Topic: NEW: Spotlight (Read 34801 times)

JimH · « **on:** March 19, 2022, 01:54:40 pm »

[Edit by JimH -- Screenshots are here.

You may have noticed that Craig Baldwin aka cncb, author of MO4Media is joining JRiver. His first project for us is what I'll call the Artist Spotlight Page. Craig will also continue his work on his remote, but separately from JRiver.

I'll give you a brief description of what I imagine and let you help us design it.

We have multiple links at the top right of Playing Now when you're playing:

Amazon AMG Google Wiki Images Youtube

I'd like to make these a visual display with lots of images. A rich display of what we can bring you on an individual artist. It will link to the relevant pages at each of those sites. It will be at least 2:1 images to text, maybe more.

We should be able to add related artists as well.

We'll either build this on the Playing Now page or make a second tab in Playing Now.

Craig starts this week.

Edit: Spotlight for Video

jmone · « **Reply #1 on:** March 19, 2022, 03:42:36 pm »

Welcome to the team Craig!

Magic_Randy · « **Reply #2 on:** March 20, 2022, 08:36:52 am »

Welcome Craig!

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** March 20, 2022, 09:54:34 am »

Here's a sketch.

lepa · « **Reply #4 on:** March 20, 2022, 10:21:20 am »

Looking forward this

BryanC · « **Reply #5 on:** March 20, 2022, 10:38:34 am »

Very cool!

marko · « **Reply #6 on:** March 20, 2022, 12:08:23 pm »

Interesting ideas. Welcome aboard Craig

cncb · « **Reply #7 on:** March 20, 2022, 02:46:30 pm »

Thanks. I am excited to join the team!

JimH · « **Reply #8 on:** March 23, 2022, 04:07:15 pm »

Here's an idea of where we're headed. I've asked Craig to post progress reports here.

mark_h · « **Reply #9 on:** March 24, 2022, 03:50:56 am »

Very exciting!

Can see lots of scope to customise, make feature requests, but will save that for the appropriate time!

cncb · « **Reply #10 on:** March 31, 2022, 10:35:54 am »

The next build will have a Spotlight Page preview. It does not have much content yet. For now, you access it through the "Spotlight" link at the top of Playing Now (next to Amazon).

marko · « **Reply #11 on:** March 31, 2022, 12:19:12 pm »

OK, Got it.

Your post made me think it had to be in a Playing Now tab, but not so.

I made MC crash. Here's how...

I went to playing now, and couldn't find any "Spotlight" to click on in the tree... So I re-read your post and sussed you were talking about links, so, why wasn't I seeing it?

Was because my Playing Now had video in it.

Me, being me, edited the Spotlight link and removed the [Media Type] filter completely. With video selected, MC just dies, disappears and needs relaunched.

I replaced the audio only filter in the link, but also made it open in a new tab, I personally feel that's better, especially with a middle click to close it being so simple.

Would be good if it will be expanded to also show a spotlight on movies and TV shows in the future.

-marko.

lepa · « **Reply #12 on:** March 31, 2022, 12:55:35 pm »

hmmm are my own links gone? Or how can I access them?

JimH · « **Reply #13 on:** March 31, 2022, 01:11:31 pm »

What links?

Matt · « **Reply #14 on:** March 31, 2022, 02:09:19 pm »

Links were reset as a one time action to allow showing Spotlight.

marko · « **Reply #15 on:** March 31, 2022, 02:12:24 pm »

Ouch. Many users have invested a lot of time on their own links. Is there really no way to merge them? A reset might not be too well received?

lepa · « **Reply #16 on:** March 31, 2022, 02:25:06 pm »

And please at least communicate it beforehand. I don't think there was a mention about it in the release log. I for example have something like 30 custom made links

lepa · « **Reply #17 on:** March 31, 2022, 02:33:07 pm »

Links seem to be saved to the specific file: AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 29\Library\links.xml
~~So I can't see how this cannot be merged? Anyway I can do it myself at least.~~

E: or it seems that new version doesn't use that file anymore and my custom links are still saved in there

JimH · « **Reply #18 on:** March 31, 2022, 02:52:55 pm »

We pulled build 26. Sorry for the problem.

