Topic: Media Library Prototype (advice wanted) (Read 13787 times)

Matt · « **on:** June 11, 2003, 08:32:20 am »

We're playing with a prototype of a new Media Library system.

If you're brave and want to try it, replace your Media Jukebox.exe from 9.1.196 with this one:

http://ftp://ftp.jriver.com/pub/downloads/music/tmp/Media Jukebox.exe

Most things don't work yet. (drag-n-drop, renaming, double-click, etc.) Assume all of these (and more) will be there in the release version. (so don't report bugs)

Any advice or feedback would be appreciated. Thanks for helping!

Ingo · « **Reply #1 on:** June 11, 2003, 09:36:51 am »

Hi Matt,

this looks veeeerry promissing....

but anyway, a few notes:
- please keep the ability to walk down the tree in the treeview. Especially on small screens or deep hirarchies each column's going to be very small....
- location hirarchies don't work now (and would be affected by the above more than anything else....)
- autosizing: don't make columns wider than needed. decades columns take way to much room....
- playing now is something I'm going to miss in the properties area.... now more than ever.

Ingo

DocLotus · « **Reply #2 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:05:12 am »

Matt;

Are we talking Media JukeBox or Media Center?

A screenshot would be nice.

Thanks

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #3 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:30:20 am »

Like it! Very nice idea.

Just posted a lovely list of bugs and then realised you didn't want a bug report! I have saved them and I will refer to them once it becomes a release so beware

Adam

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:44:01 am »

Quote

Matt;

Are we talking Media JukeBox or Media Center?

A screenshot would be nice.

Here's one:

And a bigger one is here:
http://www.jriver.com/~jriver/misc/mc9.jpg

The tree on the left is slightly modified. There is no longer a + to the left of Audio. Clicking on Audio opens up two new panes on the right. The first is Artist, the second is Album. These change according to what the view scheme is.

This is a modification we're considering for MC 9.1.

Tolga · « **Reply #5 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:45:07 am »

I LOVEEEED IT !!!!!

I was thinking I have too many trees, and they get difficult to manage:

Do I want
GENRE/ARTIST/FILENAME
or
GENRE/ARTIST/TEMPO

This totally eliminates most of these problems, you can combine multiple Trees, because the order of constraints you choose are not dictated by the tree. I have around 20 trees, this should reduces them to a few.

Have you implemented letter grouping yet? This also could be done very intutively in this system.

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #6 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:50:48 am »

Seeing the post about image management and this new GUI I was thinking this would be absolutely awesome for images if you implemented something simialr to the idea I posted in the GUI improvements thread using this new library. By this I mean if the image view scheme terminated in a name field eg Album/Date/Name or something simialr when you clicked on a single file it showed a large, centred thumbnail which you could then either right click or hover over and get a menu which allowed you to resize/rotate/send to ftp or email that pic. That would be awesome.
Presumably this way you could also create view schemes containing your playlist groups and could then say click to create searches like all photos taken in 2003 which contain Bill and are in the Album French Holiday and they would appear. I love it, I absolutely love it. This would make MC the best image app in one step I would think!!

Adam

fex · « **Reply #7 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:51:18 am »

I'm not easy to impress. But this is really awesome. A few (very good) posts and you go like a rocket.

DocLotus · « **Reply #8 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:53:22 am »

Tried it.

Don't know what to say. It's different!

Tolga · « **Reply #9 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:54:41 am »

Here is a suggestion:

Some fields have only few values (i.e. rating). It is a waste of space to have a seperate column for them. There could be a way for customizing the columns, and let some features share columns. This also allows that conceptually similar fields are on the some column.For example, rating, bpm, mood may have boxes on the same column.

It would also be nice to have a mechanism, to dynamically add/remove fields.

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #10 on:** June 11, 2003, 10:56:27 am »

With this new style it makes the search box a little redundant in a way so would it be better if it appeared under the title box in an already wide state rather than next to it shrinking and growing and making the title box shrink and grow too which looks a little odd?

