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Author Topic: View Layout Presets  (Read 4244 times)

Doof

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View Layout Presets
« on: April 10, 2008, 10:36:05 am »

The "Single Photo View" thread got me thinking again about something that I've been wishing for for a while, but never really put into words.

In iTunes, they have three basic views. A standard list of all your music, an album grouped view, and Cover Flow. These are accessible by three buttons on the top portion of the screen. MC doesn't have anything that simple. Of course MC supports a much wider array of view options, so a setup like that would be kind of limiting.

MC does have View presets, but from what I can see, well... I can't really tell what they do, but it's not what I'm after.

What I'm after is a way to define a total layout preset. When I say total, I mean... What view (details, thumbnails, etc) is in use? Is the tree pane opened or closed? Is the Tag AW open? Are the panes visible? Are they on the top, left or right? What position is the thumbnail slider in? All of that stuff. A user should be able to set up a layout preset and switch to it anytime they want.

And then to make it even easier... allow the user to assign 3-5 presets to toolbar buttons to allow them to quickly and easily switch.

And then it becomes a no brainer to set up some default layouts that come with the app so new users can take advantage of them right away.
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johnnyboy

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2008, 08:10:53 pm »

I suggested this a while ago. Allowing things like split view - left split view vs bottom etc saved per view scheme.
That way you could do a left split view for images - very practical.
As it is, having to manually change the split view etc each time you want something different is just too much effort for me (yes I am lazy!) so I never do it and just always leave it the same.
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darichman

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2008, 08:47:41 pm »

This is certainly a good idea... as I see it, there are only two things missing from MC in its current form that would be needed for what you suggest
1. Make MC remember split panes and pane locations (ie left, right, top) and tree opened/closed
2. Allow us to put shortcut icons for our view schemes on the toolbar somewhere

Or are you talking global view layout presets which, when selected, apply to all of your view schemes?

Either way, this could definitely work... but I think a lot of people would like to see MC treat images a bit differently, outside the usual and familiar pane/tree setup, which will of course always be there underlying it all -- I don't think there's a need to change any underlying architecture drastically. I still wanna keep viewschemes and panes etc around for images of course(!) but I think what happens when you activate the image is an area where MC could benefit from change... A new "image mode" with all the commands (basic edits, rating, caption, online gallery integration etc), including tagging, would show one single image at a time, maybe with a nice zoom reticule and small thumbnails of next and previous images in the queue would be great. It would require no setup (apart from maybe selecting which tags we want to work with) and would be very friendly for new users, who don't know how to set up viewschemes.

In summary, I really like Doof's idea for view layout presets (and have wanted to be able to save pane location, split views etc for a while) but don't think it's view schemes alone which will fully address the issue of ease of use for the amateur user...

As it is, having to manually change the split view etc each time you want something different is just too much effort for me (yes I am lazy!) so I never do it and just always leave it the same.

I must admit, quite often I'm the same :P
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Doof

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2008, 10:55:36 pm »

I was thinking along the lines of Photoshop's Workspaces. With that, you can have toolbars where ever you want them, even custom menus and keyboard shortcuts. I'm not saying I want those last two, but it would be really nice to totally customize my MC layout based around a task, like tagging images, or browsing music or whatever and then just with a single click of a button, everything arranges to suit that task. I'd even include toolbar buttons in that as well. That way you could create your "image mode" and tailor it specifically to what that means to you.

I just sit here and play around with different layouts and realize that... if I close the panes, open up the Tag AW, crank the thumbnail slider all the way up and customized my toolbar buttons, MC could look more like an image organizer than a media player. If I then close the tree pane, switch the panes back on and turn album grouping on, or close the details pane and have a full screen audio thumbnails view, then MC looks like one of those newfangled jukeboxes you see in bars. It's really great how you can do this.

But to get from point A to point B is no easy task. To get from this:



to this:



took me a whole bunch of clicks and digging into the options menus and dragging pane dividers and thumbnail sliders and not to mention a whole lot of knowing that it's even possible to do. And if I also wanted toolbars that fit each layout better, there's a whole bunch more work to do. Granted, my Audio View Scheme now always looks like it does above and likewise my Images View Scheme, so getting from one to the other, once they're set up, isn't that hard, but I don't always want Audio looking like that. It just might be nice to set it like that during a party so people can easily pick music, but the rest of the time I like it to be grouped by Album.

