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[bobkatz]

On the PC version of JRiver Media Center, for many versions, at least version 19, the "Drives & Devices" menu lets us surf mounted volumes and play media which is not yet in the library. For me as a production person, I'm creating new material, and I don't necessarily want to add it to the library just to be able to find it and play it. In addition, my main audio server is constantly changing, I'm adding and taking away folders as projects come and go.

This feature only exists in Windows. I currently have Media Center 24, and the "Drives & Devices" menu on Mac is totally different than on Windows, so it's totally impractical for me to surf folders and play random items that are not in the library. Plus I don't want to wait to put them in the library. Plus, much of this stuff doesn't belong in the library. Any chance of having this feature also in Media Center for Mac?

[bob]

That option is unfortunately windows specific code for an api that doesn't exist on Mac and linux.

The best you can do is use finder to browse your shares then right click to open with MC.

[blgentry]

If you want to easily open audio files from Finder, as Bob has suggested, you can make MediaCenter the default so it just does it when you double click on an audio file.  Do something similar to this to set it up:

1.  Highlight a file in Finder.  Press <command>i (or right click for Get Info) to open the Info Panel. 
2.  In the lower part of the panel you'll see "open with".  Click the currently selected app under "open with" and pull down to "other".
3.  In the dialog that comes up, you'll be shown your apps, but you'll notice that Media Center is greyed out.  To fix that, just change the "enable" pull down from "recommended apps" to "all apps".  Now you can select any app you want.
4.  Find and click Media Center.  If you have more than one version installed, click the one you want to use.  In my case it was media center 28.
5.  Now Media Center will open JUST THAT FILE.  But you want all files of this type to be opened by Media Center.  So, cilck the button right underneath that says "change all".  This will assign media center to all files with that type.

You will need to repeat this process for each audio file type that you work with in the file system:  FLAC, MP3, WAV, etc.  There are probably only 3 to 5 that you use, so it won't take too long.

While I'm a big fan of the Mac in general, I'm not such a big fan of Finder itself.  Apparently a lot of people don't like Finder very much.  There are quite a few replacements for Finder that do more/better things than Finder.  For example, PathFinder and Forklift.  I don't use any of these but have played with them in the past.  I think I'm going to give a few of them a try again soon.  I would really enjoy having a Finder type program with dual panes for easy drag and drop (or cut and paste) of files from directory to directory.  That's a very error prone process with Finder and I'd like to fix that.

Good luck.

Brian.

[bobkatz]

That option is unfortunately windows specific code for an api that doesn't exist on Mac and linux.

The best you can do is use finder to browse your shares then right click to open with MC.

Thanks, Bob. It's not that awkward once you set up Media Center as the default player. HOWEVER, it doesn't tell me where the file is. Just like the old itunes, it just plays it but since it's not in the library it doesn't show any library hierarchy at the left. So I have to repeat this each time, go the finder and select the next file in the folder. Or, it seems, I can select a group of wav files and open them all. And Media Center will play them one at a time, using the fast forward/rewind (next file, previous file) transport buttons. Sadly, though, it won't show the list of all the files in the folder. Is there no way I can see the list without having to put the folder into the library, which I don't want to do?

[bobkatz]

Speaking of Finder, Brian. I've had Forklift and Pathfinder and although i was very intrigued by them, some of the ergonomics did not work out and there were bugs. So both of them are off of my Mac. Finder, however, is rock stable (naturally). It is easy to make multiple tabs in the Finder and drag and drop between them, by the way. And that's about the only feature that I really wanted from Pathfinder or Forklift.

Regards,

Bob K.

If you want to easily open audio files from Finder, as Bob has suggested, you can make MediaCenter the default so it just does it when you double click on an audio file.  Do something similar to this to set it up:

1.  Highlight a file in Finder.  Press <command>i (or right click for Get Info) to open the Info Panel. 
2.  In the lower part of the panel you'll see "open with".  Click the currently selected app under "open with" and pull down to "other".
3.  In the dialog that comes up, you'll be shown your apps, but you'll notice that Media Center is greyed out.  To fix that, just change the "enable" pull down from "recommended apps" to "all apps".  Now you can select any app you want.
4.  Find and click Media Center.  If you have more than one version installed, click the one you want to use.  In my case it was media center 28.
5.  Now Media Center will open JUST THAT FILE.  But you want all files of this type to be opened by Media Center.  So, cilck the button right underneath that says "change all".  This will assign media center to all files with that type.

You will need to repeat this process for each audio file type that you work with in the file system:  FLAC, MP3, WAV, etc.  There are probably only 3 to 5 that you use, so it won't take too long.

While I'm a big fan of the Mac in general, I'm not such a big fan of Finder itself.  Apparently a lot of people don't like Finder very much.  There are quite a few replacements for Finder that do more/better things than Finder.  For example, PathFinder and Forklift.  I don't use any of these but have played with them in the past.  I think I'm going to give a few of them a try again soon.  I would really enjoy having a Finder type program with dual panes for easy drag and drop (or cut and paste) of files from directory to directory.  That's a very error prone process with Finder and I'd like to fix that.

Good luck.

Brian.