Adam

escaflo · « **Reply #11 on:** June 11, 2003, 11:09:43 am »

Luv it.

Haven't really try it out yet. It is 3 am here. But from the first look, it is impressive. Much more organize.

Gotta just luv the updates.

Keep'em coming!

Forgot to add, when is the ETA of it being upgraded from prototype to beta?

Jaguu · « **Reply #12 on:** June 11, 2003, 11:25:47 am »

Cannot really judge right now.

To me it seems that too much information is displayed redundantly.

You get cover art/images on the lower left pane and the same cover art/images on the content view pane.

You can click in different places (right upper pane: name) or content view pane to do the same thing.

I feel too much redundancy to do things creates confusion!

This after a first glimpse, may have to dig more into it!

bennyd · « **Reply #13 on:** June 11, 2003, 11:27:52 am »

WOOOOOOOOOW !!!

- Can this be implemented also for playlist groups/playlists ?

drosoph · « **Reply #14 on:** June 11, 2003, 12:02:33 pm »

It took me a few seconds to get used to the new feel ... first thing that threw me was for short lists (Album Type), there is no separator between that section and the next (Album) ... but, in the end, I AGREE THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE!

I love the ability to CTRL-Select multiple items .. I believe I tried this in <9.0.180 builds and it does not work ...

I love that it saves the LIST MODE for each category.

I think the ability to memorize the position of the separator bar (top/bottom sections) may be up for debate though ...

How do you intend to implement View Schemes with Component Grouping turned on ... currently I see this is just ignored ... Will there be a PLUS sign next to a year group (1990-1999) in the right pane ? I'm curious to see how you implement this ...

Still just HATE the fact that the Properties pane is at the bottom left .. I would really like it along the right side ...
Possibly leaving a pane at the bottom left that is either a visualization pane or a Cover Art pane (Switchable between Now Playing cover art & Selected File cover art)

I know we're not supposed to report bugs ... but quick question ... maybe I'm missing it, but how do you alter the properties of a SmartList ? (Note: I do like that when using the Search function, it doesnt show the current limitations of the smartlist ... those DO tend to get in the way sometimes)

TWEAK REQUEST: Since you no longer have the expanding Plus signs on each grouping in the library view, Can you move the sub-groups to the LEFT a bit (I believe space was reserved for the plus symbol, but I've a complaint about this for a while now) ...

Doof · « **Reply #15 on:** June 11, 2003, 12:52:22 pm »

I'm not sure I get it. What's the point exactly?

And won't things get really messy when someone tries to add a View Scheme of Genre\BPM\Intensity\Year\Artist\Album or something?

I'm just not sure I understand what doing it this way would accomplish.

Matt · « **Reply #16 on:** June 11, 2003, 12:56:39 pm »

Quote

I'm not sure I get it. What's the point exactly?

And won't things get really messy when someone tries to add a View Scheme of Genre\BPM\Intensity\Year\Artist\Album or something?

I'm just not sure I understand what doing it this way would accomplish.

The tree gets hard to deal with if you have a large library. Lots of scrolling and trying to figure out where you are. This makes navigation and drag-n-drop a bear.

That doesn't happen with this new system. Multi-select and immediately being able to see albums even in something like "Genre\Artist\Album" is nice too.

Still, we aren't sure. That's why we're asking.

Thanks everyone.

drosoph · « **Reply #17 on:** June 11, 2003, 01:00:00 pm »

Doof, In my testing .. I actually HAVE a *valid* 5-property view scheme that looked FINE when using the new setup. Plenty of room to read it ... no problems .. but, I think 5 is about the limit on a 17" monitor at 1024x768 ...

To me, this is a much better viewpoint to sort through files (No more really really long left media library panes) .. It also allows for Ctrl-Select ...

