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[Quixote]

9. NEW: Three different image columns are available, and can be placed anywhere in a list and made any size. (old-style icon, alexicon, large album thumbnails)

SWEET!

[coolblue]

The way large icons are only reproduced once per album is an awesome feature. Best yet!

[bennyd]

9. NEW: Three different image columns are available, and can be placed anywhere in a list and made any size. (old-style icon, alexicon, large album thumbnails)

WOW !!!

[jgreen]

I'd have to say the alexicon/icon/image thing is a definite home run, as well as a stunning display of both columnizing and optionating. 

[lalittle]

Excellent addition -- you guys came up with some really nice ideas on this.  I like the "large album thumbnails" idea quite a bit, which I can use next to the standard old-style icon to get the "best of both worlds."

One question:  is there any way to lock down the size of the "Large Album thumbnails" column?  I noticed that when I manually change the column width, the art resizes automatically, allowing me to make the column a tad smaller.  When I change views, however, the column resizes to it's default size, which feels to me like it takes up just a little too much real estate.  I definitely want the "text" columns to resize depending on their content, but it would be nice if I could define and lock the size of the Album Art column to a slightly narrower width.  The exact size would most likely depon the resolution being used.

Thanks,

Larry

[jgreen]

Unfortunately, this isn't going to replace the "image" field until it is made sortable.  I can't seem to get the alexicon comun to sort with any order, either file location or is/isn't.

[AoXoMoXoA]

OK I am tired. it's been a long day.

What does this mean? What area of MC is this regarding?   ?

[Alex B]

Thanks

This works exactly like I imagined. The yellow color for unimported video and image files is an excellent choice.

I'll comment the large icon column later after playing with it more. It looks promising.

A couple of small things would make this perfect:

- Since all other unimported media types have now yellow icons could you add yellow icons to unimported documents too?

- As jgreen commented, the "Image (small thumbnail)" column could be sortable by clicking the column header area. It would sort according to the status: image link lost (X symbol), image available, no image. This would make possible to find the files that have lost the image links.

It would sort the column like this:

[Alex B]

OK I am tired. it's been a long day.

What does this mean? What area of MC is this regarding?   ?

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=35468.0

[lOth]

small icon + large thumbnail = exactly what I had been waiting for (without even knowing it).

thanks!

[glynor]

* glynor does the dance of joy!

[joshhuggins]

Wow that's pretty much exactly what I was looking for there guys. Actually it's better and smarter too. Can I give ya'll a big hug? Big thanks!
(edit)

You, You! Hey, hey! You!

[park]

I like the big thumbnail/small icon combination too. Probably wont use the small thumbnails anymore.

One thing that would be absolutly great would be if the large icons had little hover over "play" and "Tag" links, like the tiles. This would allow us the ability to quickly scroll through the list visually (like with album thumbnails view), and be able to play an entire album and/or just an individual song without having to constantly change between "Album thumbnails" and "Details". The best of both worlds.

Of course, the ultimate solution would be to add a "Details" link to each of the "Album thumbnails" when in "Album thumbnails" view mode, which would expand all the other columns next to the thumbnail,  essentially negating the need for "Details"in the viewheader menu altogether, and completely solving the long standing problem of wanting to be able to search through thumbnails for an album and then quickly choosing just one song within that thumbnail.



And to get back to just the album thumbnails mode, the view header could just have a "Return to album thumbnails" or "Collapse details" link similar to the "Reset" link that we see in panes view.



You could argue that this is all already possible using the menu in the viewheader to switch between details and album thumbnails, but the value of having the "Details" link on each thumbnail would be that you would automatically be scrolled to the selected thumbnail which doesnt happen currently, plus it's "in your face" placement would make the program easier to use from the beginning. It would be so intuitive, you wouldnt even need to tell people about the "different Views".

[rjm]

This is a home run for music!

Large icons are a little rough around the edges for video, images, and documents.

For documents, could you size the default large icons for pdfs, docs, txt, etc. to something like 200x200 so they look good with music artwork in an "all" view?

For videos and images, where thumbs are auto-generated, the  large icons are too small. Thumbs created via manual screen capture look great.

Excellent work guys.

[rjm]

Sorry its late...

Please ignore this comment.

For documents, could you size the default large icons for pdfs, docs, txt, etc. to something like 200x200 so they look good with music artwork in an "all" view?

What I am trying to say is that an "all media" view of a mix of music, images, and docments associated with an album does not look good to me with large icons.

Thanks, Rob

[raym]

Large thumbnails and small icons are cool to use together. It would be nice though if the large icons could scale to a uniform size.

Thanks.

