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[JimH]

As we finish 9.1, it would be nice to hear any SIMPLE ideas you have that would improve ease of use.

The more precise you can be, the better.

We're looking for ideas that would eliminate a step or a mouse click, for example.

[RemyJ]

Can't pass up this invitation so here's a few off the top of my head.

Remember the state of the playing now display (internal, windowed, etc.) across restarts.

Preserve the Most Recently Used commands in the right-click menu across restarts.

[Pink Waters]

I suggest making some kind of wizard that pops up to the users that installed MC for first time that enables them with tips to customise important options settings and encoding and locations settings,. or maybe through the setup! :-/

[LonWar]

How about a downloadable manual.

That would be helpful to new and existing users

[Cmagic]

Hello Jim,

Just out of a cold shower after a long bicycle ride with my son.... great !

Now about the things that would ease MC use :
The one I can see right now is a better way to set the visible columns in the list pane. As it is now it requires a lot of right-click/scroll-click to set-up the desired visible columns. this is even more important now that the properties pane has an option to only show those 'visible columns'.

this is really an area where a few mouse clicks would be saved.

I might come later with more ideas.

Have a nice day

Christian

-

[Stilton]

Not sure if this is simple enough - but it would be a great help having the "% complete" show up in the window title in the taskbar when burning and ripping. I like to minimize and do other stuff while it's going on, but it's useful to be kept up to date with the progress.

(so that would save me a few clicks having to expand/shrink every time )

[knickelfarz]

Maybe there can be done something simple about the "Album Thumbnails dilema"... like "double click on thumbnail reverts to 'Details' view"?

Maybe you would like to take a short look at one of these threads about this topic:

• http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=MediaCenter;action=display;num=1059396870
  
• http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=MediaCenter;action=display;num=1058348242
  
• http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=MediaCenter;action=display;num=1058414819

[Marko]

If it's possible to fix this one........

*Type: Bug
Scroll wheel focus should follow the mouse independently of "other" focus. Not sure how exactly to describe this, except with an example:

In the left-hand pane, click on a view scheme with two columns. If I subsequently move the mouse over to column 1 and start scrolling the scroll wheel, column 1 should scroll, regardless of the fact that focus is still back in the left pane.

Left-click in column 1. Focus is now in column 1. Move the mouse over to column 2. If I scroll the wheel now, column 2 should scroll. Currently, column 1 scrolls.

It would be such an enormous help, especially in the new tagging mode. If the pane the mouse was hovering over would scroll with the mousewheel it would be truly awesome.

[knickelfarz]

The one I can see right now is a better way to set the visible columns in the list pane. As it is now it requires a lot of right-click/scroll-click to set-up the desired visible columns. this is even more important now that the properties pane has an option to only show those 'visible columns'.

Yeah, this is really complex for new users. You have to learn a lot about the way MC9.1 handles things before you can set up your own view scheme. I showed MC9.1 to some people and they were close to give up without help... I think some kind of "wizard" (like the one is used to set up an E-Mail in Outlook) is the only way to make that more handy for new users... But maybe this is more for the "Is Media Center too complex?" thread?

[Streaker]

Here's one "extra mouse click" issue that I'd like to see resolved:

When clicking from another app (say IE) into MC, I like to click directly onto a property value and have it be in editing mode.  This doesn't consistently work. Sometimes, when clicking from another app window onto any property value, for instance Date, it switches from editing to not editing mode very quickly, and I have to wait a second and click the value again to make it edittable.  I often want to do this to paste values from other windows, and it can be a pain to have to click twice, but strangely only sometimes.

An example to replicate this(I'm guessing there is an easier way, but this is how I encounter it):  Open a browser and tile the window such that you can click back directly into the MC property pane, then return to MC, go anywhere in the media library, and select any song from the view pane, then select artist info from the toolbar -  might need to add it, which brings it up in the external browser (the other way I know to get the artist info is to click Artist Info under the Tree view Playing now, but that seems to bring the browser up inside MC, which is not what I want because I don't want to have to click Back several times to get back to my media library view).
Now, click back into the Date property value, and it should flash for a second as editing mode, then switches to "Not editing" mode.  

