER-NAME\AppData\Local\mixbus4\
OSX/macOS: $HOME/Library/Preferences/Mixbus4/
Linux: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mixbus4/ -- usually $HOME/.config/mixbus4/

To reach that config-dir, on Windows: Hit Win-key + R, type %localappdata%, confirm and then navigate down to the mixbus4 directory.
On Mac: Shift + Command +G (Finder > Go > Go To Folder): type ~/Library/Mixbus4.

[jonetsu]

Necroposting anyone?! I suggest to rename this thread to "Rant about template locations" and replace it, so that anyone who is interested to actually find the template files, finds them.

Dodges in one swoop any concerns about using a hidden directory to store user-modifiable files. Bravo.

[x42]

Necroposting anyone?! I suggest to rename this thread to "Rant about template locations" and replace it, so that anyone who is interested to actually find the template files, finds them.

Dodges in one swoop any concerns about using a hidden directory to store user-modifiable files. Bravo.

The files are not supposed to be directly edited by the user. They're for Mixbus to handle.

Furthermore there are specifications for this. Apple mandates specific locations for application-specific data, config and caches (which are hidden folders by default) as do the XDG specs for GNU/Linux.

[jonetsu]

The files are not supposed to be directly edited by the user. They're for Mixbus to handle.

Yes, not edited directly as when using a text editor, but created directly by the user via Mixbus. The user created then by adjusting parameters in a session. He might have 10 template files or more for different purposes. These are his, they are directly linked to his production of mixes, to the creative output.

Well then there are quite a few files that are handled only by Mixbus in a session. A lot. That the user should not edit. Why are they visible ? Maybe so that, going along with Ardour's philosophy regarding protecting your data (eg.clean up of files) you should be able to actually see all of them, easily see that they are backed up, etc... Easy visual control when needed.

Moreover the template files belongs to the user. How is the user supposed to backup those files if they are not visible ?

Bottow line: template files are user files.

XDG ? Ah yes, all my music should be in /home/user/MyMusic/ somewhere in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME. Etc. Simply put: the hell with that. Will not start to put symlinks in the home directory because of some 3 guys somewhere decided that would the way. The home directory is ultra volatile and contains the bare essential to configure the system, along with the whole system. The whole system can be replaced at any time and the data will always remain at the same location, no need to create symlinks in the home directory.

" XDG_DATA_HOME
Where user-specific data files should be written (analogous to /usr/share).
Should default to $HOME/.local/share."

And these guys are bent on hidden directories.

Why make user files easy to see when they can be hidden ? Why ? Why have those directories such as analysis, backup, dead, export, externals, instant.xm, interchange visible to the user ? Let's hide them.

cd to a new Mixbus session myNewSong/ and do a ls:

(nothing)

Why should there be anything ? All written by Mixbus. User should not see that, just as the user should not see his template files. Both are the user's creation, both are the actual products with which the user can mix music. So let's hide them.

Cheers.

[x42]

Why have those directories such as analysis, backup, dead, export, externals, instant.xm, interchange visible to the user ? Let's hide them.

Yep. That is already on the ToDo List. The session is a self-contained opaque bundle. Ideally the whole folder will appear as a file (like app bundles on OSX/macOS). -- you can still `cd` into the folder and inspect the structure.