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[boliver]

I have been a longtime user of Media Jukebox and would like to upgrade to Media Center (since it doesn't look like any improvements will be made to Media Jukebox...)

But I can't get Media Center to work the way I like (the way I LOVED it in Media Jukebox)

What I like to do is:  Search for a particular song title and THEN pick the View by Artist/Album which brings up the entire album list of the artist.  In this way I can quickly start playing all of the music on the album.  I can't figure out how to do anything like this on MC!  Once you have a list of songs matching your search criteria, all you can do is play that song - you can't automatically get to the entire album contents.  You need to separately by hand pick the album from the far left side.  Help!  This is crazy.  Am I using the program correctly?

[JimH]

Right click on track name / Locate / Album.

[boliver]

I would love to - where do I right click - all I see when I right click on the name is:
Play
Add to Playing Now
Send to
Edit Selected Item
Delete Reset Selection
Columns

I am using MC 10

[JimH]

In the content window on the right.

[boliver]

I am using the Standard View with the Thunderstorm Skin in Audio mode - I have the Artist/Album list on the far left, three columns on the top (Artist, Album Name) and then the Album Cover on the bottom.

There is no separate "Content" window.

I have been trying to right click on the Name in the right most column.

[JimH]

Didn't you say you did a search first?  You should then see a list of tracks that match.

I suggest clicking around and trying things.

Set the mode back to the default global rather than audio for test purposes.

[boliver]

How do you get from this "content" window into the track info view (as per the Media Jukebox interface)? In MJ, it automatically put you in a new mode when the music started.

Also, what happened to the "Back" and "Forward" buttons?  They were great for just going backward to an earlier window when the interface got you confused.

[JimH]

Right click on the menu bar (top) and choose customize.  You can add back and forward arrows there.  You can add them to the top or to the bottom.

[TAFKAFEX]

'Back' and 'forward' are maybe some of the most used buttons (if they are available).

Why is it necessary to add them using 'customize'?

Integrate them by default!

[boliver]

All I want to do is:

1.  Search for a song title.
2.  Open the album (so that I can see all of the songs on that album -- so that I can start playing the song within the album and the rest of the album will play afterwards) AND
3.  See the other albums by the same artist

The above took ONE click after the search in Media Jukebox.  I can't even figure out HOW to do it in Media Center.

Can you explain how to best do the above?

[Omni]

First, though it is not that important to the discussion at hand, it sounds like you are in "Thumbnail" mode.  So for demonstration purposes, try the following:

1.)  Launch MC;
2.)  In the upper right corner, make sure either the world icon (All Media) or musical note (Audio) icon is highlighted/selected;
3.)  In the tree pane, select "Media Library";
4.)  [OPTIONAL] Go to the View --> View Settings --> List Style menu and select "Automatic" or "Details";
5.)  In the search bar (again, upper right corner), start typing in all or part the name of the track you are looking for (MC will begin filtering the track list as you type);
6.)  When enough filtering has been done and you spot your track down in the list pane, right-click on the track and highlight Locate.  Once highlighted, a submenu will appear where you can choose what you want to locate (based on the selected track).  In your case, you would select Artist.

At this point, you will have a list of all tracks by that Artist, and you can sort this list any way you want.  Again, in your case, you will sort by Album.  (If Album isn't one of the columns being shown, then right-click on one of the column headers and choose Customize Current View... to add it.)

The above "sorting" business is not really necessary, mind you, since your current view will also have an "Album" pane which lists all the albums.

[boliver]

Thanks.  I tried everything you suggested but it still isn't as streamlined as Media Jukebox for playing MUSIC:

In MJ, I could search on a song and MJ would bring a up a list of all of the songs with that name and show the album and artist.  With one click you could LOCATE by Artist/Album and voila, you had the album contents on the right(only this paticular album) with the original song HIGHLIGHTED and the list of albums and artist on the left.  This was incredibly great.  Can't MC be made to at least offer this kind of user friendliness with some sort of options?

[paulr]

It's still pretty simple.  Especially since MC puts the most recently used command at the top of the right click menu (MC11 lets you put more than one MRU command on the right click menu).

One thing I found that doesn't make a lot of sense is this:
1.  search for a word in a song
2.  right click -> Locate -> Artist on one of the songs (view is further filtered)
3.  Hit back button.. and the search is lost

There's currently no way that I know of to go back to the original search if you didn't want the artist of the track you right clicked on.

[JimH]

In MJ, I could search on a song and MJ would bring a up a list of all of the songs with that name and show the album and artist.  

MC does the same.

[Omni]

Thanks.  I tried everything you suggested but it still isn't as streamlined as Media Jukebox for playing MUSIC:

With all due respect, I think you are being just a tad stubborn in your resistance to change.

Seriously, it is no less stream-lined in MC than it is in MJ.  In my above instructions, steps 1- 4 don't count because they are a one-time-only thing.  So basically you are left with steps 5 and 6 which is type in the song you want (step 5) and one click later you get all the albums by that artist (step 6).  Exactly how is that different than from what you are describing?  Hmmmmm?

[boliver]

The difference is that at the end of the of MJ sequence you get the original song highlighted in a list of songs only from that album.  Presumably you wanted to play that song since you had searched for it.  In the MC case, you get a long (sometimes very long list) of songs with the original song probably hidden down in the scrolled area - ABSOLUTELY not what you want.

I can't speak for others but this interface doesn't work for me.  I really want to use it though since all of the new technology seems toonly go into this product.

[Omni]

Okay, well, now I just think you are splitting hairs, but hey, to each their own, right?  

[boliver]

Actaully, after all of this, I found a way to do exactly what I want: Under the LOCATE menu item is the option "On Disk (Inside Media Center)"...

Thanks for trying to help though.

Bill

[boliver]

Oops - no this doesn't work afterall - I had my files in directories that made me think I was accessing the database - I was actually going to the actual file display - not the best because not all of my files are in this directory structure and this is also slower.

My mistake.

[Robert Taylor]

Sounds like maybe you should just stick with Media Jukebox...

 

[boliver]

Yeah, yeah.

I think I must because searching for songs and then perusing the list of albums by the same artist is something I do constantly and I just love the simplicity and "rightness" of MJ.

I really wanted to use it for all of my music needs though - ripping, making CD's etc.  and I worry that J River is not fixing any problems in MJ anymore, i.e. all of the improvements to ripping speed and accuracy are going into MC and not being ported back to MJ (even though their marketing literature kind of implies that.)