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[Matt]

There's an experimental file browsing system in the latest build of Media Center 11.

The build is available here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=23607

Make sure you're using the Thunderstorm skin.

If you hold down the 'Shift' button while starting Media Center, a new item called 'Library Browser' will appear in the tree under Media Library.  Select this item to see the new view.

Once in the view, you can browse Genres, Artists, Albums, or Files.

For example, if you pick a genre, you can immediately use it by pressing play, right-click, etc.  You can also press the "Show Files" button to see the tracks.  You can also manually switch to a different tab to see the artists or albums for that genre.

Use the "Clear Selection" button to reset to no selection.  Use the "View" button to change the view and sorting.

Keep in mind that this is just a mockup -- it'll be slow and may crash, but it shows the idea.

Thanks for any feedback, and enjoy.

[Matt]

Screenshot:

[JimH]

I had trouble with this.  I forgot to use the Thunderstorm skin, but then I also discovered that you need to keep the shift key depressed for several seconds until the program has opened.

It's pretty cool.

[Rands]

I doubt I'd ever use it personally but I can see where a LOT of users will eat this up.

Looks like more great work, guys.

[KingSparta]

Looks Good

I did notice that if i had a broken image link\path that the MC default no cover art would be shown even if the next media file had a good image file.


Listening to: 'Spanish Guitar Solo' from 'Ripcast 1.9' by 'Acoustic Alchemy' on Media Center 11

[TimB]

Painfully slow when used with Media Server and 802.11b.

I know, don't use it that way.

-=Tim=-

[Dragyn]

I think it looks cool but I say that with anything concerning MC.

 

[LonWar]

I like... It looks really cool...


2 things.

I keep all my images inside file, Looks like it can not use those images as I just get the default art.

When you select the artist tab, it gives you the option to see files and to play now, It should also have the option to show albums....

[Matt]

When you select the artist tab, it gives you the option to see files and to play now, It should also have the option to show albums....

This needs to be made more clear in the UI.

Simply select an artist, and then pick the 'Album' tab.  Only that artist's albums will show up.

To clear your selection and see all albums again, press the "Clear Selection" button.

[Matt]

Here's one possible solution to the previous problem:

Once an item like "Rock" is selected, the tabs on the top will say "Rock Artists" "Rock Albums" "Rock Files".  If multiple things are selected (which only an advanced person would do anyway) it could say "Selected Artists", "Selected Albums", etc.

The "Clear Selection" (or maybe "Show All") button should also be more prominent.

Anyone else have a possible solution?

[IlPadrino]

Here's one possible solution to the previous problem:

Once an item like "Rock" is selected, the tabs on the top will say "Rock Artists" "Rock Albums" "Rock Files".  If multiple things are selected (which only an advanced person would do anyway) it could say "Selected Artists", "Selected Albums", etc.

The "Clear Selection" (or maybe "Show All") button should also be more prominent.

Anyone else have a possible solution?

Your solution might be problematic when more than one genre (or album, etc.) is selected and you run out of room.  The asterisk was enough to let me know something was going on - perhaps something as simple as the word "filtered" might be better.

I don't see the need for the "show files" when I can just click on the files tab - unless I want to save a click.  Similarly, the "play" doesn't seem to work when I have more than one item selected - so I guess it's meant for a quick click to get an action.  If that's the intent, then I guess I see the wisdom.  But maybe it'd be better to just have a "play" button on the top after the last tab.  Indeed, the tabs seem to be arrows, leading me towards refining my selection.  A natural extension of that is to have the play at the end of the refinement - assuming that I'm only refining just to play in the end.

Overall, I like it.  Will the presentation be skinable?

[IlPadrino]

Oh...  and the tabs need to be changeable - especially for different media types.

[TimB]

Painfully slow when used with Media Server and 802.11b.

I know, don't use it that way.

-=Tim=-

Still very slow even when run with a local database.  I understand there's a lot going on but any way to speed this up?

-=Tim=-

[Doof]

Here's one possible solution to the previous problem:

Once an item like "Rock" is selected, the tabs on the top will say "Rock Artists" "Rock Albums" "Rock Files".  If multiple things are selected (which only an advanced person would do anyway) it could say "Selected Artists", "Selected Albums", etc.

The "Clear Selection" (or maybe "Show All") button should also be more prominent.

Anyone else have a possible solution?

Your solution might be problematic when more than one genre (or album, etc.) is selected and you run out of room.  The asterisk was enough to let me know something was going on - perhaps something as simple as the word "filtered" might be better.

That's why he said that it could say "Selected Artists", "Selected Albums" etc.

[IlPadrino]

That's why he said that it could say "Selected Artists", "Selected Albums" etc.

Sorry...  I can't concentrate well with all this bubble popping!

[pipsqueak]

i like it! its very similar to the way i use theatre view...

suggestions:

add customizable tabs (for example i use a seperate sub-genre field to help filter my choices)

what about an average number of plays (ie. total plays / number of tracks), as the fact that i have 3000 rock plays versus 300 reggae plays is irrelevant as i have greater than 10 times as much rock music as reggae

err...thats about it really

[crowfan]

See, now this is why I love MC and this board. Weeks of daily builds, and then WHAM....awesome development!!

I really like this idea and I can't wait to see how it develops.

