But this also made me thinking about other display related questions. As much as I don't like Itunes, I think their current way of displaying detailed album information when selecting the cover is pretty cool. If this would be configurable in terms of displaying additional (custom) tags - similar to the way tooltips are currently displayed in JRiver when hovering over a track - that would be awesome for me. Bus this would probably lead to further discussion about track-related vs. album-related tags (album title, album rating and reviews)
Maybe also in a way similar to the existing "File" view. Couldn't this split view maybe used for displaying html information?
I know that you can use your own html templates for track info, but I never really managed to display
But this is now a totally different topic and it may be worth another thread.... ;-)
I don't know how iTunes shows the album info as I spent years getting it off my system and I'm not going to load it to check now!:)
But there are many, many ways to go about this. I think that arguably the real front end for most people would/should be Theater Mode or JRemote (and equivalents). Standard Mode is powerful, but needs one to be crouching in front of a computer/laptop. So using HTML to display via Track Info instead of cover Art is certainly doable it might not be the best area to prioritize. Just my opinion of course.
When I'm in standard mode for listening purposes I'm usually working or retagging on my workstation. Standard Mode offer the links bar which allows me to snap to all the album information I want directly on AllMusic for example. A shame this is not incorporated in Theater views and JRemote views. Conversely you have an customizable info screen in Theater Mode which will do what you want right now (it could be improved but its pretty good. But you don't have it out of the box in Standard View. I think there are a lot of issues getting all platforms (Windows, MAC, and Linux) being able to do what the PC version can do which might be the reason UI changes haven't been much of a priority lately.
If you are a Standard view only guy (or you are on MAC or Linux and you don't have theater view.) What you might want to toy around with is the new Tag Window (shift+the tag icon will get you into it). This is totally customizable so you can show the metadata you want to see, in the order you want to see it (PLEASE DEVS do this for JRemote!!). You can set a toggle on the main menu to hide the tree and extend this tag window to take up the entire left part of the pane. When you want information, you got it. When you want it hidden, toggle the tree off. You might want to give that a try in the mean time.
PS: You mentioned file view, but as I no longer have any out-of-the box, default views, anymore, I'm not sure what you mean