[lalittle]

Large thumbnails and small icons are cool to use together. It would be nice though if the large icons could scale to a uniform size.

Thanks.

The reason they aren't the same size is because they have to fit next to the tracks from a single album.  If an album has fewer songs, it uses fewer lines, which in turn means that there is less space for the art.  The art, therefore, has to be scaled.

The one thing that I'd really like, however, would be to be able to control the size of the column a bit.  I'm not sure exactly what size I'd use, but it would be nice to be able to set the size for the column and have it stay that way even when using the "auto size columns" feature.

Larry

[park]

I agree. The thumbnail slider springs to mind as a good control. Why not make all the thumbnails a standard width and use the thumbnail slider to size them all equally. Then all of the other columns could still honour the settings for "auto size" or whatever.

I even think that a little gap between each album might even be desirable. It would look clean, and give albuims without many songs a bit more space for the thumbnail.

[Alex B]

- Since all other unimported media types have now yellow icons could you add yellow icons to unimported documents too?

This seems to be only an icon file issue. The function is already working.

I created a custom SmallIcons.png file. It makes the unimported document files show yellow color. In addition, I adjusted the color of the blue and yellow notes a bit. I uploaded the file here if anyone wants to try it:


SmallIcons.png

I noticed that the Data\Custom Art\ folder system may be partially broken. My custom NoTile.png image works as before, but I cannot make the SmallIcons.png file work from the Custom Art folder. I had to replace the original file in the Data\Default Art\ folder.

[lalittle]

This works exactly like I imagined. The yellow color for unimported video and image files is an excellent choice.

I agree -- only I call it "gold." The pattern of using "gold" icons for unimported files works really well as a standard.

- Since all other unimported media types have now yellow icons could you add yellow icons to unimported documents too?

Exactly what I was thinking.  "Imported" file icons can be any color OTHER than gold if gold is consistently used for "Unimported" files.  In other words; blue notes, black film reels, white documents, etc. -- all are easily distinguishable from the gold color, and can therefore instantly show what files have been imported and which have not.

The icon system is looking REALLY nice.

Larry

[gappie]

that is a nice extra option. i like it a lot. nice also how the large thumbs resize with albums that only have 1 or a few songs.

[Alex B]

I agree -- only I call it "gold." The pattern of using "gold" icons for unimported files works really well as a standard.

Actually, the yellow note icon is a bit more golden in my custom icon file. It is closer to the color of the other "unimported file" icons.

[enervation]

Brilliant!!  Two more things to make this perfect:
1) For albums with a small number of tracks, so that the album art has to be scaled down, add the option to simply make the row take up more space vertically, or leave a gap, so that all album art is the same size.

2) Add a small horizontal dividing line between each album.

[Doof]

large thumbnail + small icon = teh win!

[AoXoMoXoA]

Wonderful! 

Now that I get-it I love it.
Sorry to seem so numb, but sometimes when new items are listed in new builds thread they are hard to interpret as they can be out-of-context unless you have kept up with the relevant posted discussions  (especially after not being involved in the Beta process to be fully aware of the flow).

[joshhuggins]

Brilliant!!  Two more things to make this perfect:
1) For albums with a small number of tracks, so that the album art has to be scaled down, add the option to simply make the row take up more space vertically, or leave a gap, so that all album art is the same size.

2) Add a small horizontal dividing line between each album.

I do like this option, of being able to specify a minimum row height so the images can always be a min. size. That might even give way to allow columns to support multi lines of text for fields like lyrics maybe. Don't know how the row / columns are designed. Either way, it's still hecka cool.

[jgreen]

I think the discourse re/large icon configuration shines an interesting light on jriver's original idea of the "alexicon" (tiny album art).  I prefer the alexicon, for the very reason why others love the large art, but wish it could be shaped differently.  Tiny icons offer both a narrow column width and perfect alignment with the tracks, now matter how many or few. 

I use both standard icons on the left border, and tiny album art (alexicons) in front of the album column, which is more or less the right border.  A splash of interesting color, perfect symmetry with the tracks--perfection!

[JimH]

Alex,
Will you permit us to call them alexicons?  I'm afraid I started it and I'm hoping it doesn't irritate you.

If you object, I'll set the forum software to replace alexicon with jgreenicon or just johnicon.

Jim

[jgreen]

Apple has the same function on their itunes site.  They've set it to change "You guys are idiots" to "Wow, what great software!"

IMO, "Johnnycon".

[Alex B]

Alex,
Will you permit us to call them alexicons?  I'm afraid I started it and I'm hoping it doesn't irritate you.

