Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[lalittle]

I know that a lot of people use "thumbnail" views, but I still prefer "List/Detail" views, and I have some feedback in this area.

I use "Group by Album" to group the albums and display them in order to ascending year.  MC14 no longer "bolds" the Album/Artist title above each album like MC12 and 13 did, which makes this "main" information lose the "punch" that it previously had.  Also, in MC14 the album year displayed over on the right uses a smaller font for some reason, making it look a little odd.  Putting it on the far right already separates it from the Album/Artist title, so I'm not sure I see the need to also make it a smaller font.  It just looks too small and off to the side to me.  I think it should either be the same font size as the Album/Artist title, or if it's going to be small, maybe it should be closer to the other text.

My personal preference for the "Group by Album" (by date) info would be to have the Album name bold-ed, then the "by Artist" non bold-ed, then some space or a dash and the year, also non-bold-ed.  All the text would be the same size font.  I wouldn't mind if the year was closer to the other info as well.

In other words, it currently looks like this:

Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam Ant                                                                      1980

I think it would look better like this:

Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam Ant   -   1980

The Album name is separated from the artist nicely due to the bold album title, but all the info is in one spot.

Thanks for any feedback on this,

Larry

[lalittle]

Any feedback from other users on this?  I'd be curious to hear any feedback -- pro or con -- to the suggestion.  I just find that without the album name bold-ed, the text all runs together.  With the bold album name, the "by [Artist]" is nicely separated.  (Please see example in first post.)

Thanks again,

Larry

[darichman]

Hi Larry - I agree with you here as well. I can't remember when the change was made, but I do remember the old way being clearer. Your suggestions are good too.

[MrC]

A common standard is to also italicize the "by":

Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam Ant   -   1980

to assist the transition from title to artist.

[lalittle]

A common standard is to also italicize the "by":

Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam Ant   -   1980

to assist the transition from title to artist.

Good idea -- that does look better.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Larry

[ThoBar]

Still want to be able to click these headers to expand/collapse, and select all tracks in the album

[lalittle]

On a related note, I just noticed that the album year displayed on the far right of the album group "title bar" stays in place when scrolling the file list display left/right -- i.e. it remains visible.  This is a really nice feature, but would it be possible to make the Album/Artist info on the left side do the same thing?  It would be REALLY cool if the entire "title" line for the albums stayed in place as the file info scrolled back and forth.

Thanks,

Larry

[lalittle]

Just to update this, the "Album by Artist" line is now bold-ed, which is welcome improvement -- thanks.

EDIT:  I think I was looking at MC13 -- I still have both versions on this machine, and I think I got confused about which version I was looking at.  It looks like MC14 continues to have non-bolded title when using group by album.

Are the other suggested changes possible, i.e bold "Album," italicized "by," and regular "Artist":

Album by Artist                                                     Year

...and to have the entire line (instead of just the year) stay visible when the window is scrolled left/right.  This would look REALLY slick.

Thanks,

Larry

[lalittle]

Correction to the post above this one -- MC14 continues to not bold the album group title.

Larry

[lalittle]

Just bumping this in the hopes that this is addressed in MC14 at some point.

Is there anybody who doesn't think this

Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam Ant                                     1980

looks much slicker than this

Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam Ant                                     1980

?

Thanks,

Larry

[rick.ca]

Album by Artist                                                     Year

...and to have the entire line (instead of just the year) stay visible when the window is scrolled left/right.

...would be even better.

Anything that helps maintain orientation when it's necessary to scroll to the right would be helpful. A heading that doesn't disappear would be helpful for this particular view. Also useful and applicable more generally would be the ability to "freeze" any column so it (and those to the left if it) do not scroll off-screen. I imagine the exact same behaviour as the same feature in a spreadsheet would be perfect. This could be used to freeze artist/album in an audio view, title/year for movies, series/season/episode for series, etc.

[MrHaugen]

Anything that helps maintain orientation when it's necessary to scroll to the right would be helpful. A heading that doesn't disappear would be helpful for this particular view. Also useful and applicable more generally would be the ability to "freeze" any column so it (and those to the left if it) do not scroll off-screen. I imagine the exact same behaviour as the same feature in a spreadsheet would be perfect. This could be used to freeze artist/album in an audio view, title/year for movies, series/season/episode for series, etc.

Just to be sure... You guys are talking about the Theater View file caption or what?
Anyway what it is, I agree with your suggestions. I've always thought it looked kind of bad having all the text crunched together from left to right. A way of separating a column or two at the right side would be nice.

[lalittle]

Just to be sure... You guys are talking about the Theater View file caption or what?

We're actually referring to the Standard view panes/details with the "Group by album" feature.

Larry

[lalittle]

...would be even better.

Anything that helps maintain orientation when it's necessary to scroll to the right would be helpful.

It's clearly possible given the current behavior of the year, which stays on the screen when scolling left/right.  It seems completely logical that the Album/Artist title (that "Group by" produces) should behave the same way, with just the actual "columns" scrolling left/right.

Thanks to everybody for the feedback,

Larry

[MrHaugen]

Aha! Yes, offcourse.
I still think it's a good idea.

[dcwebman]

I agree, that would make the group heading look nicer. And again what would be even better is to be able to click on that header to select the tracks from that album.

[MrC]

I agree, that would make the group heading look nicer. And again what would be even better is to be able to click on that header to select the tracks from that album.

I agree too - having to select each track to hit Play is unfortunate.  If the header cannot be selected, perhaps the next best thing would be a Play Entire Album right-click option so that all tracks in an album are played.  This way, you only need select any single song within the album to play the entire album.

[Magic_Randy]

I agree too - having to select each track to hit Play is unfortunate.  If the header cannot be selected, perhaps the next best thing would be a Play Entire Album right-click option so that all tracks in an album are played.  This way, you only need select any single song within the album to play the entire album.

I also agree with this point.

[rick.ca]

Are you using the Replace Playing Now (all) Double-click behaviour? I find that—in a Panes and Details view—is versatile enough. I can select as many or as few albums as I want using the panes, and then double-click on the track that I want it to start playing at. Usually I'm looking at all the albums of one artist, and double-click on the first track of one album I want to listen to. Even though I may only be interested in the one album, I appreciate it continuing with the next album in case I'm not prepared to make another selection. And I could have easily restricted my selection to one album, if that's what I wanted. It would never occur to me to "select each track and hit Play" or look for Play Album on the context menu.

I suppose those who more often built playlists than play albums are likely to use one of the Add to Playing Now double-click behaviours. But those are available on the context menu. If Play Album were added to the context menu, wouldn't it require an entire sub-menu of it's own—for selecting how it's to be played or added? I think the result might be too confusing to be worthwhile.

[dcwebman]

I don't use that double-click option because I've been burned too many times with my Playing Now list being overwritten. Mine is set to Add to Playing Now (to end) to prevent that. In fact this morning I was burned again by another way that is irritating. I was looking at the Albums for an artist (details view shown)  and realized I wasn't listening to my Playing Now so I clicked the Play button. I didn't have any tracks selected in the details and of course all the tracks that I was looking at replaced my Playing Now and started playing.

[MrHaugen]

In fact this morning I was burned again by another way that is irritating. I was looking at the Albums for an artist (details view shown)  and realized I wasn't listening to my Playing Now so I clicked the Play button. I didn't have any tracks selected in the details and of course all the tracks that I was looking at replaced my Playing Now and started playing.

There is a option for play visible or play things in Playing Now, under options. It should prevent such things.

[dcwebman]

There is a option for play visible or play things in Playing Now, under options. It should prevent such things.

Thanks. Just found the option and we'll see.