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[larryrup]

A sticky with links to all the wiki's would be extremely useful.

I would not do without this product, so when you read the following please understand it's sincere and offered with great respect for what you guys do.

You need a guy like Mikey in the Life cereal commercials.  If Mikey can negotiate features and use them with some degree of ease, you're not going to get allot of complaints about documentation or loose customers who perceive Media Center as too complicated.  To support this criticism, I offer the following: 

I've been playing with panel and trying to figure out why my playlists and smartlist were not appearing.  With much effort searching for instructions, and then trying to use the instructions, I've been able to somewhat get his working, however, unless I did this regularly, I would never remember how it's done.  The settings are very complicated and in a language that is not intuitive for a person  who does not eat and breath Media Center at low levels. The developers did a wonderful job providing the functionality. What's missing is the presentation to make it useable for end users.   Someone who is not intimate with the settings and  structure should try it and see for themselves. It all works perfectly when done properly but getting there is certainly an investment of time, and I got to believe too difficult for some. I assume there is a complicated reason why playlists and smartlists from the client aren't carried over to panel by default, but that feature would be very sweet. Every time I make some kind of list, I need to go do something again for it to appear in Panel and it's not something like just checking a box.  If playlist can't be carried over by default, simplifying how to get them there and presenting the options in plain language would add a lot of value.  In the business world I came from, this functionality would have to be configured in house by a trained lower level technical person, not a end user.

That being said, the ability to manipulate the software for panel is terrific and it all works! 

Human nature leads people to assume the confusion they face with tools like this are a problem (technical deficiency) within themselves, and they likely give up, or just complain about a lack of documentation :}.  A Mikey test with this and other user configurable options I bet would result in a simplified presentation and bring in/back users who go elsewhere for a more comfortable/easy solution

As I said, I'm not going anywhere else.  Media Center for me is truly kid in a candy store fun, and  I certainly don't want it dumbed down for mass consumption. like an Apple product, but pendulums swing and MC sometimes is on the opposite end of the swing from something like Itunes.  A happy middle ground on usability would serve the product well.

As Cobert says, "Meanwhile", early Happy Thanksgiving

Larry

[RoderickGI]

I've been playing with panel and trying to figure out why my playlists and smartlist were not appearing. <snip>
I assume there is a complicated reason why playlists and smartlists from the client aren't carried over to panel by default, but that feature would be very sweet. Every time I make some kind of list, I need to go do something again for it to appear in Panel and it's not something like just checking a box.

I know this was just an example, but you shouldn't have to do anything each time you create a new list, if MC is set up correctly. A new Playlist should propagate from Client to Server, and hence would appear in Panel. Any Playlist created on the Server is by definition already available in Panel.

Did you have a thread on the above issue? I couldn't find one.

[larryrup]

Thanks for the post.  I'm just finishing up building a new PC and it's been a pain with motherboards and Windows, but I think that's behind me.

I had a hard time finding the instructions the first time, and cannot find them now, and I searched both Interact and Google.  Finding doc's is different problem.

I've been trying to test if playlists do in fact default to Panel.  Understanding I'm now working on a new machine, with a new drive and new install of MC, but I have restored the library so I can still see what I've done.

So far, with the modifications to get playlists into Panel, I can safely say, a new playlist does not carry through to panel----I understand I've played with many of the configurations so I certainly could have changed something to cause this, but whatever that might have been, I cannot find what change caused this. 

I created a new library, and a new "test" playlist, and that did carry forward to panel.  So.....what are the conditions that allow playlists to carry over to panel?  For the library that does not carry PL over,  I'm attaching a snip of the list of playlists and how they now look in panel after my modifying as I described in my previous post.  You will see many playlists in the client list, that are not in the panel list.  They remain not in panel because I have not added them in  media network/advanced/Customize...… and then adding them to the playlist heading, then creating a "rule for display".  I'm attaching another snip that shows how I've set this with the tool.

Appreciate the help, but the original intent of the post is to say documentation is not easily found, and 2) as perfectly laid out in wer's post above, most of the participants on Interact are knee deep in Media Center and do not see (likely can't see) that many menus and manipulating tools are presented in JRiver-ease, and I don't mean ease as in easy.  I joined this forum 7 years ago.  I use this software every single day and I still cannot figure out how to have the software open to Audio/Files!

This is great stuff if you like a stiff challenge.

LarryRup

[RoderickGI]

Larry, I don't know why you are doing it, but what you are doing is not making Playlists visible in Panel. You are building a View for Panel that shows Track 1 for a Playlist that has a specific name.

As I said, I couldn't find a thread explaining why you are doing what you are doing. There may be a valid reason for it. You need to explain why. That doesn't belong in this thread.


PS: The Wiki has a contents page, and it is searchable. The forum doesn't need a sticky with links to all Wiki pages. The Wiki provides that feature.

[RoderickGI]

I did search to try to find a reason why you are doing what you are doing, but I couldn't find a thread anywhere.

What I think has happened is that one section of of the View definitions in the "Options > Media Network > Advanced > Customize views for JRemote, Gizmo, Panel... > Items to show" has gone missing. Perhaps deleted at some time.

The section that displays Playlists in Panel, JRemote and Gizmo is just called "Playlists", and it is at the bottom of the "Items to show" list. See the first attached image. Do you have that section in the Views definitions? If so, all Playlists will show in Panel under the Playlist icon, which looks like three exclamation marks (!) lying on their side and stacked together.

If that "Playlists" section is missing from the "Items to show" list it can easily be added back. Just click the Add button, select "Playlists" from the bottom of the list, and OK out of the Options dialogue. See the second attached image. As you can see from the first image, this item is not configurable. It just adds in access to all your Playlists and Smartlists, in the View.

Does that solve you issue?

If not, can you provide more information about whether you see the Playlists icon in Panel, whether it has anything in it, why you needed to start doing what you are doing now to get Playlists to show up in Panel, or anything else relevant.

Thanks. 

[larryrup]

Thanks

As mentioned, I only went into this section in an attempt to get certain playlists to appear in panel.  In an attempt to make the icons in panel clearer, I changed the text to.....playlist-Use this.  I'll change it back and see if that brings them in.  I'm on an IPAD at the moment.  I'll report back.

Thanks

Larry

[RoderickGI]

Don't change it back, just add the Playlists section back into the Views for Panel. Then compare the two solutions you have.

You can't rename the built-in Playlist item shown in my images, so you must have added the "Playlists-Use this!" item yourself. Therefore, both view sections can exist at the same time for comparison.

[larryrup]

Hi:

Success after several different try's.

What worked was hitting "add" in Customize Views, and selecting "Playlists" from the drop down.  I tried adding a new Root Library Item (renaming it Playlists), and also Renaming the item I modified (which you warned about: I read your note on that after my first try.  Apparently you need to use the one in the drop down).  Success!

It now is coming back to me like a blur.  I found it confusing when selecting a playlist and not having it start playing, and then not being able to hit the play button (it's greyed out)  I had a friend check out Panel connecting to me and he trouble negotiating the icons and figuring out clicking would get you a drop down that asks the proper questions (Play All, Play Me etc.)  so I tried first tried putting some text in place of the icon and got into big trouble! Who's dumber, him or me?  Don't answer that.

 Look and feel is hard to get universal consensus.

Thanks for the help.

Larry

[RoderickGI]

If you are using Panel in a browser on a PC, which it sounds like you are, in the list of Playlists names just right-click on the icon for a Playlist and select "Play".

That will play all tracks in the Playlist from the start, without having to open and display all the tracks in the Playlist, or click and select "Play All" or one of the other options.

Good you figured it out though.