I think it would be more consistent for the property values to always be in "editing mode" if direcly selected after coming from another window.

[Stilton]

Here's one more similar to the above mentioned by streaker;

if you're editing the name of media record in details mode (not in the properties window, but just be clicking on the name and the text box comes up and you can edit it) - if you tab away for MC and then tab back, then the edit box has disappeared. This is quite annoying when, say, I'm changing a load of tracks by copying and pasting from a different source.

[gkerber]

Last night I was working on a compilation to burn, gathering and ordering tracks.  Then of course I had to figure out if it would fit on 2 or 3 cdr's.

The totals showed 2.6 hours at the bottom of the screen.  How many minutes is that?  Sure I can figure it out, but it make my task much easier to show total minutes - 156 or even 2 hours and 36 minutes.

I know MC tries to show a meaningful number, showing minutes for low numbers, hours.XX or longer times and then days for larger times.  

I'd like to see the transisition point from a total minutes display to hours.XX moved higher like past 4 cd's worth, maybe change the display at 320 minutes or higher.

What does everyone else think?

[Doof]

The mouse scrolling over the panes is a huge one, in my mind.

Another one that I'm not sure would be all that complicated, is a redesign of the search interface. Something like iTune's search\smartlist screen would be great. Since you've got the search stuff all done, would it be too hard to just redesign the way they're constructed? I'm not sure, but it would seem like the hard stuff is already done.

Of course there's the browsing while in tag mode...

[gkerber]

The mouse scrolling over the panes is a huge one, in my mind.

Do you mean like "auto-focus" for mouse scrolling?  Like how Netscape email does it?  That would be a great ease of use enhancement and would save lots of mouse clicks.

[Jaguu]

The property window in Window mode should have a previous/next track arrow to scroll through the tracks without opening/closing the property window for every track selected. This would save many mouse clicks as I would be able to move to the next track with one single mouse click.

[gkerber]

The property window in Window mode should have a previous/next track arrow to scroll through the tracks without opening/closing the property window for every track selected. This would save many mouse clicks as I would be able to move to the next track with one single mouse click.

If I understand your request, try the page up/down buttons to change between tracks in the properties undocked window.

And if you are editing a field, say field XXX, and the press page up/down, the next/prev track is already in edit mode for field XXX.  That was changed from 9.0, not sure when, but it works very well.

[Jaguu]

gkerber,

thanks for the hint, it really works - but just with the keyboard and not with the mouse!
If you work mostly with the mouse, you just don't have keyboard shortcuts in mind!
By the way: How did you find out? By trial and error? It doesn't say anything in the Help file!

[a2hoo]

I would love if "Media Library" was always an open tree or you got rid of the Media Library heading (a throwback from MJ) and have it say:
Audio Library
Image Library
Video Library as separate listings in the tree.

I use MC mostly for music.  To choose what I want I have to click on Media Library, then click on audio, then click on the pane or view I want.

If Audio Library were separate 1)it would be easier for beginners and 2)it would require less "mouse clicks"!

[knickelfarz]

I use MC mostly for music.  To choose what I want I have to click on Media Library, then click on audio, then click on the pane or view I want.

You can drag view schemes between the nodes of the tree. So you can drag your audio view schemes to the media library node and they are "on top"...

[a2hoo]

Doesn't work for me...

That is another example how MC is too complex (and I use it everyday!)

Again, even if you could do this it  is not intuitive.

What Jim wants are ideas to make it "easier"
Without a doubt, having a separate library for:
Audio Library
Image Library
Video Library

would be much simplier and improve the "ease of use"

[JimH]

a2,
In options, under startup, tell MC to start in Media Library and to "expand".

[Marty3d]

two things pops into my mind:
1. Automatic focus over the panes. Like in IE when you view a page with frames, when the mouse is over the frame and you scroll with the scrollwheel, it automatically scrolls that page. It's slowing down to click AUDIO, then select a random artist (or whatever is in that pane) just to be able to scroll with mousewheel.