One thing that would be great is, once you have the Artist tab selected, if you could start typing the artist name to jump to that point in the list (i.e., start typing "Led" to jump down to Led Zeppelin instead of having to scroll.

LOVING THIS!!!

crow

[crowfan]

Another quick idea....

Someone above mentioned customizable tabs. What would be great is if we could move to the next tab by double-clicking the tile. I know that double clicking plays the tile -- maybe place a play button on each tile, to play that tile's contents.  I think double clicking to drill down would make navigation much easier and quicker.

[bennyd]

add customizable tabs (for example i use a seperate sub-genre field to help filter my choices)

just what I thought

[bennyd]

What if I want to first select an artist and then the genres for that artist ?

If this eventually will be implemented, does this mean then that the pane browsing will dissapear ? (that would be a pitty)

[zeltak]

i really like the new nav idea   great work once again J.river!

zeltak

[Berto]

I keep all my images inside file, Looks like it can not use those images as I just get the default art.

I also keep images inside the files, but only see  the default MC-art in the library browser.  

[Michel Lefebvre]

I keep all my images inside file, Looks like it can not use those images as I just get the default art.

I also keep images inside the files, but only see  the default MC-art in the library browser.  

Same here.

M.

[lalittle]

I keep all my images inside file, Looks like it can not use those images as I just get the default art.

I also keep images inside the files, but only see  the default MC-art in the library browser.  

Likewise.  I want the cover art to always be included within the files so I don't have to think about keeping track of seperate cover art files.

Larry

[Berto]

I keep all my images inside file, Looks like it can not use those images as I just get the default art.

I also keep images inside the files, but only see  the default MC-art in the library browser.  

Likewise.  I want the cover art to always be included within the files so I don't have to think about keeping track of seperate cover art files.

Larry

Jim or Matt, can you give a comment on this?

[Matt]

If we move ahead with this idea, we'll certainly make it support internal cover art.

[Berto]

If we move ahead with this idea, we'll certainly make it support internal cover art.

I'm looking forward to it, Matt.
For the time being I keep on using the plug-in Album View 2.0 (and 3.0 coming up).
 

[Jaguu]

Truth to tell, I don't find this the most important feature needed. I feel the pane interface is an excellent way to select and play media.

Personally I feel there are more important things to implement right now such as language localization, a proper way to manage multiple, media type dependent tile views and generally some proper finishing of the product.

[Doof]

I like the tiles, although it would be nice to see how many files there are... like next to the "Show Files" option or something, just list how many files there are.

I'm not sure about the browsing itself, though. It's more clicks to do the same things than in Pane View. Also, what will come of tagging mode?

I just can't imagine a need to have both Pane View and this in the app, so it seems to be an either-or type of scenario. In that case, I'd vote for Pane View, unless some way of including tagging mode was included. Even then, the added clicks is kind of a disadvantage here.
 
But I would like to see those tiles make it to MC's Tile View...

[JustinChase]

Truth to tell, I don't find this the most important feature needed. I feel the pane interface is an excellent way to select and play media.

Personally I feel there are more important things to implement right now such as language localization, a proper way to manage multiple, media type dependent tile views and generally some proper finishing of the product.

Remember, this is the new version 11 we're talking about.  I agree that many other things need to be addressed to round out the functionality of Media Center.  But, I also think they need to keep innovating new and interresting ideas in order to keep selling their product.  I don't think this will take too much development time, and it seems to have been well received.

Just to reiterate, there are MANY things that could be improved to sort of 'properly finish' MC, but without new things, no one outside of the hardcore users will notice, and therefore buy the upgrade.

[Doof]

Groupings would need to be included as well...

[Polonio]

I am not sure if I like this view. I've to use it and test it... However, I think is a good thing you keep investigating new browsing systems...

I like the way this view groups songs... I think viewing the library by artist, album or genres groups is a natural way to look a collection...

I would like to see a better integration between these proto-view and the clasic pane view... And I think it is possible... This proto-view is simmilar to the "Album Thumnails" view, Why not a detailed genre view? Why not a detailed album view? Why not a detailed artist view? Why not a detailed view of any field? Those views could show number of songs, total duration, average rating, total size, ...

I propose to switch between differents groups criterias (or no grouping)... And to switch between a thumbnail view and a detailed view...

Once in a particular grouped view, you could drill into a diferent field (may be, using the right click...)....

Probably my exposition is not much clear, but all I wished to do is to congratulate  you for thinking on  diferrent ways to browse the library...

By the way, a filmstrim view to browse images would be welcomed...

[Sam]

I gave up on album thumbnail tagging a long time ago.  I rate songs and create playlists from songs, and playing full albums is the exception.  If part of the idea is to use the new relational database to tag thumbnails to individual artists, I'd be pretty happy with that.  I'd like seeing a mugshot of Billy Joel tied to a list of his songs that I've rated as worth listening to.

For me, tiles would slow down my file browsing.  Searching an alphabetical list in two columns takes too much thought.  I wouldn't mind doubling the height of the rows in the existing panes or file tables to include thumbnails or to add an extra row of info.

I think the larger font size for certain information is great.

I like the buttons to choose genre/artist/album...  I'd love a convenient alternative to the space-wasting trees on the left.