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[JimH]

I just started a thread on how to modify the GUI:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,117461.0.html

Please use this thread to suggest changes to MC that might improve it.

The simplest changes are the most likely to be implemented.

[Awesome Donkey]

I have a few;

1) I'm not sure how simple it is, but I'd like to see transparency support with both transparent/semi-transparent PNG images supported and transparency values that can be set to specific sections/parts of a skin in main.xml. Reason being I'd like to attempt a newer Windows 10-esk skin with the "Fluent Design" semi-transparency Windows 10 has in some of its Modern apps (and the start menu, etc.). MC did have Aero Glass support with some skins including Noire Glass, but that'll only work in Windows 7. I could use this by applying semi-transparency to areas like the tree, action center, top area of MC, etc.

2) SVG support. Yeah, using scalable vector graphics may seem cumbersome and complex but it'd allow easier support for smaller or larger skin sizes and resolutions without needing to create 2x, 4x, etc. images and it could scale up or down to any size without any quality loss. The downside? I'd have to learn how to deal with SVG images.

3) Auto switching skins depending on use of an OS' dark mode or time of day. An example would be the upcoming macOS Mojave which has a feature that will switch to dark mode when it's night outside. Same thing could be applied to MC - switch skins at a certain time of day. Have a light skin in the day, but once 6PM comes it'll switch to the dark skin and once 6AM comes, it'll switch to a light skin again.

I'll think of more stuff later, this is what immediately came to mind.

[Hendrik]

1) I'm not sure how simple it is, but I'd like to see transparency support with both transparent/semi-transparent PNG images supported and transparency values that can be set to specific sections/parts of a skin in main.xml. Reason being I'd like to attempt a newer Windows 10-esk skin with the "Fluent Design" semi-transparency Windows 10 has in some of its Modern apps (and the start menu, etc.). MC did have Aero Glass support with some skins including Noire Glass, but that'll only work in Windows 7. I could use this by applying semi-transparency to areas like the tree, action center, top area of MC, etc.

How far would it get us if I just enable the glass effect on Windows 10? Because I got that working, needs testing though.
I wonder how many UI elements are otherwise rendered opaque, or maybe would just need a translucent texture.

[Awesome Donkey]

Aero Glass (using OpenGL) or the newer "Fluent Design" type of glass? Either way I guess the only way to really know is to find out.

I'll start looking at the Noire Glass theme and see how it works there (probably transparency values in PNG files). But being able to toggle skin transparency on/off in the menus (or the skin effects dialog) would likely be helpful though. I'll also figure out how much transparency Windows 10 uses for the start menu for a comparison.

[tij]

In Theatre View ... local background for video would be nice (atm it only works for audio ... tick slideshow on ... tick all online sources off)

Also ... when picking local background for audio/video ... some strick file naming convention would be nice ... ie only use images with name background* or backdrop* (or something else) ... as sometimes i keep images related to media with that media, but dont want to use it as backdrops

I mainly use Standard View for managing my library (tagging, importing, etc) ... and i find it pretty complete (though others might disagree) ... the level of customization is incredible

I use Theatre View to access media from TVs ... its a good interface ... what would make it great is customization options ... i will ponder on better phrasing my suggestion before rushing in and typing a mess thats hard to understand lol

[Hendrik]

Aero Glass (using OpenGL) or the newer "Fluent Design" type of glass? Either way I guess the only way to really know is to find out.

It never used OpenGL, the compositor is D3D. D3D9 on Windows 7, D3D11 these days.

Anyhow, all I can do is tell Windows to render a window translucent and blur whatever is behind the window, just like Glass looked. Right now the Skin entirely controls if this effect is supposed to be enabled.

Lets just test that in the next version. Only one Skin uses it, so if it breaks, its not going to be that bad.

[tij]

Oh! ... and in Theatre View ... when selecting TV Show with only one season ... or Artist with only one album ... Theatre View straight away shows episodes or tracks (skipping season view for TV shows ... or album view for artist)

Sometimes i only have one season of show ... it would be nice to know what season those episodes came from ... (or in case of music ... what album those track came from)

[lepa]

TheaterView: Season cover art only appear if pure [Season] field is used. In that case thumbnail text is only number of season which isn't exactly eye candy looking

[tyler69]

These kinds of threads pop up from time to time and most often lead to no implementations. I also made a few suggestions for the UI but hardly ever anything happened. I understand that JRiver picks the low hanging fruits, so do not expect any "big" UI changes. If JRiver would look for UI related threads/posts in the last year, they would probably have more than enough GUI improvement suggestions.