2. Right-click menu!!! Ditch the submenu for Send to, get it back to how it used to work!

/Martin

[Polonio]

We're looking for ideas that would eliminate a step or a mouse click, for example.

"List style" menu is too complicated. I change view style very very often, but I rarely change "Thumbnail options" or "Columns / View options". So why to show so many options while I just need to access to the detailed view?

"Automatic" list style view does not have many sense.

Individual "thumbnails" has no sense at all.

And the ability to switch between "Album thunbnails" and "Detailed" view is a great feature, and it is a big difference in front your competirors.

Explote its potential!

I suggest to create a button to toggle between "Album thunbnails" and "Detailed" view. In just one click!

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeez! :-)

[Polonio]

2. Right-click menu!!! Ditch the submenu for Send to, get it back to how it used to work!

Yes!

And the two! last selections have to be directly accesible.

[wickesy]

What about a command line option to load a specific library on start-up.

For example tonight I wanted to quickly check out something in my music video library.  I had to start up MC, switch to my Music Video library and then switch back to my Music library for next time.  With specific shortcuts I could open the required library first time, every time.

wickesy

[a2hoo]

So basically you like my idea of seaprate libraries (with either of those able to be selected as a starting view) rather than the "Media Library Heading"

Jim, the auto expand tree on startup is nice, but I still think it would be better to just have separate libraries.  If you want ease of use, nothing could be more clear for a newbie than separate libraries.

There really is no purpose for the "media library"/combined pool of "all media (movies, music, images).   When people want to look for or play media they know they want either music, images, or video, not a mixture

I would also propose an option to autoexpand all trees on startup

[wickesy]

So basically you like my idea of seaprate libraries (with either of those able to be selected as a starting view) rather than the "Media Library Heading"

Not exactly.  I have a library for my Music files and a library for my video files so I am talking about having to go to the File menu and load a completely separate library - not just switching from Audio to Video under the Media Library node.

[gkerber]

gkerber,

thanks for the hint, it really works - but just with the keyboard and not with the mouse!
If you work mostly with the mouse, you just don't have keyboard shortcuts in mind!
By the way: How did you find out? By trial and error? It doesn't say anything in the Help file!

I don't know how I found out, I think I may have just naturally tried it, since to me it's an obvious way for it work, and it turned out it was coded to work that way.

I comes in very handy when I import some tracks and they are names

01 - something
02 - something again.

And I want to remove the track number.

Bring up the first track in properties and edit the track as necessary, press page down and presto the next track is in the properties window AND in edit mode for the same field as I just did on the previous track.  I know that's a little thing, but it really makes editing tracks like this much easier.  All this is done using

page down
home
delete delete delete (as necessary)

then page down and repeat till all the track names are fixed.  All keyboard, one handed.

[gkerber]

I would love if "Media Library" was always an open tree or you got rid of the Media Library heading (a throwback from MJ) and have it say:
Audio Library
Image Library
Video Library as separate listings in the tree.

I use MC mostly for music.  To choose what I want I have to click on Media Library, then click on audio, then click on the pane or view I want.

If Audio Library were separate 1)it would be easier for beginners and 2)it would require less "mouse clicks"!

I use MC only for music too.  You can delete the entire Video and Image Library trees and even create new (audio) view schemes under Media Library, skipping Audio, and you can drag out your existing view schemes from Audio to Media Libraryand then delete the Audio tree too.

Less levels is good when they levels are not needed.

[Steef_V.]

The totals showed 2.6 hours at the bottom of the screen.  How many minutes is that?  Sure I can figure it out, but it make my task much easier to show total minutes - 156 or even 2 hours and 36 minutes.

I agree on what Gkerber wrote earlier about totalling playing times of several tracks. The same thing happens if all tracks (even if it's only one) of a certain artist are selected. It doesn't look nice to see that a track lasts 8.3 minutes instead of 8:18.

[nila]

Shortcut keys for: Rotate Clockwise, Rotate Anti-Clockwise, Move & Copy disk file - they're features I use a LOT when sorting my images etc and would help a LOT.