RFE: Maybe you could add the option to personally set the column width for each column ... personally, having Equal column width isnt that great for a Bitrate/Artist/Track/Name view (Not that anyone would create that view, but being able to shrink bitrate down to 5 characters or so would be nice)

Doof · « **Reply #18 on:** June 11, 2003, 01:11:00 pm »

Well, multi-select is definitely something I hadn't thought of, and is a definite plus. And I can definitely see the point about large libraries.

I was just playing around with it and can see a lot of benefit to this (I was at work when I first posted so wasn't able to see how it would impact my real library).

One thing I would suggest is that, when the lower pane is displaying a single thumbnail (like it does in my Images\Genre\Album\Name view scheme) that it automatically resize it to a larger size. That would take care of NoCodeUK's request as well. And then when multiple images were selected, revert back to thumbnail mode.

Ok, so scratch my earlier post. I get it now.

gkerber · « **Reply #19 on:** June 11, 2003, 01:22:55 pm »

Question - right now, I pick the visible columns and the order, choosing what is import to be seen and not seen and can be seen by scrolling.

How do I see the detail with this new system?

drosoph · « **Reply #20 on:** June 11, 2003, 01:30:06 pm »

Change Visible Columns, and sorting is the same as previous builds .. just right click on any column header .. go to Visible Column s.. to sort, just click on the columns ..

Problem: There is a new problems introduced by this view .. we used to have a "Location (root)" view ... now we have "Filename (path)" ... but there is no nesting ... Filename (path) should nest just like any other view ...
But, could it be DYNAMIC (only showing the next NEST once you select something )

Ingo · « **Reply #21 on:** June 11, 2003, 01:42:47 pm »

in addition to the above:

make the lower pane configurabel.... showing
- a list (like it is now, list style or thumbnails)
- playing now
- visualization (including a playing .avi !!!)
- maybe even trackinfo for the currently selected item
- a large, multicolumn properties view... for those who need it.
- .... (any ideas?)

if it's not showing the list, just add the list as a new column on the right of to upper pane.....

Ingo

p.s.: I know.... these Germans.... they're always soooo negative....
p.p.s.: it's not those Germans, it's just me.
p.p.p.s.: hey, this is great. MC is by far the best. Even MJ8-free is better than any other MP3 manager I've seen..... and still getting better all the time.

Phil Lee · « **Reply #22 on:** June 11, 2003, 01:57:45 pm »

The first time I loaded the new interface I couldn't get anything to show in the bottom pane. Once I expanded the Media Library tree all of a sudden stracks started to appear in the bottom pane and I was able to play music. After this initial problem I must say this is definitely the way to go with the interface. It really works well and is especially good for quickly getting to music when you have music by a lot of artists. There's much less scrolling needed which is a very good thing.

Streaker · « **Reply #23 on:** June 11, 2003, 02:35:11 pm »

This new UI function looks like an improved version of Winamp 2's Media Library (in Winamp v2.90+, don't know about Winamp3) using a Winamp view with "Album/Artist View" selected.

One feature I like about the Winamp view is that it show counts of each node item in a separate column. For example (Note: each comma represents a window column):

Artist, Albums, Tracks
Neutral Milk Hotel, 2, 25
Uncle Tupelo, 1, 13

If MC were to do the same thing, having this many columns might be visually cumbersome in the new MC view (where there can be any number of "tree node" windows, not just artist/album). But I think there is value in having at least a tracks count for each node item. For instance, having at least a tracks count would come in handy when dealing with views like Genre/Artist/Album where you could avoid selecting genres that only have a few number of tracks. Perhaps the tracks count could be put in parentheses next to the node item, like:

Neutral Milk Hotel (25)
Uncle Tupelo (13)

This counts feature would ideally be configurable so that it could be disabled/enabled.

Matt · « **Reply #24 on:** June 11, 2003, 02:35:52 pm »

Just updated the prototype.

http://ftp://ftp.jriver.com/pub/downloads/music/tmp/Media Jukebox.exe

Noteworthy changes:

Scheme with grouping works (i.e. A-C, D-F, etc.)
Advanced data types are formatted and sorted properly
Search bar no longer polluted with browse changes
Smartlists don't show browse information
Splitter logic better
Double-click and right-click work (right click menu still very basic)
(still no bug reports or unrelated requests please)

Let us know what you think. Thanks!