No objections. It is a different word anyway. Or perhaps you should change my user name to match it.  

[JimH]

Thanks.

[glynor]

One thing that would really make this new icon system even better for me, would be if there was a separate icon color (grey, purple, or orange maybe?) for Removable items.

I have a lot of TV shows and movies imported into my database that I've burned off onto Disc.  I like them to be there so I can get a "complete" view of my media.  However, sometimes you don't feel like getting up off the couch and you forget what's on the drives and what's on disc.  The visual cue would be nice.

I've built special view schemes for many of my items which filter out the removable stuff, but a simple color would be swell.  Since we have the icons after all...   

[jgreen]

I agree with this.  Using my laptop, I'm attempting to spread my main audio library across two internal drives and one usb, along with USB backups.  So when my USB drive is disconnected  I'm dealing with missing tracks from that (removable ) drive, plus tracks that are actually missing, either deleted off the drive, or referencing some far off place.  I'd like to get this all ordered, while at the same time getting more colorful tiny icons to look at. 

[park]

Can anybody think of a way that would allow you to see the details view (large thumbnails plus columns) as an "Albums" view, like album thumbnails view, where you can apply different sorting presets, but the files are always grouped by album first.

I know that when seeing the detailed list you might often want to see the files to be individually sorted, but it's equally true that this could be a really powerful way to view albums holistically and in track order too. And the ability to see whole albums in "Last played", "Date" etc. order would be really good. The problem is in how to easily distinguish between whether you are in "Albums" view mode, or "Songs" view mode.

Also, does anyone agree with my above suggestion of having the list scroll to the selected thumbnail automatically whenever you change from album thumbnails to details view?

[lalittle]

I like the idea of a VERY small space, or perhaps a line, in between albums in the track list.  It would just need to be big enough to notice without taking up too much extra space, but I think it would look better this way.

I also like the idea of a "minimum" size for album art.  Albums with a single track on them look rather silly with such a tiny "large" thumbnail next to them.  I guess I'd rather have a little more room in between albums if it meant increasing the album art a bit on these albums.

I'm getting used to the size of the large thumbnails, but it would still be nice to play with this.

Thanks,

Larry

[dcwebman]

I just imported some new songs that don't have cover art yet. Why is the Image (small thumbnail) column showing the same thing as the Image (small icon) column? I would think the small thumbnail would be blank just like the Image (large thumbnail) is since there is no cover art.

[jgreen]

Good point, DC.  I think that's just a holdover from the small album art's (johnnycon) former role.  However, as a user of the small album art (johnnycon) option, my vote would be to keep it this way, now that I think about it.  But I don't think either way would be the end of the world.

[pank2002]

Wuhuu this is a much awaited feature! I love it! Thumbs up for JRiver.

I like the idea of a VERY small space, or perhaps a line, in between albums in the track list.  It would just need to be big enough to notice without taking up too much extra space, but I think it would look better this way.

That was exacly what I though too! Just a thin, black line after the last entry in the album.

As it is now, the album art start at the first track. It would be nice if was right in the middle. Thus, the distance from the first track to the top of the album art would equal the distance from the last track to the button of the album art.

Cheers,
Rasmus

[park]

Yeah, lets have this as another kind of album view. Auto grouped into album and in track order. It's already looking pretty similar to the album list view of itunes7. Just needs to be "albumified".
Itunes really sucks in practical usage. It's album view is just a pure list. No panes or tiles to filter and narrow down the list.
MC is years ahead in interface.

No-one fedback on my mockup of the "Details" link and "tile like features" of the thumbnail at the top of the thread. Shame. I thought that they were such good ideas.

[Alex B]

I like the big thumbnail/small icon combination too. Probably wont use the small thumbnails anymore.

One thing that would be absolutly great would be if the large icons had little hover over "play" and "Tag" links, like the tiles. This would allow us the ability to quickly scroll through the list visually (like with album thumbnails view), and be able to play an entire album and/or just an individual song without having to constantly change between "Album thumbnails" and "Details". The best of both worlds.

Of course, the ultimate solution would be to add a "Details" link to each of the "Album thumbnails" when in "Album thumbnails" view mode, which would expand all the other columns next to the thumbnail,  essentially negating the need for "Details"in the viewheader menu altogether, and completely solving the long standing problem of wanting to be able to search through thumbnails for an album and then quickly choosing just one song within that thumbnail.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/1008/albumthumbnailswithdetaixg2.jpg


And to get back to just the album thumbnails mode, the view header could just have a "Return to album thumbnails" or "Collapse details" link similar to the "Reset" link that we see in panes view.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/2739/detailsviewwithplayontjm2.jpg


You could argue that this is all already possible using the menu in the viewheader to switch between details and album thumbnails, but the value of having the "Details" link on each thumbnail would be that you would automatically be scrolled to the selected thumbnail which doesnt happen currently, plus it's "in your face" placement would make the program easier to use from the beginning. It would be so intuitive, you wouldnt even need to tell people about the "different Views".

