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[Mr ChriZ]

I think two of Media Centers strongest points are really way to hidden away.
One of them is Zones, and the Other is Connecting to different Librarys,
both Locally and on a local network.

I'd love to see the ability for the library to be the top most item of the tree.
I think it should also be possible to change from Theatre View.
Media Center should IMHO be moving away from the menu's as much as possible
since this seems to be the way a lot of modern User Interfaces are going.

People don't want to search for things in Menu's, they want to have it presented
to them in a nice 1 click "graphical" fashion.

Most computers are starting to come with
19" screens, so screen space is becoming less and less of an issue.

Zones are also incredible powerful and for a shortcut people are told
to press Ctrl-T... which is great if you know it but theres a completely unused area underneath the search box, why not have the option of a drop down there?

[park]

I agree that features should be highlighted to let people know they are there. I dont know about having the zones under the search bar though. Simplicity in the interface is also important.

I would suggest that a "Zones manager" button be placed in the toolbar by default, where you can create new zones. Then, for each zone that exists, there would be an individual "Playing Now" entry in the tree. So you could create 2 zones: one called "Music" and one called "Photo slideshows". And 2 playing now entries would appear in the tree: one called "Music" and one called "Photo slideshows".

For extra visual clarity, you could have a separator after before playing now, then a playing now header (unclickable) and then your clickable links to each zone.

[Mr ChriZ]

Simplicity in the interface is also important.

For sure =) However for something called Media Center, indicating it's a central piece
to your home for integrating of home entertainment; things like zones
should be a simple operation (Not necasserily in setup (yet)), but in use
I'd expect my mum to be able to use it, possibly even my dad!

On first installation Media Center could ask if it would be
used in different zones, and then customize itself accordingly.

Ideally Media Center could also allow zones to be set up to control
other Media Centers.

[johnnyboy]

I agree that features should be highlighted to let people know they are there. I dont know about having the zones under the search bar though. Simplicity in the interface is also important.

I would suggest that a "Zones manager" button be placed in the toolbar by default, where you can create new zones. Then, for each zone that exists, there would be an individual "Playing Now" entry in the tree. So you could create 2 zones: one called "Music" and one called "Photo slideshows". And 2 playing now entries would appear in the tree: one called "Music" and one called "Photo slideshows".

For extra visual clarity, you could have a separator after before playing now, then a playing now header (unclickable) and then your clickable links to each zone.

This is a great idea - a couple of playing now icons/sections would make it so much more intuitive and obvious not just for my friends who dont really know how to use it - but also just for me for every day use.

I'd love this, it'd make it so straight forwards to use easier!