[lepa]

I like the functionality of OSD but graphically it could benefit from facelift. Some kind of graphical overlay info about currently playing file would be nice.

[swiv3d]

I would suggest that actions which cause the GUI to freeze should be cleared up - select 60,000 audio files tell MC to save the embedded cover art into the specified folder - goodbye GUI for some time.
Apart from that :-
I would dearly love to see 3D albums bite the dust.
A select all button for files in the display view window would be useful.

[Hendrik]

TheaterView: Season cover art only appear if pure [Season] field is used. In that case thumbnail text is only number of season which isn't exactly eye candy looking

You can fix that by using Expression categories. As long as you use the exact value in Expression to group by, the artwork should still work (there is two options, either a simple category using the Season field, or an expression category with this value)
This is what I use:
- Expression to group by: TVInfo(SeasonDisplay)
- Expression to display:

Code: [Select]

<font alpha="50">TVInfo(SeriesDisplay)<//font>
TVInfo(SeasonDisplay)

[wer]

Thanks for asking.  Here are some, a lot of which are simple:

1. SIMPLE: The ability to hide something in the tree view (even a top level item, like "Services & Plug-ins") that you don't want to see.  Already possible with Zones.

2. SIMPLE: Use an icon other then the international standard "Play" image for linkable columns. Currently confusing.

3. SIMPLE: Add a real play button (perhaps in a column) to items in the top area, when that is shown as details list style.  Currently double-clicking a details list item in the top doesn't play, it opens the file view below; you either have to right-click to play, or in thumbnail view you get a Play hover.

4. In the tree view, allow "manual" sorting, where we can just drag and drop something to a particular position and it stays there.

5. SIMPLE: Option to NOT auto-expand Playing Now in the tree.  (Not really a change to the GUI, but it affects the look)

6. Add the ability to put command shortcuts on the toolbar.  (Things like appear on the right-click recent command option, like On Disk-External).

7. Make Playing Now a separate pane in the tree (sort of like the action window) so that you can switch zones with one click without moving away from your current tree view.  To switch to viewing the play doctor or current playing now, you could always double-click.  Yes you can switch zones via menu, but it requires many clicks and mouse movements to navigate.

8. SIMPLE: The option to drill down all the way to files in the top pane, instead of opening the lower files pane on the last double-click.  Essentially, the ability to use the right-hand side of standard view as a single unified pane.

9. In theater view, the ability to add playlist groups as a library item while still respecting playlist sequence order.  (Matt fixed this years ago, and it's re-broken.)  This is to enable Playlists to be inside a Music view, instead of as a top-level roller.

10. SIMPLE: In theater view, the subtitle selection OSD should be labeled the obvious "Forced Only" and "Off", instead of the current question inducing "Off" (when it's not off) and "Null".

There would need to be a whole thread on improvements to the visual look/operation of Theater View and its OSD.

(edited to add #10)

[Tucker]

Hi
I am using two set ups one for speakers one for Headphones.
The only way I have found to do this is using DPS studio and then ticking or un/ticking Headphone and Equaliser.
May be it would be possible to place a toggle switch in the main player bar to switch set ups to make this operation simple rather than a drag.

[JimH]

Hi
I am using two set ups one for speakers one for Headphones.
The only way I have found to do this is using DPS studio and then ticking or un/ticking Headphone and Equaliser.
May be it would be possible to place a toggle switch in the main player bar to switch set ups to make this operation simple rather than a drag.

You can do this with zones, then toggle between them with Ctrl-T.  The wiki has a topic.

[cncb]

Add small icons next to labels for root tree view items (Playing Now, Audio, Images, etc.).

[Hendrik]

I like the functionality of OSD but graphically it could benefit from facelift. Some kind of graphical overlay info about currently playing file would be nice.

I like the idea of updating the video playback OSD - its not a new one, either. Get some additional info on the main OSD page, remove some of the "informational" pages in the process (since its on the main page then), and keep the settings pages.
It would increase the usability as well, since some of those rarely used pages with the description etc are being consolidated, and only the actually useful pages remain.

Unfortunately I'm a bit challenged in the graphical creativity department

[lepa]

You can fix that by using Expression categories. As long as you use the exact value in Expression to group by, the artwork should still work (there is two options, either a simple category using the Season field, or an expression category with this value)
This is what I use:
- Expression to group by: TVInfo(SeasonDisplay)
- Expression to display:

Code: [Select]

<font alpha="50">TVInfo(SeriesDisplay)<//font>
TVInfo(SeasonDisplay)

Thanks Hendrik!

