Ok - it does not really bother me that there is some debate about politeness I'm afraid. To those that have defended me - I thank you. To those _very_ quick to critisize - get a life, and look a little deeper. I have made what I consider to be a valid point...... (and one that should be answered in full by the developer, if it already has been answered - please point me to the link, as I cannot find it). "No going back" is simply not good enough.
If you can't recognize the implied attitude in the wording of this post, then there's some serious communication break downs going on here. First of all, the developers don't owe you any explanation for why they chose to do this. "Because we wanted to" is a good enough reason. They didn't force you to buy this product, and they didn't forcibly upgrade the version that you did buy. Others have already told you why the developers chose to remove the no skin option though, so I'm not going to repeat it.
Why was it taken out? MJ8 had No Skin mode and you were able to use skins if you so desired. Now with MC all of a sudden (and reading through the forums, earlier versions of MC had 'No Skin' support) it has been removed completely. Personally, software is supposed to be 1st functional and 2nd aesthetic. Basically having the nice aesthetics has removed what I consider to be raw functionality & ease of use let alone caused a significant decrease in performance, even on a relatively modern machine (Athlon XP 2.4, 1GB Ram, ATI 9700)
I fail to see how a structured skin like MC's MEGA-ME skinning engine is any less clear than a non-skinned version. The controls are all in the exact same place. If you were blind, and thus couldn't tell if a skin was installed, MC would act the same way, regardless. In this instance, aesthetics have NO impact on functionality. The Windows skin illustrates this well. It still looks like a standard windows app, but the functionality is the same.
On to playlists, I consider the playlist functionality the lifeblood of this software yet a huge amount of usability has been removed - holding the mouse pointer over the song to get an info bubble was a great way to quickly see what playlists that song belonged to But now it's gone (the bubble remains but only tells you what you can see anyway - nothing of playlists) and you have to open some resource hogging window of playlists to see what playlist the song belongs to (and the window does not appear to be configurable to display details - just the stupid 'icon' view, sucking even more resources). The question has to be asked again - why?
How does throwing words and phrases like "stupid" around help your case about not having attitude, exactly?I'm not even sure what this "stupid 'icon' view" thing is that you're talking about? To view File Playlists, just open up the Action Window, choose File Properties, then File Playlists. You can now select any song and see what playlists it is in.
Now I am faced with a catch22 that the developer has neatly created for me - get the features I have been waiting for in MC9 with reduced functionality and frustration or carry on using MJ8 that is missing what I consider to be key features (hey, why don't you put BPM, per song DB and the same visualiser monitor control in MJ8? After all, many thousands have paid for it and you claim it's now a seperate development stream.....as in still being developed. Is that still the case or is MJ8 now dead?)
How is this different from any software product, exactly?
I sincerely hope that 1) I get answers to my questions and 2) That this is taken constructively. MJ River have thus far done a fantastic job with MJ8, but in my opionion have gone slightly off track with 9.x - in the process removing solid, tried & tested functionality and alienating users.
Please someone - MJ River or otherwise, help me understand the rationales behind these decisions.
Laffer.
Nobody's forcing you to upgrade. That choice lies solely with you. JRiver creates a product. You decide if you want it. It's that simple. If you want, you can hang around in here and offer suggestions for the next version, if you wish. The developers are very open to suggestions. I'd tone down your wording a bit, though. Whether you see it or not, your wording leaves a lot to be desired. If you need some help, consider this.
"why the hell" and "this is stupid" are not considered suggestions.
"how about...", "one thing I'd like to see...", and "what would you think about..." are considered suggestions.