Key combo to: Locate Externally would be a big one.

Explorer shell integration - if it had:  Explore to here in MC and would spawn MC open in that folder would be a HUGE time saver and make me use MC a LOT more for checking file tags etc while navigating my computer.

[Marty3d]

There are areas MC refuses to remember settings. For instance there's two often used ones:

- Playback Options - Crossfading settings. When you switch between no gap and crossfade, MC always reset timer to 4 secs. Annoying and time consuming to change it if you don't want 4 secs of delay as default.

- Playing Now. Views with the "seq" column should be  sticky. I often sort Playing now by artist - name for easier navigation, and each time I switch between PN and another view and back, it's reset to SEQ.

Thanks for taking your time and listening to your customers and users, it's invaluable!

[gkerber]

Call this an "ease of use suggestion" or "new feature" your choice....

There are many "tools" available, buried in many menus.  Some of use some of them, some of us use others.  That's the problem, we all use MC differently, hence the many features, and menus.

What if most of those features were available as toolbar buttons too?

I'd love an "Analyse Audio" button on my tool bar, others would have other desires.  If most of the menu items were available for us to put on our tool bar, that would sure reduce clicking to find things and to get things done.

[Pink Waters]

What about a "Tip of the day" system every MC start up(sure it would be an option) ??

[xen-uno]

I always turn those tips off. Not once did any of them give me the correct time to buy and location of a winning lottery ticket.

I would still like to see the View Filter setting saved (such as Show Only Audio Files). Surely there is some way or place to show prominently what filter is current.

I agree totally on moving Send To up a level...it already is...I meant Play with it's kids

10^-27

[RemyJ]

A few more...(simple is a relative term)

Start saving some options with the library instead of globally.  I have 3 libraries: music, video, images each needing different file naming and location settings.  More importantly, different double-click actions.  Music is "add to playing now", video is "play now", images are "open in external tool".  It's a pain to keep resetting the options.

Speaking of external tools, double-click action should be configurable to a specific external tool instead of "the last one used".  Saves having to manually run the tool once to get it to the top of the MRU list.

A right-click option for playing now that would lock the selection to the currently playing track.   If you take the option, the selection snaps to the currently playing track and stays with it.  If you move the selection manually, it unlocks and stays where you put it until you lock it again.

Add the same directory and file templating features that were just added to data CD burning to the portables plug in and to move/copy files.   Saves having to manually get the directory structures the way you want them after you move/copy files.

[jleerigby]

You did ask for ease of use suggestions, not a load of new feature requests (which is what we see a lot of here), so I guess you are looking to just put the finishing touches to what is already a brilliant program.  

In that case I think the 'ease of use' change that would make the biggest impact for most people would be the ability to view playing now while building the list (as per Matt's Split Panes thread).  I know that the thread makes some very feature rich suggestions that would involve a lot of coding and testing but there are some simple quick win's suggested too, like just having a view of the playing now list in the properties window area.

[slikvik]

Suprise Suprise...

Toolbar Buttons (and Shortcuts) for:

Play All

Play One (Replace)

Add to Playing Now (End)


(not more right clicking to play files AND the ability to add them to Girder)

I'm sure it makes sense.  

[lee269]

One think that Id appreciate is the relevant toolbar icons appearing next to the text in menu items. I dont know if this is standard Windows behaviour nowadays but I certainly find it useful in MS Office applications.

[Polonio]

I dont want to be precise now. Sorry. I just was thinking (yes, I was)

I just realize MC buttons rarely do nothing by it self. MC buttons popups menu, or open dialog windows, but they do nothing. This is not a standard Windows behavior. And it goes against usability. Think about Word toolbar, almost every button has an inmediate effect to your selection (bold, size, page view, print, allignment, ...). MC does not work this way. MC requires a lot of clicking.

I think this is because initially MC has been very menu oriented (right-click button), so you still have a way to walk to full discover toolbar potential There is no button to play the selection!! There is no direct button to see thumbsnails!!

My suggestion is to think about that    

[Polonio]

I dont want to be precise now. [...]

