More > JRiver Media Center 27 for Mac
Inserting characters into a field
DmitryB:
Ok let's see if I can explain!
I am using the Blue Steel skin with modifications to colors and fonts.
The "Movement Name" column is one I created. It's primarily for Classical Music. It essentially functions the same as Name, but for my instinct the wording just makes more sense. I actually forgot to make the change for Pop music to Name, which I did just now in the screenshot below of "Thriller." That's the full screen with the Tree on the left showing the playlist and the panel on top opened. I close it at all times because I don't really find anything there that's useful for me.
For Classical Music, you can see a screengrab below of the typical layout I use for a concerto. (There are different columns in an opera vs. orchestral vs. recital.)
As far as what I am trying to do: I initially made the switch from iTunes to MC because I had collected a huge number of SACDs and DSF files and iTunes can't play them; making iTunes compatible copies was just a waste of SACDs/DSFs. So I switched to MC to play all those files natively. I decided to manually import all the music into MC because I decided to do a major clean-up of my library in the process. Over the years I accumulated/hoarded a lot of junk. The manual transfer allows me to really reevaluate what I want to keep and get rid of the clutter. (Shockingly a lot of clutter.) So thats' why the switch and why I decided to do a manual import one album at a time transfer. And yes, it is very time consuming, but also kind of therapeutic. Even if it does take years to complete the full transfer. (It's already been well over a year.)
Is what I'm doing efficient? Definitely not. Can it be easier? Probably. Do I know how to make it easier? No. I'm not that old, but I've reached the age where I say: "Damn these kids and their technology! I used to program my parents' VCR and now I can't figure out this new app!"
So why this particular layout: the goal was how each individual album would be displaying all the information I wanted (and could customize each individual album when necessary). But displaying artwork and making that adjustable was very important as well. As I went through the various View options (and this was something I had brought up at the time and discussed on this site with various people, specifically asking about how to be able to display and manually adjust the size of the artwork, this was the solution I arrived at. It's been a while since those conversations, but at the time the people who participated agreed that to be able to adjust artwork, Playlists was the only option. If they were wrong... off with their heads!
In the screenshots Roderick posted, I don't like the bottom one: so much wasted space with the panes on the top half of the screen. I tried using that and rejected it. I like the look of the top one though.
BUT I want to arrange my collection - which is primarily Classical - by specific genre of a specific composer. That's what is clearest to me. If I want to play a Beethoven Piano Concerto I just want to open a list of all the artists who play his Piano Concertos. It's just what makes the most sense to my brain. That's why I have the breakdown of Composer - Genre - Performer. Maybe because I was using iTunes for so long, but the brain is wired to have that kind of list just makes it easiest for me to browse my collection and choose what to play. None of the options in Audio give me that. I have Albums, Artists, Files, etc, but none of those solve the issue of having a clear way to drill into a composer and their works and recordings. If there is a different way to get these results I'm after - I am all ears! It IS tedious to create an individual Group Playlist and then Playlist. But a Playlist will not display the artwork as far as I can tell. (and yes, the artwork is just Image (Large Thumbnail)).
wer:
--- Quote from: DmitryB on October 20, 2020, 09:32:41 am ---... but at the time the people who participated agreed that to be able to adjust artwork, Playlists was the only option. If they were wrong... off with their heads!
In the screenshots Roderick posted, I don't like the bottom one: so much wasted space with the panes on the top half of the screen. I tried using that and rejected it. I like the look of the top one though.
--- End quote ---
Using Playlists is not the only option. That was a wrong decision. As I said before, it is the worst option.
Getting the look of Rod's top screenshot presents no challenge. Simply create a view, select View as Panes, and ensure "Support Tree Browsing" is checked. This will give you the style of navigation you currently have, expanding things in the tree on the left, and when you actually select something, it will take on the general layout you see in Rod's screenshot. You merely have to configure the columns you want, and you know how to do that already.
The key to making it work is to have your music tagged correctly. Before we get into what specifically you need to do, let's talk about tagging classical music a bit.
First, we need to talk about the [Artist] tag. In popular music, Artist always means the performer. If Sinatra sings it, it's a Sinatra song; no one cares who wrote it. But Artist is a generic word with ambiguous meaning, so unfortunately there is no universally accepted standard for what it means with regard to classical music:
* Some people use this to hold the individual performer playing the piece. This makes sense for solo piano, but makes no sense for an orchestral work. Soloist is a tag better used for the individual performer, in my opinion.
* Some think Artist is the Conductor, for orchestral works. (The Conductor tag exists for this purpose)
* Others think Artist is the Orchestra, for orchestral works. (Use an Orchestra tag for this purpose)
* Some think Artist is the composer, as that is the person most responsible for the piece in classical music. I am one of these.
So you can see, for classical music some of the uses of Artist equate to Performer, and some to Composer. One might create a tag called Performer, which might be equal to any one of the other 4 tags, if one wanted to avoid any inconsistency.
You are using Artist as Performer, with whatever inconsistencies that forces upon you.