And honestly, I don't think that even if MC remembered separate view settings for every view scheme is all that desireable. I really don't want a big cluttered mess of view schemes all configured differently for different tasks. And a view scheme isn't going to store settings for tree and AW anyway. I think if we could just get a pre-determined number of toolbar buttons that we can assign layouts to, that would be perfect. With a single click I could go from point A to point B. I guess I'm just not the type to set up seperate view schemes that contain the same data just shown in different ways in order to get some work done. I'd rather each of my views have a browsing mode and a working mode, and I guess that's really what my idea would address.
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darichman

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2008, 11:34:41 pm »

I think you did a really good job illustrating that. You've also shown how much can be done with the existing architecture :)

It's probably obvious that there can be some big changes in this area... in the mean time, saving view presets and even offering a few default ones to new users would solve a lot of the issues mentioned here... so add my vote!
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Doof

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2008, 12:17:50 am »

Thanks.

I think the thing that kinda hit home for me with this is that... IIRC, I was the first one to point out that you could arrange MC as I have in the second screenshot to make tagging photos easier. And then, if you read the Single Photo View thread, it was asked why such a view wasn't available. My first response was that, to do it, you had to use Playing Now.

Because I FORGOT that you could even set it like that in the first place! It wasn't until later that I remembered. I think the reason for that is because I never use views like I show above. I'd certainly like to. But they're such a pain in the rear to arrange (I don't like that view for image browsing, for instance) that I just don't. I've pretty much adjusted my workflow around it. Even though doing the actual work would be easier if I switched things around, I just don't bother because as soon as I'm done, I'm just going to have to put it all back anyway. So instead I just work with a layout that's good for browsing but not so much for tagging. And in the meantime, I've even forgotten that it could be better.
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johnnyboy

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2008, 08:08:31 pm »

Your pictures are a perfect example.

Topstyle Pro allows stuff like this too whereby I can save total layouts which is great for creating layouts per task. When heavy coding have one layout, another for previewing and tweaking.

The same would go with MC - the bottom layout is how I'd love my images to be viewed (minus the tree and AW) and then I normally have it with panes and the tree for audio.

I'd never switch between these two though as it's too much work to do so each time.

If I could save this as a preset layout though and have a menu toolbar called 'Layouts' with a list of different layouts to instantly select from I'd definitely use it 20x more.
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thurston

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2008, 02:13:04 pm »

I think this is a great idea.  It makes learning about all the options the program has to offer worthwhile.  It would be far more worth it to take the time setting up the way I like for a certain task knowing I wouldn't have to re-learn it later.

Could it also be possible to post or to send "set-ups" from one server (or person) to another?
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echamp1

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2008, 02:24:57 pm »

I think it would be great to have presets that we could customize.  As it stands, I have to create a personalized view layout and then apply it to each existing playlist, which gets to be very tedious!
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Peter_T

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #9 on: April 23, 2008, 04:24:34 pm »

That's exactly what MC needs!  MC is fantastic in terms of its sheer power of customization, but it isn't easy to use the amazing features it has...

Those two views above - I have no idea how to get there.  I'm not surprised in the least that MC can do that and more, and with some effort I've been able to get some great configurations too, but I'm a computer geek and I think 90% of the people here are as well.  AND I'm lazy... I'd love pre-sets and I'd love to be able to save my own set-ups. 
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JONCAT

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2008, 11:09:10 am »

One quick thought: since Tabs are in use in your 1st screenshots, it would seem that one click could take you between the two views. Now it would be great if MC saved these views upon close & restart (works sometimes), and also could save these as presets as mentioned (currently only for tag fields). In any event, Panes On Left is applied only Images and doesn't migrate to Audio or Video unless you choose the option for them. Tabs are a great way to quickly jump between view schemes (seems like the option to choose between view schemes with the tab drop down has been removed though).

DC

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marko

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2008, 01:17:25 am »

Quote
(seems like the option to choose between view schemes with the tab drop down has been removed though)

Those choices are only ever present when the tree is hidden, and you're in a 'library' view, i.e. anywhere in the tree above Playing Now. I could be wrong, but I don't remember it being any other way.

JONCAT

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Re: View Layout Presets
« Reply #12 on: May 09, 2008, 10:06:58 am »

You're right, I forgot. That was and is a great addition; I used to use the Naviagtion toolbar icon a lot more before this.

DC
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