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Author Topic: Understanding Categories  (Read 1134 times)

Vincent Kars

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Understanding Categories
« on: November 21, 2010, 11:52:05 am »

I made a custom view based on categories


In the tab I can choose a composer e.g. Beethoven


I can choose e.g. Opus and get all the opus numbers filtered by Beethoven.



All the time I stay in the Categories view.

I can do the same filtering, this time using the navigation tree and choose Beethoven.
Much to my surprise, the moment I do, the view type changes from Category to File List.
As a consequence, I don’t get the works (opus) but all the works by each individual performer.
Not only a far more limited view but also a bit confusing that to identical methods of filtering yield totally different view types.
Is this by design? If so, why?
I would appreciate that the view type remains the same regardless of the type of filtering.

BTW: in the file view I can choose Thumbnails or Details as List style but nothing changes
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vagskal

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Re: Understanding Categories
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2010, 12:18:08 pm »

You might want to have a look at this thread where this was recently discussed.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=59907.0
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rick.ca

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Re: Understanding Categories
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2010, 04:55:11 pm »

Or just use a Panes view. It will always allow you to select a composer, or an opus, or an artist, or any combination of the three, in any order. And, if you're fond of trees, you can even include an expression pane that presents any combination of fields as a tree.
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Vincent Kars

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Re: Understanding Categories
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2010, 05:05:53 pm »

Perfectly possible.
But I was wondering why one has a view e.g. Categories, this view all of a sudden changes into a File List the moment one select something a the tree.
I don’t see why this is necessary
I don’t think this helps to create a consistent interface
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rick.ca

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Re: Understanding Categories
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2010, 06:26:26 pm »

I suppose it depends on what consistency you're expecting...

A Categories view is designed for navigating to desired files using a hierarchy of categories. For example, selecting a Genre and then an Artist to find an Album. At each level the values are grouped. And in it's usual versatile way, MC also allows the List Style of each level to be set independently. When used alone, this behaviour should seem natural to anyone used to "drilling-down" in any UI context.

While the Tree is associated with the view, it's providing a fundamentally different means of navigation. If it were perfectly consistent with the Categories view, it would comply with the grouping and style settings for the selected level. But this wouldn't seem consistent to someone simply using the tree the navigate. Then, seeing the same File List view no matter which branch is selected is what would seem consistent. In other words, there's nothing "consistent" about the various levels of a Category view—unless you're actually using it to navigate.

Other than the change to the File List style, there's nothing inconsistent in the behaviour. When you selected Beethoven all his works were listed because Composer is the first category in your view scheme. If you wanted to see one particular opus, you would select it in the tree—and then the view would show all Artists performing that work.

But that's just the theory of someone who would rather use a Panes view in just about any situation. Maybe someone else or the developers could give you a better explanation of why it works this way.
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