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New to JRiver - customizing Playlist Views

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DmitryB:
Hello everyone. I am new to JRiver (all of 3 days) and this is my story/question.

I am moving from using iTunes exclusively for a decade or two and wanted to use a media management program that could coldly play audio formats iTunes for some bizarre reason has not seen fit to make compatible after all these years. (Is FLAC really still controversial??)

In any case, as a listener of primarily classical music I've been keeping my iTunes library organized a certain way and would like to keep the essence of that design going with JRiver: my library was built almost entirely with Folders and Subfolders and Playlists. So a main folder for all the composers, let's say, Mozart then subfolder for Chamber or Opera and then subfolder for String Quartets or Don Giovanni and then a Playlist for the specific ensemble or conductor, etc. The Playlist may contain multiple albums  because many musicians recorded the same piece of music multiple times and I'd like to have all the versions in one place.

I can see this is something that can be recreated using Groups and Playlists in JRiver, so that's great. But a few questions for people who have been using JRiver longer than 3 days:

1) Is there another way classical listeners use to arrange their classical collections? (I prefer to do things manually, so no Smartlists or auto-import because I have found in the past things getting past me and then forgotten.)

2) I am finding that the Groups that contain sub-Groups and Playlists constantly close, so I have to reopen each level over and over again. Is there to just keep the Groups open all the time?

3) And most importantly, I'm having problems customizing the Views that I prefer in the Playlists. The problem is the Album Artwork. I love to have Artwork prominently displayed along with whatever additional columns I choose. But in Playlists the Album artwork can only be a tiny thumbnail (really, the size of a thumbnail) and it can not be resized to be larger. In other places of the program the Artwork can be resized, but I can not find a way to do this in Playlist. Essentially the Image #1 below what I'd love to be able to recreate in a Playlist: Large/Adjustable Artwork on the Left and my additional columns of choice on the right.

4) Content Panel (like in image #2) appears in all the Playlists and that's fine: but is there a way to get rid of/change the Date Added info? My system also gives me some ID number of numbers. I do not find this information useful in any way. Can I replace it with something else?

Thank you so much!

Just FYI, the version I'm of JRiver I'm using is the last version downloaded from this site (version 25) and I'm on a iMacPro.

Thanks again!
Dmitry

JimH:
There is some good information on classical music here:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Tagging_Classical_Music

DmitryB:
Thanks JimH for the link! I'd read that thread previously in my various google searches for solutions. They have some great ideas for tagging classical music, but nothing that addresses my problems with questions 2, 3 and 4. I've read repeatedly that the program is customizable in every way, but I can't figure out how to configure the view to my liking and it's the Album Cover that is the main culprit. Choosing the column Image doesn't give me the artwork, Thumbnails sometimes gives me artwork, sometimes not, but tiny size. I'd love to be able to resize the image like in the Panel display, but Panel doesn't seem to be available in Playlists. (If it is - I don't see where.)  ?

I can't even get the Album view in the main/parent Playlist level. All the available options give me artwork per track, so I end up with 1000 covers for just 50 recordings.

It's a bit frustrating; I haven't purchased a license yet (still in trial mode) and am starting to wonder what other media libraries are out there. 

blgentry:
In MC, the normal way of looking at Playlists, with the tree on the left and the details on the right, is not bad, but it's kind of limited for advanced use like you are describing.

My preference is to use a Panes view for this kind of work.  Look in Audio.  You should see a view with the title "Files".  That is a Panes view that has one pane (selectable column) with file location in it.  This might be a good view for you to play with since it will let you drill down through you files and folder pretty easily and should not collapse on you like the Playlists do.

You can make your OWN Panes views too.  You can add the columns you want so it will let you select things exactly as you want to.  Now, at the bottom of the a Panes view is the list of files that you have selected by clicking in the various panes above.  That file list can show thumbnails for files (songs) or it can be made to show ALBUMS instead and can show just the album art of each album.  Just go up top to the title of the Panes view, click on the little down arrow, and then select List Style > Album Thumbnails .

Some combination of Panes and the proper list style will probably give you the type of view you want.

Regarding Playlists:  I think you are on the right track how you are setting up your playlists.  Build your playlist groups and subgroups as you have been.  ...and then make a Pane for Playlists!  To do this, right click on an existing Pane, then select "add Pane to the left", and then Playlist Group, Root of all playlists.  The new Pane that appears, titled "Playlist" will have a tree of your playlists that you can choose from.  I just tested and I don't think it collapses it's groups when you select others.

I hope this helps get you started.  Good luck!

Brian.

DmitryB:
Brian, thanks so much! I will try what you describe later tonight. I hadn't thought of using Panes in place of Playlists, but that may be a good solution for this! Hopefully I can find an existing "Pane" somewhere.  :D

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