INTERACT FORUM

The way large icons are only reproduced once per album is an awesome feature. Best yet!

I'd have to say the alexicon/icon/image thing is a definite home run, as well as a stunning display of both columnizing and optionating. 

Unfortunately, this isn't going to replace the "image" field until it is made sortable.  I can't seem to get the alexicon comun to sort with any order, either file location or is/isn't.

Thanks

This works exactly like I imagined. The yellow color for unimported video and image files is an excellent choice.

I'll comment the large icon column later after playing with it more. It looks promising.

A couple of small things would make this perfect:

- Since all other unimported media types have now yellow icons could you add yellow icons to unimported documents too?

- As jgreen commented, the "Image (small thumbnail)" column could be sortable by clicking the column header area. It would sort according to the status: image link lost (X symbol), image available, no image. This would make possible to find the files that have lost the image links.

It would sort the column like this:

small icon + large thumbnail = exactly what I had been waiting for (without even knowing it).

thanks!

Wow that's pretty much exactly what I was looking for there guys. Actually it's better and smarter too. Can I give ya'll a big hug? Big thanks!
(edit)

You, You! Hey, hey! You!

This is a home run for music!

Large icons are a little rough around the edges for video, images, and documents.

For documents, could you size the default large icons for pdfs, docs, txt, etc. to something like 200x200 so they look good with music artwork in an "all" view?

For videos and images, where thumbs are auto-generated, the  large icons are too small. Thumbs created via manual screen capture look great.

Excellent work guys.

Large thumbnails and small icons are cool to use together. It would be nice though if the large icons could scale to a uniform size.

Thanks.

I agree. The thumbnail slider springs to mind as a good control. Why not make all the thumbnails a standard width and use the thumbnail slider to size them all equally. Then all of the other columns could still honour the settings for "auto size" or whatever.

I even think that a little gap between each album might even be desirable. It would look clean, and give albuims without many songs a bit more space for the thumbnail.

This works exactly like I imagined. The yellow color for unimported video and image files is an excellent choice.

I agree -- only I call it "gold." The pattern of using "gold" icons for unimported files works really well as a standard.

- Since all other unimported media types have now yellow icons could you add yellow icons to unimported documents too?

Exactly what I was thinking.  "Imported" file icons can be any color OTHER than gold if gold is consistently used for "Unimported" files.  In other words; blue notes, black film reels, white documents, etc. -- all are easily distinguishable from the gold color, and can therefore instantly show what files have been imported and which have not.

The icon system is looking REALLY nice.

Larry

I agree -- only I call it "gold." The pattern of using "gold" icons for unimported files works really well as a standard.

Actually, the yellow note icon is a bit more golden in my custom icon file. It is closer to the color of the other "unimported file" icons.

large thumbnail + small icon = teh win!

Brilliant!!  Two more things to make this perfect:
1) For albums with a small number of tracks, so that the album art has to be scaled down, add the option to simply make the row take up more space vertically, or leave a gap, so that all album art is the same size.

2) Add a small horizontal dividing line between each album.

I do like this option, of being able to specify a minimum row height so the images can always be a min. size. That might even give way to allow columns to support multi lines of text for fields like lyrics maybe. Don't know how the row / columns are designed. Either way, it's still hecka cool.

Alex,
Will you permit us to call them alexicons?  I'm afraid I started it and I'm hoping it doesn't irritate you.

If you object, I'll set the forum software to replace alexicon with jgreenicon or just johnicon.

Jim

Alex,
Will you permit us to call them alexicons?  I'm afraid I started it and I'm hoping it doesn't irritate you.

No objections. It is a different word anyway. Or perhaps you should change my user name to match it.  

One thing that would really make this new icon system even better for me, would be if there was a separate icon color (grey, purple, or orange maybe?) for Removable items.

I have a lot of TV shows and movies imported into my database that I've burned off onto Disc.  I like them to be there so I can get a "complete" view of my media.  However, sometimes you don't feel like getting up off the couch and you forget what's on the drives and what's on disc.  The visual cue would be nice.

I've built special view schemes for many of my items which filter out the removable stuff, but a simple color would be swell.  Since we have the icons after all...   

Can anybody think of a way that would allow you to see the details view (large thumbnails plus columns) as an "Albums" view, like album thumbnails view, where you can apply different sorting presets, but the files are always grouped by album first.

I know that when seeing the detailed list you might often want to see the files to be individually sorted, but it's equally true that this could be a really powerful way to view albums holistically and in track order too. And the ability to see whole albums in "Last played", "Date" etc. order would be really good. The problem is in how to easily distinguish between whether you are in "Albums" view mode, or "Songs" view mode.