[Castius]

I like this as well. I always wanted more interesting ways to display the metadata. Like actors or band members and and an image of them. Maybe a link to there imdb.
https://goo.gl/images/BGJrvA

[RoderickGI]

I like the functionality of OSD but graphically it could benefit from facelift. Some kind of graphical overlay info about currently playing file would be nice.

I would like this as well. I have often wanted to check the description, resolution, year, and other attributes of a movie after I have started playback, and didn't want to stop playback to drop back to the menu, which is currently the most efficient way.

Unfortunately I'm a bit challenged in the graphical creativity department

Aren't we all?! But the example provided is a very good start. I particularly like the inclusion in the bottom left of attributes of the movie in graphical form. Much easier than reading details.

[CalJake]

In a view of thumbnails with alphabet displayed, when I select the letter "C" for example, display ONLY items beginning with the letter C - nothing before or after.  My music library is huge, and this would help find items more quickly with less clutter.

[DJLegba]

In a view of thumbnails with alphabet displayed, when I select the letter "C" for example, display ONLY items beginning with the letter C - nothing before or after.  My music library is huge, and this would help find items more quickly with less clutter.

Good idea, but make it an option. Sometimes it's easier to find Buena Vista Social Club by selecting C.

[Moe]

This would be such a huge quality of life improvement for me and I would think it would be pretty easy to implement.

I want to be able to change the sorting in Theater View.  As an example, lets say I am in the mood to watch a Comedy.  I navigate to my view which shows all my genres, I then choose Comedy.  All my Comedy movies are displayed in their default sorting, which is alphabetical.  Now lets say I want to watch something that's recent, or something that I know that imported into my library recently, or by length, or whatever criteria.  I'd like there to be a "Sort" option in the top roller and then customizable sorting options below that.  I have done a mock up in Photoshop to show how what I envision.



If you can make this happen you will have my undying love and devotion.

[nataru]

This one: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,116237.msg803413.html#msg803413

Doesn't seem hard implementing it.

[Negasonic]

• Tree: Full sorting options/drag and drop. 
• Tree: Ability to create custom categories, either top categories, or to put within existing ones like 'Audio', 'Images', 'Video' etc
• When Tree is closed: Switching Library view can be done by hovering mouse over the current tab and choosing 'Library Views' in the drop down menu. But - you can only select from same category as is currently shown. Add another step - Library Views/audio-video-images etc (Basically a list of Tree categories)/List of views
• Slider: A way to quickly jump directly to bottom or top of view by clicking arrows
• 'Rename, Move, & Copy Files...': Show the name of current preset in use, on top of window

[JonnyRedHed]

Add a cover art slide show via the right click context menu when right clicking over the standard view cover art, this one from the rotated/reflection effect and also from the flat cover art.   Based from the currently playing tracks album folder, or sub image folder. And changes when the next track is from another albums folder/sub image folder and so on.  Surely its time for this GUI feature to enhance the standard view cover art display.  Flat, or rotated/reflection effect.  With quality/speed settings, speed of transition and GPU quality of transition etc whilst using the rotated reflection effect so its smooth as butter

[Alex M]

-

[Castius]

please add option to use progress bar.
https://img.utdstc.com/screen/13/netflix-001.png:l:webp

[Awesome Donkey]

Here's a few more that came to mind, which I suspect lots of users might appreciate. These were inspired by this topic which would help with those issues that seems to creep up from time-to-time.

1) Add a 0-100 percentage download progress bar and display the amount/size of data downloaded along with the total download amount/size to the Adding Required Components dialog for LAV, madVR and Chromium.

2) Add a timeout to the Adding Required Components which after X amount of seconds with no response, MC will timeout and inform the users that the download failed and inform the user to check their antivirus/firewall settings because it can't reach the server. Right now the dialog just gets stuck with no end, as far as I know.

These two would be the most important, and would help greatly, especially when troubleshooting issues with downloading the components. This next one might be considered a bit iffy and out there, but it'd help too if you want to pre-download and install the components if you're intending to use MC in an 'offline' environment.

3) An option in MC's options to force start MC to downloading and adding the required components, even if a feature requiring additional components hasn't been used or enabled yet. This way users can invoke the download and have it installed before using the features. A example use case for this would be users that are flying and wanting to watch videos in-flight, however they can't download the additional components during the flight. Using an option to invoke the downloading of the additional features before using MC 'offline' would likely help a good amount of users.

[lello]

I take this opportunity to re-propose an old question.

As skin in theater view use Glass and when I click on the various menus, the font color changes from white to blue to make it easier to read. With metadata, unfortunately, this does not happen and the color remains white: is there a particular setting that I have to do?

