Home sharing photos - keeping folder structure

Question

Hi,
I am sharing my photos from my Windows 7 PC to my Apple TV (latest model). Is there a way to keep my folder structure? I have over 17 000 photos sorted into folders, and having them all listed on a single screen is simply ridiculous. Surely I can do this?
I am using iTunes 10.6.1.7
Cheers
Alix

Answer 1

Alex,
I understand completely, this drove me nuts as well.
I wrote a small Python program to take advantage of Junction Points to hack a workaround. Since you're a lecturer in Computer Science, you shouldn't have any trouble taking this and modifying it as you need. It allows you to leave your pictures organized as you wish (mine are YYYY/MM/Event) but creates a set of junction points in a separate location that provide the separation at one directory level.  For example:
original picture folders:
2012\09\Labor Day
2012\09\Something Else
would create the following junction points all in one directory and point them to the corresponding original folders:
2012
2012.09
2012.09.Labor Day
2012.09.Something Else
I apologize for not following standard Python naming conventions and such, this was my first python program and I haven't gotten around to reading the recommendations yet.
The program relies on Junction Points created using:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx
import os
from subprocess import call
def getTargetDirsToDelete(directory, namesToIgnore) :
          # This could be one line, but this was my first Python venture and I needed to easily test each step
          dirs = os.listdir(directory)
          dirs = [os.path.join(directory, item) for item in dirs ]
          dirs = [item for item in dirs if os.path.isdir(item)]
          dirs = [item for item in dirs if not os.path.relpath(item, directory) in namesToIgnore]
          return dirs
sourcePath = 'Drive:\\FolderWithPictures'
targetPath = 'Drive:\\FolderForJunctions'
junctionPath = 'Drive:\\PathToJunctionFolder\\junction'
#remove old target dirs
oldTargetDirs = getTargetDirsToDelete(targetPath, ['iPod Photo Cache'])
for oldTargetDir in oldTargetDirs:
          print ("Removing Junction " + oldTargetDir)
          call([junctionPath, "-d", oldTargetDir])
# get sourceDir to ignore
sourceDirToIgnore = os.path.join(sourcePath,'iPod Photo Cache')
for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(sourcePath):
          if dirpath != sourcePath and not str.startswith(dirpath, sourceDirToIgnore) :
                    # get the full path of the junction point source
                    makeSourcePath = dirpath
                    # get the full path of the junction point target
                    makeTargetPath = os.path.relpath(dirpath, sourcePath)
                    makeTargetPath = makeTargetPath.replace('\\', '.')
                    makeTargetPath = os.path.join(targetPath, makeTargetPath)
                    print ("Creating Junction Point at " + makeTargetPath + " pointed to " + makeSourcePath)
                    call([junctionPath, makeTargetPath, makeSourcePath])
Hope that you (or someone else) finds it useful.
- Sean