You are also using Composer, in the normal way. This presents no problem.
Finally, you are apparently using "Genre", at least you used that word in your description, but you are using it wrong. I say this because unlike Artist, Genre does have a generally accepted term for tagging. The Genre for all Classical Music is "Classical". You should not use that tag to hold words like "Piano Concerto" or "Symphony", as doing so will cause problems later. Automatic tagging software or databases will never put "Piano Concerto" in the Genre field.
Instead, create a user defined field to hold this. I suggest [CompositionType]. [CompositionType] can hold the type of composition it is: Concerto, Violin Sonata, Piano Sonata, Symphony, Fugue, Suite, Choral Work, etc etc etc.
So I would suggest you create this [CompositionType] field, and fill it out correctly for all your classical tracks. This will be easy and quick if you already have them grouped that way.
So this brings us to how you construct your view.
Show Categories in this order:
Composer
CompositionType
Artist
Album
Using this view structure, if you have your tags filled out for all your files, will instantly and automatically generate the tree structure you desire, for all your albums. You would browse through Bach->Suite->Andras Schiff->French Suites
(I would strongly urge you to use a separate view for classical music than for popular/rock music. For obvious reasons, imposing the above structure on albums like Thriller would be exceedingly clumsy.)
You could add another level, Composition, under album (or even replacing it), if you give MC an understanding of classical compositions. Read my tutorial here for information on that:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=122114.0
The biggest benefit given to you by this approach, other than automatic generation (so that you no longer need create playlists) is that you can create new views, or reorganize instantly. Nothing is to stop you from creating another view with a hierarchy of:
Artist
CompositionType
Composer
Album
In that example, you could browse Andras Schiff->Suites->Bach->French Suites
More to the point, the top level would show everything Schiff played by type of composition. Then it would show by composer. Or you could reverse it, so that directly under Schiff, it showed all the different composers he played.
All this reorganization can be done in seconds, whereas for you it is a manual process of moving and reorganizing playlists and playlist groups.
I hope all this makes sense.
RoderickGI:
All the above sounds good. Carry on with that.
Dmitry the two images I posted are actually the same View. To make the bottom image look like the top one, all you need to do is click on one of the "Disclosure Triangles" in the divider between the top and bottom Panes.
I asked which skin you were using because I couldn't see the "Disclosure Triangles" in the divider. But they may be there, and you may be able to see them on screen. I haven't checked if there is a MC Core Command or keyboard shortcut to close the top Pane, but if you can't see the "Disclosure Triangles" you should be able to double-click on the divider and that will close or reopen the top Pane, as long as those features are in the Blue Steel skin.
I've snipped a little section out of the bottom image in that post and circled the "Disclosure Triangles". They are small and grey. A bit hard to see. That is the first image below.
The second image below is the same as the bottom image in my earlier post, but with the top Pane closed by clicking on the "Disclosure Triangles". As you can see, it is consistent with what you want, I think. If you close the top Pane it will stay closed. But having it there provides another way to view and find your music, that might be of value to you, once you implement Wer's ideas.
DmitryB:
Ok wow, there's a lot of great stuff there. I'm experimenting now with Beethoven, to see how things work out.
My only question right now (still early stages of this) is: When I change List Style (Details vs. Album Thumbnails) in one place, it changes it across every entry. In the Group/Playlist model, I set to view Album Thumbnails under a composer's name - which gives me a full view of all albums there. And then Details in individual albums, so once I click on an album, I immediately see the individual tracks. and if I choose columns for an Orchestral album - where it's just a conductor and orchestra - it also applies to Opera, where I can no longer see Soloists and Chorus, etc. Is there to tell a change made in one category should not be applied to all?
See screenshot below: I set the Opera setting for Beethoven's "Fidelio." And it applied it to the Cello Sonatas, which is giving me info I do not need. If I set the settings for Cello Sonatas, it will apply them to opera and everything else.
wer:
The columns are set at the view level. So if I'm understanding you correctly, what you describe is normal if both things are part of the same view. I'm unsure why you need different column settings. If you're going to post screenshots, don't just show what you don't want, also show what you do want. :)
I have an extensive classical collection. I'm not telling you what you should do with your collection, but I find one well-chosen set of columns suits adequately for all types of classical music. As long as you can fit it to the width of your monitor without scrolling. This makes things easier on me, and I suspect on you too if you give it a chance. However....
If you insist on having totally different sets of columns for different types of classical music, you can do that: simply create another view. You can copy a view by drag and drop. Just drag/drop the view itself in the tree, and a little menu will pop up asking if you want to move or copy. Select copy. The newly copied view will be identical to the old, except the name, and then you can mess with the columns.
You can nest one view under another (select move from that menu after you drag and drop). Using this method, you can simulate having different column sets in the same view, as they will appear under the same parent item in the tree.
You might choose to combine the above approach with excluding certain composition types from certain views. For example, if you don't ever want opera tracks to appear in the same view as Concerto tracks (because of columns), simply add a rule to the Concerto view that CompositionType is not Opera.
Make sense?
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