[mattkhan]

Change the PEQ block in DSP Studio to accept text input rather than making the user enter each filter one by one via lots of mouse clicks

for example, a text window into which I can paste

LS 50 0.7 6
LS 40 0.7 3
PEQ 20 4 -3

results in 3 filters (low shelf 50Hz Q=0.7 +6dB; low shelf 40Hz Q=0.7 +3dB; peq 20Hz Q=4 -3dB)

this would save an awful lot of time when entering filters

(and ideally expose the same via mcws)

[mattkhan]

Make grid view sorting easier/more intuitive

1) select in search order rather than in reverse

i.e. atm if you want to search by artist > album > track then you'd have to click track then album then artist

make it possible to click artist then album then track instead

2) add a quick "clear sort" button

3) add a quick "remove this column from the sort" button (e.g. double click on the header)

[ZenOli]

When using a view as Panes, panes can be selected as "dropdowns" which give access to a very convenient quick search on the columns (Artist, albums, genre, etc). However, I do not find the use as dropdowns very practical in itself. I would love to have this quick search integrated to the more standard "panes" views such as "Top panes".

I have this use case quite often with composers or conductors, when you remember the name, but are not sure about the firstname to look for in alphabetical sorting.

I am not sure how this could be implemented, maybe simply when clicking on the name of the pane column ?

ZenOli

[rec head]

Make grid view sorting easier/more intuitive

1) select in search order rather than in reverse

i.e. atm if you want to search by artist > album > track then you'd have to click track then album then artist

make it possible to click artist then album then track instead

2) add a quick "clear sort" button

3) add a quick "remove this column from the sort" button (e.g. double click on the header)

Yeah, it takes some getting used to how it works now. I'd like to add that drop down menu for sort order would make it even easier.

[RoderickGI]

I also like these.

Make grid view sorting easier/more intuitive

1) select in search order rather than in reverse

i.e. atm if you want to search by artist > album > track then you'd have to click track then album then artist

make it possible to click artist then album then track instead
Maybe a Shift+Click to sort in the natural sequence like this, so that compatibility with existing functionality remains.

2) add a quick "clear sort" button
Okay, not so sure about this one, because some sort still need to be used, and the Sort drop-down menu provides quick access to setting the sort to Default. But a "Default Sort" button on the divider between panes would be easier to use.

3) add a quick "remove this column from the sort" button (e.g. double click on the header)
Maybe a Ctrl+Click, for consistencey with the solution for 1. above, and again so that compatibility with existing functionality remains.

[wer]

The option for a much more visible warning when clipping protection engages, visible in theater view.

Augment the audio analysis window to report the timecode when the maximum true peak occurs.

Currently finding peaks and adjusting to prevent clipping in videos is a huge pain.

[carlismysecondname]

I wish there was a way to completely disable all pop-up transparency in standard view. I do have the Popup transparency mode disabled in the advanced options, BTW. My goal is simple: I just want to be able to read the popup text clearly without the distraction of the faint background glow behind the text.

[mattkhan]

Okay, not so sure about this one, because some sort still need to be used, and the Sort drop-down menu provides quick access to setting the sort to Default. But a "Default Sort" button on the divider between panes would be easier to use.

that makes more sense, a quick way to restore the default sort.

admittedly that particular option is not very far away (tab header > sort by) but IME people miss this, it's not v obvious/intuitive that one should look therefor further options. Another change therefore would be something to make that more accessible, e.g. a thin toolbar/toolbox running vertically down the side?

[carlismysecondname]

When using a view as Panes, panes can be selected as "dropdowns" which give access to a very convenient quick search on the columns (Artist, albums, genre, etc). However, I do not find the use as dropdowns very practical in itself. I would love to have this quick search integrated to the more standard "panes" views such as "Top panes".

gmusicbrowser (my preferred light-weight music player within Linux -- great alternative to foobar2000) has this feature. Pitty JRiver cant do the same thing.

[Negasonic]

If possible, I'd very much like to see the "Thumbnail Resizer Slider" moved to the upper toolbar and positioned underneath the Search function.

Reason: I sometimes find this slider to be unavailable because my tabs overlaps it when using split views (which I always do). Also, it would look great there.

[Tucker]

Thanks

[Awesome Donkey]

If anyone wants skins that fit the Fluent Design Acrylic look found in Windows 10, I posted some new skins here.

You'll need to be using MC 24.0.54 and above for it to work.

[JimH]

Thanks, A.D.

[blgentry]

No offense, but most of the requests here seem either just to be cosmetics, or they are for very specific weird little things that people want from the interface.  If that's the intention of this thread, to tweak the existing interface a tiny little bit and add more features, then I guess it's exactly on track.

