Great work...the panes are an excellent improvement. I've been trying all the various builds, and managed to collect a few thoughts:
- Using a View Scheme based on Hard Disk location and using the panes, I am not able to see files in a subfolder that doesn't have any subfolders. It lists all of the folders at the current level, but unless a folder has subfolders, it doesn't appear with a folder icon. Selecting it or trying to double click it doesn't show anything.
For example, I have files organized by artist\album. Some artists don't have album subfolders, but just some mp3s in it. Those files can't be seen when using the panes. If I use the tree, it displays the files properly and every folder has a folder icon.
- Like many others, I find the pane resetting when changing views to be one of the biggest deterrents of using it. I often like to traverse showing album thumbnails and then when I've narrowed it down, switch to details mode to see the actual files. The pane resetting prevents this. When using the back/forward navigation, it should also remember the selected panes.
- Along those lines, I've always wondered if there was a way I could double click (or right click some option) on an album cover to have it bring up all of the files for that album in details mode. That would allow you to navigate the album covers like folders. Perhaps this could be added as an option to the double-click settings and/or added as a right click option. Essentially with an album cover selected, you would then filter the list to just that album and switch to details (or thumbnail files) mode. This isn't possible currently, right?
- As mentioned above, the album thumbnail sorting should be looked into again with 9.1 -- the current implementation falls short for compliation albums having multiple artists. I had suggested using the actual Album Artist field, since that would allow everyone flexibiltiy in how it shows depending how you fill in the field. There was a separate thread for this, but it got dropped as the release of 9.0 drew close.