First lemme just say,
I know changing anything about the GUI has the result that it might upset other users, while pleasing some and therefore is something that has to be done carefully.
Also, I'm not trying to harrass you guys or say your bad or anything like that because at the end of the day, me and everyone else who come to this board come here for just one reason, we think you guys do a fantastic job and are very good at what you do and you have the best product available by a long shot. We also obviously like you all otherwise we wouldn't waste our effort trying to suggest ideas, or in the case of some of the people, spending a lot of effort making plugin's for MJ for free.
Any posts therefore, including this, are usually just us trying to be helpful and not us trying to be at all negative no matter how they come out. We're only making suggestions about MJ because we like it. If we didn't like it we wouldn't suggest ideas, we'd go use some rubbish like Real Jukebox.
I personally loved the idea of using Dreamweaver style for the MJ interface as it would have given it a lot of power. Obviously though that would have been a lot of work and maybe too big a venture for you guys to want to undertake.
A few small changes to the GUI right now would still make it a lot easier to use however.
I've made a quick mock up of how I'd LOVE MJ to be. It's VERY small details that are changed but it would make it a LOT more user friendly for me.
Here's a picture of what I mean:
http://www.fantasyfuzion.com/junk/idea.jpgp.s. - I know it shows Keith Sweat highlighted whereas in actual fact it should show 2pac highlighted.
Firstly - the quick jump menu on the left. It just gives a way to quickly get around the different options when like, as in the picture, you are half way through the media library. This can be an annoying task and really prevents just quick jumping from one spot to another. It would greatly improve the speed MJ could be used at.
Secondly, the permenant search bar, this could be used to search the currently displayed files and show the results which, as in the example would be great at times like this when I have almost 300 2pac songs. Searching through them would be hugely useful.
The check box allows the search to only search the results shown (from the tree) or to search the whole library. A check box right there is a pretty easy and fast way to allow users to toggle between modes and would again add to the useability without requiring too radical a change to the GUI. The other check box is a bit more radical an idea. By checking that, all search criteria would instantly result in all the View Schemes being updated. Basically it would make the search criteria specified become the search criteria for all the trees instantly, this would save having to make loads of view schemes simply to have different criteria in each.
Thirdly, Load search just gives an easy way to load pre-made searches in easily. It's the same as a smart playlist I think except brought to the surface more and made more intuitive. Also it loads the data straight into the search box so it can be instantly modified and played with while still keeping the original search specifications.
Forth thing is it shows the playing now window at the same time.
This allows me to easily add songs to the playing now by dragging and dropping them into it and also allows me to modify it's contents while still going around the library. Basically to implement this it would just be one extra right click option above playing now as well as slideshow, visualisations, track info there would also be: search box or something. Not too radical a change I hope.
As you can see, none of the changes are too major but they would all greatly effect the overall usability and speed of usability of MJ. You guys have done a good job at designing an amazing program and this would simply tweak what you already have, not change or replace it.
Anyway, I hope this was constructive and not negative or troublesome. I didn't waste an hour and a half of my time simply to cause you guys trouble or to be negative.
I love MJ and think your all doing a great job.
Oh yeah, and a P.S. - could we have radio stations saved in our data folder and not as cookies. Would be great to allow us to keep them between formats etc.
And a tool to export all settings and data folder to transfer them to another computer, do backup for after a format etc etc.
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Topic: Idea for v9 (Read 3373 times)