Now everyone knows that I like MC.  I'm mostly very very ok with the GUI interface.

But some people say from time to time, "Hey the GUI on this looks old and it's really confusing and it really needs an overhaul" aren't seasoned MC users like me.  They see something that's foreign that they think would be better if it rewritten from scratch (the GUI part).

This thread was started because of one of those people.  If it's not going to address that, then perhaps Jim can make one of his statements to that effect: "Sorry you don't like the current GUI interface, it's not likely to change.  Try it a little longer and you might come to appreciate the engineering and user interface decisions we made."

I'm just saying that the intention of the people complaining about the MC interface, and the intention of this thread seem to be completely different from one another.

Thanks for listening.

Brian.

[Hendrik]

Rewritting the entire UI from scratch in a complex application like Media Center is something that just cannot be done, not in a team our size or with our development model. We would have to stop releasing updates for probably half a year (probably longer) in which time we entirely break MC and rebuild it from scratch, and after that you would still have lost half of its flexible functionality. There is only so much easy/simple/intuitive UI you can build while still incorporating all the same features.

So yeah, Jim's statements on that are pretty accurate. Its not that we are stubbornly in love with our current interface, its just entirely infeasiable to revamp it from scratch. Not to mention that we would have to first figure out how that should look, because if the same people build it again without graphical guidance, it might come out quite similar.

Incrementally improving some of the "annoyances", some of the parts that look really old, some of the overly complex things that make it seem so unfriendly to new users - those incremental changes is what we can and want to do. It won't make for an entirely fresh MC experience, but maybe it doesn't have to.

Another thing we can do is offer additional simpler interfaces, like Panel. Of course its still far away from offering any sort of comprehensive control over Media Center, but maybe it can grow towards that. At least it might offer an interface for secondary MC users (Kids, spouses, ..) to easily navigate and use media.

[blgentry]

I can agree with pretty much everything you said Hendrik.  I'm also pretty darned happy with the MC GUI as is.

Brian.

[JimH]

Everyone has an opinion about look and feel, and it is impossible to satisfy all.

Hendrik's comments are spot on.

[carlismysecondname]

MC is at least much better -- not necessarily prettier/more seamless -- than iTunes, Spotify, etc in terms of customization. But it also makes it almost too complex for a lot of folks -- including myself sometimes. At least it can be tweaked. In Spotify, for instance, you'd just have to resign yourself to the fact that it is what it is, and you most likely would never be able to get what you want, EVER. Just go look at their pages and pages and pages of ignored requests they have for simple things like basic visualization effects etc. or better flexibility with media organization. Hehe. Support staff there just say just keep on requesting said feature and maybe they'll consider it. But after 50+ to 80 pages of the same request, eh, you still don't get anything done for some of the most most BASIC requested things. The pace of innovation in terms of interface improvements there moves sooo slow, often they even take away features. Probably for the sake of stability and simplicity? It does cater for the masses...

..

This is probably one of those little things... some people just love transparency effects -- just can't get enough of it. To me at least, I absolutely hate it in the standard view of JRiver. I don't like it in Windows, I don't like it in Linux. I disable it whenever I can. But that's just me.

[swiv3d]

Personally I like the GUI as it is and I'm impressed by the multitude of ways it can be modified to achieve a particular outcome. However a lot of people do seem to find the complexity daunting when there isn't a really easy to use 'how to do it guide' (Yes I know about the wiki). Perhaps someone will write a Dummy's Guide to JRiver - who knows and I would be the first to buy it. Look at Frans post and see where ticking a box to move all files in a folder doesn't do it if the other files are already in the library - confusion like that can cause so much frustration to users.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,117443.msg813406.html#msg813406

[jb82]

Whilst a visual overhaul/rebranding would be great, I totally understand JRiver’s position. There is a certain charm to the interface anyway and I would rather see incremental improvements that don’t lead to things looking disjointed.

Since I mostly use JRiver in the living room, Theatre View is of most interest to me. Little things do make a big difference here (just removing the dodgy grey cover backdrops in OpenGL was enough to push me into upgrading to MC24!)

Things I would like to see for Theatre View as optional:
- Option to disable the ‘elastic’ effect in applicable (3d) views
- Option to scale up the cover art size (reducing the gap between covers) in the (3d) cover wall view
- Option to change cover art rotation angle (including no rotation) in applicable (i.e the file info?) views
- As tij already posted, provide specific local backdrop support via naming convention (for both music and video). Also make music album backdrops change moving album to album rather than artist too artist
- Additional background option - guassian blur of cover art (a la plex, spotify etc.)
- Anti-aliasing applied to all text