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #25 on:** June 11, 2003, 02:53:28 pm »

The more I use this the moer I am loving it. It is so simple but so ingenious. Just a small idea. because we now have diffrerent panes there are more than the one scrollbar to scroll. any chance of having a kind of x mouse behaviour where whichever pane the curso is over you can scroll that pane. If you have to click in the window to change the focus you have to wait for the bottom pane to update. would be much simpler to hover say the album pane and select an album so that it is actually updating for something you want to update too.

Adam

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #26 on:** June 11, 2003, 02:56:06 pm »

Is there some way that we could drill down into groups still eg I have a Deacde/Album view scheme. I used to be able to drill in and still select the indvidual years or do I need to actually set the group as Decade/Year/Album?

Adam

Matt · « **Reply #27 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:00:54 pm »

Quote

Is there some way that we could drill down into groups still eg I have a Deacde/Album view scheme. I used to be able to drill in and still select the indvidual years or do I need to actually set the group as Decade/Year/Album?

It uses your view schemes, so just edit the "Decade" part of the scheme to "Show individual items under grouping"

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #28 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:01:06 pm »

As is usual all the potential bugs I thought I'd spotted in the original version have already been fixed

One small request. Any chance of being able to decide what order the columns are sorted by eg. Albums sorted by Year, Dates do this now automatically but I would love to be able to sort albums chronologically too

Adam

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #29 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:02:17 pm »

Cheers Matt. I will make the change right away

Adam

EDIT: Just thinking about what was said about showing numbers of items below the tree level. This would be really nice for doing research into your collection like how many songs do I have fom the 60's, how many albums do I have from 1963 etc. There isn't an easy way to do this at the moment and this would do it in a very quick and simple way. Something like

Decade Year Artist Album
1960-69 (3) 1963 (2) The Beatles (2) With The ...
Please Please

From this I can quickly see I have 3 albums from this decade, 2 of those were from 63, 2 were by the beatles and I could then even see how many tracks...

Phil Lee · « **Reply #30 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:15:32 pm »

The more I use this new interface the more I love it. It is just so intuitive to use and I love the lack of scrolling.

PS Thanks for fixing the image filtering bug. 16 minutes from report to fix has to be a record (assuming you hadn't already spotted the bug yourselves already

)

Tolga · « **Reply #31 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:20:04 pm »

I was able to make grouping work. I change the view schemes, but no difference?

Tolga · « **Reply #32 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:33:43 pm »

It would be nice to have thumbnails also act as filter, just like album field, rather than being just in the results view.

One example use: select general things such as: GENRE, Mood etc. first, then select album thumbnails (this is easier then selecting the albums field), then the song names.

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #33 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:43:11 pm »

It would be nice to be able to pick what columns show for the root of a media group. At the moment it is defaulting to Album/Artist. This shows very little for my images and nothing for my videos as these have been tagged using custom fields...

Adam

Phil Lee · « **Reply #34 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:48:08 pm »

Quote

It would be nice to be able to pick what columns show for the root of a media group. At the moment it is defaulting to Album/Artist. This shows very little for my images and nothing for my videos as these have been tagged using custom fields...

Adam

You can do it, just right click on the group and choose the Edit View Scheme Group option. You'll get to choose a name and have a wizard to create a query for the scheme. I've just changed Images to Photographs and made it so it only displays jpg files.

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #35 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:55:17 pm »

Ignore me. I just found you can right click on the columns like you used to be able to...