My suggestion is to think about that    

I will be precise now. I can think in some very useful droppable buttons.

Droppable buttons are like the "back button" in IE. Or font color in Word. Or "New item" in Outlook.

MC has not any droppable buttons. Here are some good ones:

-Send to play button
-Send to playlist
-Send to external
-Library tools
-Locate
-Image

With this buttons, you could repeat your last action with just one click. Or you could drop all option and select another one. We would save hundreds of clicks.
 

[nila]

Make all the 'Library Tools' available as options for the toolbar (location).

Ability to set location bars to be different per view scheme.

[gvag]

Used to be I could goto Library Manager and backup all my libraries, now I have to load each one separately to do a full backup.

Really would like an easy way to reorganize my columns and also permanently hide some of them.  Could we not do this from the Options\Treeview dialog or better yet goto that dialog by right-clicking on the columns.

Speaking of hiding, I'd like to be able to hide/delete tree items I don't use.  TV, My Computer, Web Media...

Context-sensitive help for all the menus and dialogs would definitely make MC easier to learn and use.  Like just now I clicked Edit\Tagging mode and nothing happened at least not visually.  Persistent tooltip help that was easy to toggle off and on would be ideal.

Speaking of tooltips a hotkey toggle for the Tack Info tips would make browsing easier.  Sometimes I want the added info, sometimes not, its a nice feature but I have it turned off because it not easily accessible.

Tagging would be easier if the properties dialog had a select all button or if clicking in the tree selected all the files.

Number one for me would be context help.  Its the easiest way to learn a program that I can think of.  Tutorials and demos are fine but context-help lets you go at your own pace and explore with confidence.

Thanks

[zevele10]

I have to play the 'Mister Idiot in MC land' until the end,so..

Many ideas look quite good.
Of cause any click saving is welcome
To be able to set MC ONCE FOR GOOD  as you want to see it ,use it is very very important.
Two of the many ideas ,but all are good.
Pop-up are the way to go.
Many programs have it and it helps a lot.
Power-user who think pop-up is an insult to they genius mind would just have to ckeck 'Do NOt show pop-up'

The main problem of MC :
Download it ,install it ,open it and ...IT"S A MESS.

Look like a old person flat with artefacts from tours everywhere.. you feel you do not have room to move, and ,if you want to have coffee ,you need to empty part of the small table to make room for your cup.

Of cause you can ,for a large part ,set it as you like.
But this is VERY complicated.

Pop-up helping to do it can be of great help.
And ,most important ,just at the start , before the new user spend hours trying to understand and just give away ,not even using it the full trial period.

[jleerigby]

A button to clear playing now.  The only way I know is to use Ctrl+A / delete.

[Doof]

Why bother? If you're not going to play anything else, what difference does it make if there's something there? And if you are, just Play it, and Playing Now will clear all automatically.

Plus there's the right click menu option for Clear Playing Now on the Playing Now node...

[jleerigby]

I hadn't seen that option - thanks.  I thought you had to right click> Send to> play> remove which is incredibly long winded.  Anyway, remember Jim's orginal brief:

As we finish 9.1, it would be nice to hear any SIMPLE ideas you have that would improve ease of use.

This is indeed a SIMPLE idea and it will improve ease of use.  The way it is now ask my wife how to clear playing now and she'll just look puzzled.  She would never think of right clicking.  She, like lots of others would just look for a button that says 'clear playing now'.  Simple.

Oh and your other question - why bother.  Good point but it's surprising how many times you actually do it.

[Doof]

hehe... I'm not sure I've ever done it.

[jleerigby]

hehe... I'm not sure I've ever done it.

Yeh, but you're a so called power user.  I'm looking at it from another perspective.  My wife 'doesn't do' right click.  She can cope with browsing the library and double clicking to play so I set the option to add to playing now on double click.  But before she starts she has to get rid of the **ap that I've been playing.

I don't think she even knows what the right button's for and I can assure she's not alone.

[Doof]

Ah... that makes sense. I could see why you'd want it, then.

Actually now that you mention it... it could be really helpful.