JimH · « **Reply #19 on:** March 31, 2022, 02:54:02 pm »

Can you restore from a backup?

lepa · « **Reply #20 on:** March 31, 2022, 02:57:24 pm »

Links file is still there so installing .25 restores everything. So no problems here. This is why we beta test

Hendrik · « **Reply #21 on:** March 31, 2022, 04:25:23 pm »

Couldn't we have the Spotlight entry as a fixed first entry with whatever magic it needs, and all the customizable links after? That way no reset or incompatibility would be required.

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** March 31, 2022, 04:46:52 pm »

I'd like to be able to get back and forth between the current Playing Now playlist and the new SL page with some magic gesture, like a swipe or moving the mouse far right or left to the edge of the screen. Both are important and switching between them should be more fluid than clicking on a link or icon.

Right and left arrows at the edges of the screen might work.

We could try to display both in a window with a horizontal splitter bar, but that spoils the visual richness of SL.

lepa · « **Reply #23 on:** April 01, 2022, 02:36:57 am »

Also location to trigger spotlight could be considered or the whole design between tabs and links GUI.

Spotlight is now placed as one of the links and problem with links is that they use the same space as tabs. So when you have many tabs open the links gets pushed to right and eventually there is no place to show links at all.

For links I've been thinking that it would be cool if user could also set it to be a drop-down toolbar item similar to zones for example but for of course for Spotlight you'd want it always visible. Could it be also an individual toolbar item? That wouldn't perhaps be the most cleanest or cohesive looking UI for it though. What about the space between search and zoom? Is it reserved to show something?

cncb · « **Reply #24 on:** April 01, 2022, 10:54:36 am »

Sorry about that. The next build should leave your custom links alone.

marko · « **Reply #25 on:** April 01, 2022, 01:18:40 pm »

It does, Thanks.

I am honestly, not a big fan of the hyperlinks. I already have those in my links bar. When I click the "Albums" link, it takes me to a Google search (which I also have in my links bar).

I was hoping it would be a visible section on the Spotlight page, collapsible or not.

I also don't want all those Google cookies, so I click on customise, which prompts me to login, which isn't allowed, so... easier to click my own albums link as it is right now.

-marko

JimH · « **Reply #26 on:** April 01, 2022, 02:06:26 pm »

Spotlight as a link may go away. Other links there will be replaced by parts of SL.

For now, you may have to find another way of setting any cookies.

marko · « **Reply #27 on:** April 01, 2022, 03:02:28 pm »

Couldn't jriver.com do the search, then parse the results and present selected data as part of the Spotlight page?

I know nothing of these things, but used to have an app on my phone that did a Google search on your behalf... I forget, something like Startpage, I think...

KingSparta · « **Reply #28 on:** April 01, 2022, 06:17:34 pm »

Quote from: JimH on March 23, 2022, 04:07:15 pm

Here's an idea of where we're headed. I've asked Craig to post progress reports here.

nice idea

cncb · « **Reply #29 on:** April 02, 2022, 05:48:49 am »

Quote from: marko on April 01, 2022, 03:02:28 pm

Couldn't jriver.com do the search, then parse the results and present selected data as part of the Spotlight page?

Yes, that is the plan.

marko · « **Reply #30 on:** April 02, 2022, 10:34:56 am »

Sounds good. Really looking forward to the results, especially once movies and tv shows are up and running

leezer3 · « **Reply #31 on:** April 02, 2022, 02:00:04 pm »

First couple of tiddly little bugs:
* Attempt to remove the spotlight link. This shows as removed via the dialog, but it sticks around.
* Attempt to edit the spotlight link. This appears to be successful, but actually creates a duplicate link.
* Attempt to move the spotlight link to a different place in the links list. This causes a duplicate link to appear as the first link.

Basically, I'm presuming it's hardcoded at the minute. Ideally I'd like to remove it (I know....), but as a minimum it should gracefully handle / disable editing.

