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[Ferdi]

This feels like an embarrassing question to aks for someone who's been using MC for 15+ years... Guess I have never tried this before!

I am starting playback on my PC, and I want to change the play-to zone to a new DLNA speaker in my office room. How do I do this, is it possible to do without leaving the current library view? (typically the 'album' view, or 'playing now').

• If I select the zone / device in the 'playing now' library root, the current view is replaced with a view showing the selected zone, while playback doesn't change. I then have to navigate to the correct view, the album etc.  Very disruptive.
• My header shows the current zone, and I can click on, chose 'send-to' and then do a number of deeper menu selections. Still, this is not what I want to achieve, besides it is very cumbersome and fidgety
• I can link the existing zone 'PC' with the new zone 'Office Speaker', and then unlink again, leaving the Office speaker 'on'. This doesn't seem right and no more than a weak workaround.

Somehow I expected to be able to just simply change the play-to zone without any change to the library view. Similar to how Sonos or Spotify work: during playback, just change to where the output should go to, and bang.
What am I missing? 

[JimH]

You have to first select the zone, then start playback.

[thecrow]

It is possible to add Zone selection to the toolbar.
Right click on one of the Toolbar menus and select "Customize Toolbar..."
At the bottom of the "Available Toolbar buttons" you should find Zone, select it and click Add in the middle of the dialogue, then select "Show text labels" in the Text options dropdown if you prefer to see them like I do, and then click Done.
You should now have a Zone dropdown at the end of your menus after Help.
As I recall you can now use this to switch zones without leaving your library view but I am not in front of my copy of MC to confirm this.

PS this will not switch the destination of your current playlist (playing now) but it will allow you the switch zone without having to re-navigate back through your library to Album view.

[Ferdi]

You have to first select the zone, then start playback.

I was afraid that that was the case. Consider this a feature request then, please, Jim

[Ferdi]

As I recall you can now use this to switch zones without leaving your library view but I am not in front of my copy of MC to confirm this.

Thanks - that works, as in, I stay in the same view.
It's merely a workaround though, as the music continues playing in the original zone and I have to re-start playing in the new view.

So, no seamless changing of zone

[RoderickGI]

So, no seamless changing of zone

Nope, because every Playing Now is tied to the Zone it is playing in. You could consider the Playing Now list as being inside the Zone, so what you are asking for would be to seamlessly move the Playing Now contents from one Zone to another.

Ctrl+T toggles through Zones, as an alternative to the Toolbar button.

Your Link and Unlink process is probably the quickest solution now, particularly if you want to stay in the same View.

Another alternative would be to open a tab for the current Zone, leaving the View in the original tab, then select all the files in Playing now, or a subset of them, then right-click on a file and select "Send To > Play (Zone name) > Play (from here)" or one of the other play options. If you have MC set to "Start playing when files are added to Paying Now", then playback would start in the new Zone. You could leave the original Zone playing, or stop it now, and playback would continue in the new Zone.

As to your request, if a "Send To" function was added to the right-click menu on a Zone in the left Navigation Bar, then I guess you could send the contents of the Zone to another Zone. Then playback could begin in the new Zone, and you could stop it in the old Zone. Details of the transition would have to be worked out. Maybe by default it should send all the remaining tracks to the new Zone. But what would it do with the Track currently playing? Maybe sending it along with the current playback position would be possible. As you are using a function in the Navigation bar you would never have to leave the View you were on. But you would still need to switch Zones in order to see what was playing in the header, if you stopped playback in the first Zone. You would also have to switch Zones after stopping playback in the first Zone. The other option would be to "Stop After Current File" in the first Zone, but would playback start in the new Zone immediately? Or should it work like Linking the Zones, and then Unlinking, so effectively moving playback from exactly the current position to the new Zone, and switch Zones at the same time? So maybe instead of using a Send To function, create a "Move To" function, which does it all automatically?

So I guess if this is a feature request you might want to say exactly what you want MC to do, given the above issues. If you specify it well, JRiver may actually do it.