Didn't think to check it just thought it was defaulting to that so it couldn't be changed

Adam

EDIT: I thought you could. I don't think you can yet but it looks like this is half way to being implemented. I like it...

drosoph · « **Reply #36 on:** June 11, 2003, 03:55:45 pm »

Scheme with grouping works (i.e. A-C, D-F, etc.)
--Turned out "ok", but I can't think of a better way to do it ..
Advanced data types are formatted and sorted properly
-- Does this relate to my Filename (Path) problem in any way?
Search bar no longer polluted with browse changes
-- I LIKE IT !!!
Smartlists don't show browse information
-- Fixed!
Splitter logic better
-- What splitter are we talking about? If this relates to the top pane column widths, I'm not seeing it ...

nila · « **Reply #37 on:** June 11, 2003, 04:20:16 pm »

I just tried it.

I quite like it, it replicates Winamps way of doing it which I always liked.
One thing I prefered about the winamp way was I could click on any of the headers (of the listing windows) and a list would appear of all the fields and I could simply navigate up or down to change which field.

So if I had it set up as: Artist Album - right now it would display:
Artist Column, Album Column with all the info.

This is great but what if I suddenly want to group by the year instead - with winamps method I could just click on the column header, all the fields would appear (like when u right click to customise the view scheme) and I could navigate to whichever one I wanted the column to then sort by. It would in effect let us temporarily save and navigate the view scheme differently without having to save it or edit it - we could change it quickly to try find something - it would be sooo much nicer!

Also - is it a case of either or? I'd personally like to be able to specify that the tree on the left displays column a, b, c as nodes and that view fields d, e, and f were then done on the right. This would especially count where we have a large number of items for the view scheme - too many seperate boxes just wouldn't work.

I used the 'location' field to do some clever tress so that I had for instance this:
TV Series as a view scheme with location as the first field to sort by.
It then just used my hard drive setup to display seperate artists in the list - so it'd then give me a tree with: Friends, Alias, Dark Angel, etc - all depending on my folder setup on my computer as if they were all view schemes saved under a view scheme group - I'd like this to still stay as a tree node with the episodes and series then displaying on the right in the new segments.

Also - is this GUI suggestion instead of the split screen layout discussed in the GUI thread??
If it is I'd FAR prefer the layouts suggested there as this one addresses NONE of the issues or reasons for wanting the new GUI.
ie.:
- being able to search the library while still watching the playing now files
- being able to drag and drop files into a playlist and drop them in the position we want them in
- being able to add files to the cd burn playlist and see all the cd burner info as we're adding the files and also again order them as we want them as we add them.
- being able to drag and drop files between seperate playlists to move them visually and easily.
- being able to be navigating the tree two ways at once without having to stop using any one location (can navigate one way in the top and one way in the bottom)

- and more

Summary: it's nice but I'd prefer the GUI suggestions in the GUI thread if it's a case of either or.

Doof · « **Reply #38 on:** June 11, 2003, 04:31:55 pm »

Suggestion : It would be really cool if we could right click on say, and Album in one of the panes, rename it to something and have it automatically change that field for all files that belong in that album.

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #39 on:** June 11, 2003, 04:35:30 pm »

Nila. I disagree. I don't think it needs to be either or. This could be combined with theGUI improvement ideas so long as the bottom pane is made configurable. Then it would acomplish everything you mentioned

Adam

nila · « **Reply #40 on:** June 11, 2003, 04:51:05 pm »

I didn't say it couldn't be both - I'd love to see it being both.

I'm saying if it's one or the other - I want the other

Also - letting u just change the bottom panel wont accomplish it alone as u still need somewhere to display all the tracks that are displayed there after u've used the new panels to navigate - it would still need to basically just have the extra window as well.

It makes the GUI look complicated sure and I'm sure some people will say: oh no its being made tooo overly complex and out of control
but in fact it's not - each display can still be easily hidden by clicking on the frame edge and it would then look just as basic as v9. For those of us that want it though we can open up the extra frame. - Letting configurations of frames etc be saved would then take this one step further so MC could claim to have 'beginner mode' and 'advanced mode' which would basically just be the GUI with only the basic, v9 replica frames showing for first time users - beginner mode - or could have all the windows open giving ultimate complexity and ultimate control for all the power users

It'd work for everyone - ease for those that want it - power for those that do.

