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[Doof]

There's another thought I've been kicking around for a while that I haven't been able to solidify enough to warrant posting, but I figure I'll do it anyway and maybe somebody can help me figure it out.

Should Playing Now be split into Audio/Video and Images? Because right now, if you have Audio and Images in the same Playing Now, the whole concept of Sequence is kind of shot. How do you do a manual change on an image without doing a manual change on a song? How about the reverse of that? What happens currently if a Playing Now list has video and images in it?

Some of these questions could be answered with a little experimentation. I just haven't sat down and played enough to find out. Anybody have any insight?

[RemyJ]

Not sure I have any insight but I was thinking along the same lines when I first started playing with V9.  The concept of how images, video, and music would co-exist in Playing Now has yet to gel for me.

[Doof]

Yeah, I mean right now it seems to just treat images in a playlist as files to include in a slideshow. Which is fine. I can't think of any other reason to have images in a playlist.

But what if I didn't want the slideshow to automatically step through the images? How do I manually change images? Or jump back to an image that just passed?

[RemyJ]

From an organizational point of view, I can see having image playlists.  Not necessarily to send to "Playing Now" but just to be able to group the same image into multiple categories, I.E.  "Sierra-Nevada Trip 1991" and "Yosemite" would have some of the same images in them.

When I brought this up just after the first preview came out, JimH indicated that he and Matt had some differing opinions on how to handle the mixed media stuff.  I was kinda waiting to see how things shook out after a few more previews.

[JimH]

Not quite.  I argued for separate controls for both.  Matt argued that the internal playback system needed to be preserved and not split into two tracks.

Remy, to put the same images in two categories, you can make two playlists.

Doof, you have quite a bit of control on playback if you want it.

When the slideshow is active, a spacebar will toggle it off and back on.  

Page up and page down go forward and back.  

The mouse wheel zooms in.  

The P key turns pan off and on when you are zoomed in.

[ and ] do something I can't remember -- I'm testing 8.0 now.

When you are in full screen, you have good control of both music and images.  The control bar on the top controls music playback.  The one on the bottom controls image playback.

Starting up image playback is trickier.  Start music first.  Then select images and hit enter.

I know you know some/most of this, but thought it might help.

I agree there is room for improvement but we're not done either.

Any ideas would be welcome.  New icons on the toolbar for next / last image might work.

[Doof]

Actually, I didn't know all that!

I thought the two control bars just did the same thing they way they do for strict audio playlists.

That should definitely be labeled somehow, because that really solves most of my questions.

Thanks for pointing that out to me.

[RemyJ]

Remy, to put the same images in two categories, you can make two playlists

Yep, that's exactly what I was pointing out.  

[JimH]

Remy, so what are you saying -- you're smarter than me?  I know that.  

[RemyJ]

Smarter, no.  I've just been home all day with nothing better to do than to troll Interact and am on my 4th 20oz bottle of Coke.  

[JimH]

Sorry about the coke.  It's happy hour in Minnesota.  

I took a look around your peakin site the other day and barely understood what was going on.  You've got a complex mind.  Seems like a nice niche.

The issue that you and Doof are talking about here is critical.  We need to get it down so it's obvious to a non-technical person.

[KingSparta]

I never liked Coke as much as Sprite\7-Up, I Am A Lemon\Lime Kind Of Guy.

When We went out for lunch today i got free water, with a Lemon in it. So i crush the lemon, put some sweetner in it and Presto Lemonade.

better than paying for it.

[nila]

Hiya,
Just a thought for v9.
Things like this are the type of things that are going to confuse new users when they first get media jukebox.
Finding images in with their music collection might as well too. I remember when I first got v9, I hadn't read the new feature list properly and did an import of my music directory. I then was trying to play some songs and started getting fried when it wouldn't work.
After checking my sound was working on my system I then had a look at the file again.
At this point I realised it wasn't actually the song I was trying to play but it was instead the cover art for the song. I felt a bit stupid but it's a mistake a lot of people might make when they first get MJ.
I definitely think the import wizard should be modified slightly so that it has a really simple screen that says: Type of files to import: Audio, Video, Image (with a checkbox next to each for the user to select it) and then have an 'advanced tab that lets the user select specific file formats.
This would then instantly at the first encounter of MJ make the user aware that MJ could and would deal with image files as well. Alot of non power computer users wont have any idea what a .bmp is and so that file extension being checked wont tell them that MJ is going to deal with images.

Also, the very first time the user tries to play an image file, a pop up alert box should open and explain the basics of what 'playing' an image means and alert the user to the fact that it is an image they are trying to play.
It would save a lot of users from getting confused which of course means more retained first time users for you guys which means more cash for you which means your happy which means I'm happy Then with a checkbox (internet explorer type style) saying: Dont show this message again so the user can just cancel the message or can stop it ever showing again. For users who want to be alerted that they've accidentally tried to listen to music this might be very useful.
The same could be done for View Schemes - the very first time that one is created, a little alert box could be shown that said: Entering search criteria can restrict this view scheme to only show certain information.

Little tips lilke that will help the MJ learning curve grown tremendously and make users aware of features that they might not otherwise notice at first and so would turn beginners into intermediate level users a lot faster. More intermediate level users again means more people who are hooked on the MJ drug

Internet Explorer did it with the text boxes memories, password memories, leaving secure zone etc. All of which ask the user if they want this feature to be turned on. It helped the users realise that this feature was there and helped them to customise how IE worked without them ever having to realise it.

Tips of the day might also be very useful. Just like make a big list of questions or stuff that people ask on here a lot and turn them into tips of the day.

[dac4m]

I think playing now would be awesome if you could customize the view like in outlook...
For me when I listen to tunes, I like:
Visulzation main part of screen
Song list view underneath (same as  in media library view)
To the left: Album art

I think it would pretty cool if you could shuffle around where you had these in playing now, as well as Images?  TV (with/without sound while listening to music)

the options are limitless