Isn't the thumbnails on top and file list on bottom option enough for this? I have used it extensively since it was introduced.

Partly because of that I wasn't too excited about the small album cover icons in the details view. I clicked an album thumbnail and the bottom details view showed an useless icon of the same album art in front of each track.

Some of my MC11.1 sreenshots:

(Keep in mind that these are in 100% size. I have reduced MC's window size to fit the maximum allowed forum image size, 800x600. In reality I can show a lot more similarly sized album thumbnails on top.)








Edit: perhaps the quote is better with linked images... (Jim?). I considered removing the images, but I though that keeping them in the quote would make scrolling to the original post for seeing the images unnecessary. In any case they would already be in the browser cache. 

[Alex B]

From the 12.0.98 thread:

I imported some new songs that don't have cover art yet. The "Image (small thumbnail)" column showed the same thing as the "Image (small icon)" column. The small thumbnail should be blank just like the "Image (large thumbnail)" is since there is no cover art.

I would like to be able to search files that have a value in the "Image File" field and no cover art icon in the "Image (small thumbnail)" column.

This would make possible to easily find the files that have lost the linked cover art files (e.g. if some of the image files were moved, deleted or corrupted before the thumbnails were created).

Another way to do that would be to allow sorting in the "Image (small thumbnail)" column, as requested earlier in this thread.

[jgreen]

Alex, if I understand you, NOT having the "missing track" art in the johnnycon (AKA Alexicon) column would would allow column sorting to order by "is/isn't"?  If so, let's get rid of those little red+yellow X's!

[lalittle]

As it is now, the album art start at the first track. It would be nice if was right in the middle. Thus, the distance from the first track to the top of the album art would equal the distance from the last track to the button of the album art.

I think it might work better the way it is now, where the art starts right where the first track starts.  If the art were in the middle of the section of tracks, I don't think it would be as obvious where the new album started.  Also, as you scroll "down" a list of tracks (which is the more "popular" direction of scrolling) it makes sense to see the art the moment you see the tracks from an album rather than having to continue scrolling a bit before the album art was displayed.

Larry

[darichman]

Another way to do that would be to allow sorting in the "Image (small thumbnail)" column, as requested earlier in this thread.

That sounds reasonable!

[Alex B]

Alex, if I understand you, NOT having the "missing track" art in the johnnycon (AKA Alexicon) column would would allow column sorting to order by "is/isn't"?  If so, let's get rid of those little red+yellow X's!

Hmm... not quite. JRiver would need to change the column to be sortable. It could contain three internal values that are used for sorting: "an image is linked (or embedded) and is present", "an image is linked but not found" and "an image is not linked". Then you could sort the files in the current details view, see all files that have lost the linked images together and send these files to a playlist for fixing the lost links later.

[park]

Isn't the thumbnails on top and file list on bottom option enough for this? I have used it extensively since it was introduced.

Not for me. I rarely use the "details view" at all. For me the top view is used to make the sweeping decisions (choosing a genre or mood), and then i decide an album through browsing artists in the top view and album thumbnails in the bottom view. Usually that gives me enough choice to pick an album by feeling, and I'm always able to see a whole range of both artists and albums without ever having to do any double clicking or hitting the back button.
Browsing by albums is everything for me.
However, there is that occasional time when showing other people music when you want to choose just one song. Double clicking my way through the top list feels such a chore when i can already see the album in the bottom list. It's times like this that a little link on that album thumbnail taking me to it's list of songs would just save so much effort.

Infact, I think I've got it. This could work without having to change much about the current system at all. How about a 4th view choice in the bottom view:
"Albums (Detailed) view"
This would be much like the current "Details" view with a large thumbnail at left,  and other definable columns next to it, but with the songs always grouped to the album first and in track order (like for album thubnails). Sorting presets (Last played/ Date/ Date imported etc.) would apply to the whole albums too. And just to round it off, when switching from "album thumbnails" to "albums (detailed)", the list would auto scroll to the first most selected album so that it would be right there staring you in the face.

Tiles view was a milestone in MCs history for me and has made searching and playing music as fun and tangible as being able to flick through real records/CDs. My above suggestion would just about complete the navigation system (of music) for me; making it easy to navigate through albums while quickly being able to choose a song.