NoCodeUK · « **Reply #41 on:** June 11, 2003, 04:55:03 pm »

I see ya but I think if view schemes terminated with Name you would only need a library pane and a configurable bottom pane to acomplish pretty much every task you mentioned. For the sake of tweaking a few viwe schemes to display name I would say combine the two and it is as powerful as it needs to be... The view scheme doesn't even need to terminaste in name this could be an optional column...

Adam

Matt · « **Reply #42 on:** June 11, 2003, 05:01:30 pm »

Quote

Does this relate to my Filename (Path) problem in any way?

Both filename and playlists will be implemented in the future if we go this route.

Quote

Suggestion : It would be really cool if we could right click on say, and Album in one of the panes, rename it to something and have it automatically change that field for all files that belong in that album.

If we go this new way, both in-place editing and drag-n-drop would be fully implemented.

So is there anybody who doesn't like this new approach, or would miss the library as a tree? (we won't have both -- it'll be one or the other)

And not to be a drag, but please keep discussion of unrelated features like split views in a separate thread.

Thanks everyone!

Doof · « **Reply #43 on:** June 11, 2003, 05:05:29 pm »

I like it.

drosoph · « **Reply #44 on:** June 11, 2003, 05:30:32 pm »

I like it .. We'll keep the Spilt Views topic elsewhere ..

Doof · « **Reply #45 on:** June 11, 2003, 05:59:05 pm »

Quote

Scheme with grouping works (i.e. A-C, D-F, etc.)

Am I missing something? This seems to behave the same way whether I have grouping enabled or not.

Doof · « **Reply #46 on:** June 11, 2003, 06:06:49 pm »

Never mind... I got bit by that darn IE cache thing. That's the first time that's ever happened to me.

About the Letter Grouping... hmmm... would it be possible to have that pane act sort of tree like in itself? Kind of like how File Properties does with the different groups?

The Dude · « **Reply #47 on:** June 11, 2003, 07:13:26 pm »

As an obsessive user since MJ8, and an ardent admirer of iTunes, I for one will not miss the trees. I feel this new layout is definitely the way to go.

One request: When you're clicked inside one of the windows (for artist, or album, or whatever), it would be nice if you can use the keyboard to quick jump to the first letter. For example, in the artist window, if I want to listen to Zwan, instead of scrolling all the way through I could just hit the "Z" key and it would jump down. I know I could make a view scheme that groups the artists, but this is a cleaner and quicker alternative I feel. The page up and page down keys work, so why not this, too?

Anyways, I love all the updates. It feels like christmas every time there's something new to download!

Wobbley · « **Reply #48 on:** June 11, 2003, 07:22:09 pm »

Matt, Steve, Jim, et al., I LOVE IT!!! I'm speechless...luckily this is a text-based message board rather than a voice-based message board

. I'll let everyone else post bugs/complaints/suggestions and assume that their proven thoroughness will encompass any prototype issues I may have. All I can say is, "WOW - I don't think one single set of events has made such a relatively lasting impression on me as has the unprecedented developmental acumen I've witnessed of the JRiver team." To all JRiver team members: If everyone treated everyone else the way that you treat your customers/users, the world would be a virtual utopia.

Salud!

Wobbley

JoshuaHorowitz · « **Reply #49 on:** June 11, 2003, 07:59:17 pm »

I was first excited about this addition, thinking of it as simply another useful interface built on top of the basic tree-based structure. But now that it has been revealed that this might potentially take the place of the tree, I'm very afraid. How might the many tools, facets, and uses of Media Center be affected by this fundamental change in structure? How can we possibly hope to predict the myriad effects? I'd like to later follow up on this, but it's getting late, so maybe later.

Joshua Horowitz

Hey, this actually counts towards my post-count! Cool! And I didn't actually say anything! Suckers!

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Author Topic: Media Library Prototype (advice wanted) (Read 13787 times)

fex

gkerber

nila

nila