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Author Topic: MC launches Excel  (Read 248 times)

bogdanbz

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MC launches Excel
« on: October 25, 2024, 02:18:50 pm »

Hi, I am experiencing the issue described in this thread since build 27, and I just checked and it's still present in build 37.

MC starts playing by itself or launches in the associated external application the next file in the folder after the one whose playback just finished.

For instance, if I have two files in a folder
- 01.mkv
- 02.xls

and I browse to this folder in the Explorer tab of Theater View and launch 01.mkv, then MC launches 02.xls in Excel when 01.mkv finishes playing !

The MC main window stays on top, but if you exit the full screen mode you can see the file open in Excel in the background.

MC would return to the file browser in Theater View upon the end of the 01.mkv file playback and would not attempt to open in its associated application whatever file is next in the folder after the file that just finished playing until build 27 of MC 33 (and that's how it has been since version 28 when I started using MC).
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Matt

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Re: MC launches Excel
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2024, 02:31:45 pm »

It was changed so all the files are included in more cases in Theater View. If you navigate into a single file and play it will only play one.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

bogdanbz

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Re: MC launches Excel
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2024, 05:47:32 pm »

Having to navigate into a file to play just that file is a worse user experience than before though, when MC is primarily used to play video files.

I can see how playing a file and everything else in the folder might be desirable when playing music, but not when playing video files.

It would be better to have a means to pick how playback works:
- either a setting in MC which can be used to pick between the "single file playback" and "play this file and all the rest in the folder" when pressing Ctrl+P or the Play/Pause media key
- or to have different "start playback" commands available: one that can be used to play just a file, and another one that can be used to play the file and all the rest in the folder; Theater View already had and still has the "Play all" command so this would be something similar

But I still think the current behavior of automatically launching whatever follows a media file in the folder is a bad idea. I gave as an example MC launching Excel because an Excel file follows a mkv file.... but I discovered this behavior with an executable file that followed a media file - MC launched the application represented by that exe file. This can lead to some unexpected bad things hapenning.
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zybex

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Re: MC launches Excel
« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2024, 06:22:26 am »

This is really bad behavior, especially regarding EXEs. What if the user plays something from the Downloads folder which may be full of installers, scripts and whatnot? The whatnots are actually the main problem.

MC should only auto-play extensions that are associated with MC, nothing else. At most only extensions supported by MC itself, like listed in the Settings->FileTypes. It makes no sense for MC to start any random app.
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