## Create m3u Files

As the name implies, this function is used to create one or more m3u files.

When the Setting defaulted based on Album or Playlist Open Mode option is set, this function mimics the UI equivalents.

> When in Album Mode or when running in the Batch Processor, the function will create m3u files in each folder containing files in the current selection. Only files in the current selection will be represented in the created files. If the album name is unique for each represented folder, the created file will be named album name. If the album name is not unique, the created file will be named Yate.

> When in Playlist Mode, a file save dialog will appear where you select the name and location of the file to be produced. The produced file will contain an entry for every file in the file list regardless of the current selection.

When the Setting defaulted based on Album or Playlist Open Mode option is not set, you have far more options. Note that when not set the function only operates on the current selection.

You choose to create a single playlist in a specified folder or to create one playlist in each folder containing files. When specifying a folder the path may contain any of the escape sequences described in Escape Sequences. When creating a playlist in each folder you can choose to use the album field as the file name. Regardless as to whether this option is set or not, an album name will only be used if it is consistant across all tracks. Note that the specified path must resolve to be absolute (/) or relative to the home folder (~/. The path will be created if it does not exist.

You can specify a filename to be used if the album name is not being used or is not eligible. If a filename is not specified and one is required, Yate will be used. The specified filename may contain any of the escape sequences described in Escape Sequences.

An attempt will be made to have each entry in a playlist be relative to the playlist file. This is only done if all tracks in a playlist are in the same folder as the playlist or in a subfolder of the folder containing the playlist. You can disable this functionality by selecting the Always write full paths option. When this option is enabled all entries will be fully formed absolute paths.

By default, entries are placed into the produced files in the order in which the tracks are sorted. This reflects the current order displayed in the main window or when batch processing, the default sort order. If you want to have the order randomized you can select the Randomize track order option.

It is possible that you are producing playlists which will be accessed on an external file system which will have a different path when accessed. You can choose to relocate each track's location by replacing leftmost portions of a path with a different pattern. The patterns may contain any of the escape sequences described in Escape Sequences. Note that the patterns are case sensitive. It is strongly recommended that both the from and to pattern end with a valid path component separator (/).

> eg. replace /Volumes/Music/ with /NasDrive/Tracks/

When producing the file, Yate will save it with a .m3u extension if the contents of the file can be saved with the Latin1 encoding. If the filenames contain non Latin1 characters, the file will be saved as a UTF8 file with the extension .m3u8. Some devices cannot play m3u8 files. If your playlist is being saved as m3u8, you can use the Encode as function with a setting of ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) to determine which tracks cannot be saved in an m3u file.

This function is not valid during Grouped execution.