JimH · « **Reply #32 on:** April 02, 2022, 02:57:11 pm »

Quote from: leezer3 on April 02, 2022, 02:00:04 pm

First couple of tiddly little bugs:
* Attempt to remove the spotlight link. This shows as removed via the dialog, but it sticks around.
* Attempt to edit the spotlight link. This appears to be successful, but actually creates a duplicate link.
* Attempt to move the spotlight link to a different place in the links list. This causes a duplicate link to appear as the first link.

Basically, I'm presuming it's hardcoded at the minute. Ideally I'd like to remove it (I know....), but as a minimum it should gracefully handle / disable editing.

Please be patient. You can use an older build for a while if it bothers you.

leezer3 · « **Reply #33 on:** April 02, 2022, 03:05:08 pm »

It's no mega big deal either way really

I'd rather however feed back this sort of thing whilst the initial implementation is underway, as otherwise it'll end up lost in the noise of a shiny new feature.
Attempting to edit / remove is just the sort of thing that could get overlooked.

stewart_pk · « **Reply #34 on:** April 02, 2022, 08:36:32 pm »

Theater View?

JoeBoxster · « **Reply #35 on:** April 03, 2022, 09:08:58 pm »

When I click on Spotlight it crashes Media Center.

mpffffhhhh · « **Reply #36 on:** April 04, 2022, 08:20:14 am »

^not more with 29.0.28 (here)

SkGe · « **Reply #37 on:** April 04, 2022, 09:23:56 am »

I have a question related to this new addition to MC. It will be customizable at the end of the process?

Guernsey · « **Reply #38 on:** April 05, 2022, 03:44:39 am »

This is a great idea but if I play an album with different artists / groups it stays on the first artist and does not update to the next artist in the album when the track changes

Even right click refresh (on the page) keeps the original artist on

It would be good if on track change it re-searched the artist / group playing now

Thanks

Steve

DangerJP · « **Reply #39 on:** April 05, 2022, 07:53:46 am »

I think it looks great so far!

User-defined links pointing inside MC library (ex.: Albums, Similar Artists, Labels) would be magical

jgreen · « **Reply #40 on:** April 05, 2022, 10:32:52 pm »

I like the idea a lot, but haven't tried it yet.

I DON'T like the idea of MC accepting cookies/Java bits on my behalf, although if it goes to the standard chrome dirs I can easily restrict/delete/cull them.

I would LOVE to see the results saveable to a dir on my machine, just like cover art, and updateable by the same sort of rules that cover art is. Scrape scrape!!

DocLotus · « **Reply #41 on:** April 06, 2022, 09:29:54 am »

LOVE IT 😍

It finally ties everything about an artist together that I've been hoping to see for a very long time.

Can't wait to see what Craig comes up with next... Welcome aboard.

DocLotus · « **Reply #42 on:** April 06, 2022, 10:38:28 am »

Notice that Spotlight seems to work only on audio files & not video.

Any chance of adding video files to the mix?

cncb · « **Reply #43 on:** April 07, 2022, 08:35:30 am »

Videos will probably come later.

Quote from: DocLotus on April 06, 2022, 09:29:54 am

Can't wait to see what Craig comes up with next... Welcome aboard.

Thanks, but I cannot take credit for Jim's idea.

wilfredjg · « **Reply #44 on:** April 07, 2022, 01:55:09 pm »

Love it

MikeO3 · « **Reply #45 on:** April 09, 2022, 06:00:02 am »

Worked once then all subsequent pages rendered are blank.
Version: 29.0.31 Registered

Edit: Just to add... I have the Spotlight set to open in a new tab.

cncb · « **Reply #46 on:** April 09, 2022, 06:42:12 am »

Make sure you use the new Spotlight button (yellow button next to links) and not the Spotlight text/web link that you may have saved with the other links.

MikeO3 · « **Reply #47 on:** April 09, 2022, 06:53:02 am »

That works. Thanks.

Is it possible to implement a mouse Back function to return to the Library when in the same tab?

JimH · « **Reply #48 on:** April 09, 2022, 01:32:05 pm »

Use the little left button just above the tabs.

pivorogan · « **Reply #49 on:** April 09, 2022, 06:16:37 pm »

please make an option to disable that Spotlight button ! i don't use those links, always disable them, but can't disable Spotlight and it annoys me.

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: NEW: Spotlight (Read 34801 times)