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[HPBEME]

Just one week ago I bumbled into the MC27 option to use a 10-star rating system… When did that get added!? As a very long time user of this program, I cannot believe I missed that feature being rolled out. Whenever it was… Hallelujah!  Unfortunately, you cannot edit the stars directly in the player bar as you can with the 5-star system. For your reference, I started a thread regarding this yesterday: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,127672.0.html

In that thread, Zybex was incredibly helpful showing me a workaround to display stars in the player bar for the 10 star rating system, but acknowledged it is not possible to edit them on the fly like you can with the 5-star system. I've been waiting 15 years for a 10-star (or 5-star with half-stars) rating system, but without player bar access to quickly edit them, the utility of the 10-star rating is severely diminished.  Zybex recommended I create a new thread with "feature request" specifically in the subject line, so here you go.

I've already converted the songs I had previously rated (~ 20,000) to the new rating system (1 -> 2, 2 -> 4, 3 -> 6... etc.) and thanks to MC's phenomenal tagging capability that took all of one minute. I still have a couple thousand tracks that have never been rated, and for the foreseeable future I will be tweaking the converted ratings, as that is kind of the whole point of a more discreet rating system… Right? Over half of my library is rated 3 stars, while the other ratings tail off precipitously... a quintessential bell curve. I imagine this distribution of song ratings is true for most people. With 10 stars, songs I previously rated from 2 to 4 can now be updated and fine-tuned with values from 3 to 9, so having quick and easy access to edit the ratings is absolutely paramount.

Oh magnificent and generous keepers of all things MC, have I persuaded you yet? I am not too proud to beg… Please please please please please, oh please... add this capability. I thank you for your indulgence.

[zybex]

@Matt
Suggestion: if [Rating10] field exists, show a 10-star editable field on the PlayingBar; else show the default 5-star [Rating]. Same logic could be used elsewhere.

[jherbert]

You will not be able to tell the rating at a glance, and this is what "stars" are for. The number of items you can "count" without counting is about seven. Give it a try with coins or peas. Five are really easy, hence this number is used most of the time. For a more granular rating one would have to use numerical values.

[HPBEME]

You will not be able to tell the rating at a glance, and this is what "stars" are for.

I agree that it is difficult to discern 4 from 5 stars, and 5 from 6 stars the instant you look at it, but as long as there are placeholder "dots", your eyes can evaluate those four to six "unstarred" locations and quickly do the arithmetic to arrive at what the rating is. I've been using the 10-star system for a week now and I have no trouble differentiating the middle ratings from each other in a long column list of songs.  Picture below is the Playing Now lower window with a column for 10-star ratings (Noire skin).



Can I discern the rating as quickly with 10 stars as I can with 5?  No, but it takes perhaps 1 second vs 1/2 second… a small price to pay for a much more accurate rating.  I understand you feel 10 stars are problematic, and I'm sure others agree with you.  But a 10-star rating has been available in MC for a couple years now, and clearly nobody is being be forced to use it.  I fail to see the downside of making those 10 stars editable in the player bar (just as they are editable in the detail list) for those of us who prefer 10 over 5... and I have seen many many many requests for a 10 star system (or 5 with half stars) over the years.

[HPBEME]

Clearly I messed up getting that image inserted in the previous post - trying again…

[wer]

A five-star field that uses half-stars is much more readable than a 10-star field, and also takes up less UI space. And they are mathematically equivalent.

[HPBEME]

I agree 100% with that statement. 

That said, the 10-star rating is available in MC right now - it just lacks the functionality I am requesting.  If JRiver chose to add a 5 +1/2 stars rating system as well, I am A-OK with that too... it just needs to be editable in the Player Bar for it to be a viable replacement.

[HPBEME]

So here is another idea, and perhaps a better approach for a 10-base rating system.  I mocked up the idea below.  While it still consumes a larger chunk of real estate than a 5 +1/2 star system would, it certainly removes any ambiguity regarding a given tracks rating.

The most important aspect to any approach is the ease with which the rating can be applied.  That is the beauty of the current 5-star system, and what I want to mimic with a 10 based system.  Simply hover your mouse until you are over the rating you want and then click...  could not be simpler.  My concern with using a 1/2 star system is that it would likely require extreme "mousing precision" to expose only half-a-star. A potential way to overcome that would be to set the rating via scrolling when the cursor is positioned in the rating area: 1/2 star per mouse wheel click.  Perhaps that would be overly difficult to program... I have no idea as I am certainly no programmer.

In any event, I am curious as to what others think of the idea I mocked up below.  Maybe I should do a poll?  Not sure how to do that though.