Also, does anyone agree with my above suggestion of having the list scroll to the selected thumbnail automatically whenever you change from album thumbnails to details view?

I just imported some new songs that don't have cover art yet. Why is the Image (small thumbnail) column showing the same thing as the Image (small icon) column? I would think the small thumbnail would be blank just like the Image (large thumbnail) is since there is no cover art.

Wuhuu this is a much awaited feature! I love it! Thumbs up for JRiver.

I like the idea of a VERY small space, or perhaps a line, in between albums in the track list.  It would just need to be big enough to notice without taking up too much extra space, but I think it would look better this way.

That was exacly what I though too! Just a thin, black line after the last entry in the album.

As it is now, the album art start at the first track. It would be nice if was right in the middle. Thus, the distance from the first track to the top of the album art would equal the distance from the last track to the button of the album art.

Cheers,
Rasmus

I like the big thumbnail/small icon combination too. Probably wont use the small thumbnails anymore.

One thing that would be absolutly great would be if the large icons had little hover over "play" and "Tag" links, like the tiles. This would allow us the ability to quickly scroll through the list visually (like with album thumbnails view), and be able to play an entire album and/or just an individual song without having to constantly change between "Album thumbnails" and "Details". The best of both worlds.

Of course, the ultimate solution would be to add a "Details" link to each of the "Album thumbnails" when in "Album thumbnails" view mode, which would expand all the other columns next to the thumbnail,  essentially negating the need for "Details"in the viewheader menu altogether, and completely solving the long standing problem of wanting to be able to search through thumbnails for an album and then quickly choosing just one song within that thumbnail.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/1008/albumthumbnailswithdetaixg2.jpg


And to get back to just the album thumbnails mode, the view header could just have a "Return to album thumbnails" or "Collapse details" link similar to the "Reset" link that we see in panes view.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/2739/detailsviewwithplayontjm2.jpg


You could argue that this is all already possible using the menu in the viewheader to switch between details and album thumbnails, but the value of having the "Details" link on each thumbnail would be that you would automatically be scrolled to the selected thumbnail which doesnt happen currently, plus it's "in your face" placement would make the program easier to use from the beginning. It would be so intuitive, you wouldnt even need to tell people about the "different Views".

Isn't the thumbnails on top and file list on bottom option enough for this? I have used it extensively since it was introduced.

Partly because of that I wasn't too excited about the small album cover icons in the details view. I clicked an album thumbnail and the bottom details view showed an useless icon of the same album art in front of each track.

Some of my MC11.1 sreenshots:

(Keep in mind that these are in 100% size. I have reduced MC's window size to fit the maximum allowed forum image size, 800x600. In reality I can show a lot more similarly sized album thumbnails on top.)








Edit: perhaps the quote is better with linked images... (Jim?). I considered removing the images, but I though that keeping them in the quote would make scrolling to the original post for seeing the images unnecessary. In any case they would already be in the browser cache. 

Alex, if I understand you, NOT having the "missing track" art in the johnnycon (AKA Alexicon) column would would allow column sorting to order by "is/isn't"?  If so, let's get rid of those little red+yellow X's!

Another way to do that would be to allow sorting in the "Image (small thumbnail)" column, as requested earlier in this thread.

That sounds reasonable!

Isn't the thumbnails on top and file list on bottom option enough for this? I have used it extensively since it was introduced.

Not for me. I rarely use the "details view" at all. For me the top view is used to make the sweeping decisions (choosing a genre or mood), and then i decide an album through browsing artists in the top view and album thumbnails in the bottom view. Usually that gives me enough choice to pick an album by feeling, and I'm always able to see a whole range of both artists and albums without ever having to do any double clicking or hitting the back button.
Browsing by albums is everything for me.
However, there is that occasional time when showing other people music when you want to choose just one song. Double clicking my way through the top list feels such a chore when i can already see the album in the bottom list. It's times like this that a little link on that album thumbnail taking me to it's list of songs would just save so much effort.

Infact, I think I've got it. This could work without having to change much about the current system at all. How about a 4th view choice in the bottom view:
"Albums (Detailed) view"
This would be much like the current "Details" view with a large thumbnail at left,  and other definable columns next to it, but with the songs always grouped to the album first and in track order (like for album thubnails). Sorting presets (Last played/ Date/ Date imported etc.) would apply to the whole albums too. And just to round it off, when switching from "album thumbnails" to "albums (detailed)", the list would auto scroll to the first most selected album so that it would be right there staring you in the face.

Tiles view was a milestone in MCs history for me and has made searching and playing music as fun and tangible as being able to flick through real records/CDs. My above suggestion would just about complete the navigation system (of music) for me; making it easy to navigate through albums while quickly being able to choose a song.