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[kensn]

Ok, If I start here

http://www.pix01.com/gallery/FDD1A3A6-26F8-4D79-887E-7B1C6A626A7F/TV2/

and then select Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds and then toggle to the Showroom view (That is how I would like the albmus to be displayed)

http://www.pix01.com/gallery/FDD1A3A6-26F8-4D79-887E-7B1C6A626A7F/TV1/

Then navigate back I get this...

http://www.pix01.com/gallery/FDD1A3A6-26F8-4D79-887E-7B1C6A626A7F/TV3/

Which is neither the Showroom view with all the "D" artists, or the Thumbnail view as expected in the first link. If I toggle the view here back off showroom all the "D" artists show.

Is this a bug, or a work in progress??

Ken

[glynor]

Looks buggy to me, but I don't know much about how Showroom works.

[rick.ca]

I'm not sure if this is what's causing your troubles, but it seems there is a bug or "design flaw" at play. Generally, "List Styles" can apply to Categories added to a view's navigation (e.g., Genre, Artist and Album in a Genre-Artist-Album view) and to the final File List. Either of those two things can be represented as thumbnails or a list. But a Showroom is not really a "List Style," but a completely different way of presenting albums (instead of a list) as the final result. It's not logical to apply it to a category, and yet the program allows you to do so. If you do, then it seems to get "stuck" in the Showroom mode, and the navigation categories are no longer accessible.

If you want a view in which you can select categories of albums to include, and then display the selected albums in a "Showroom" style: Create a view with the categories you want to use, like Genre-Artist-Album. At each of those category levels, select your preferred list style, but do NOT select Showroom. At the final File List level, select Showroom as the List Style. The resulting view will behave correctly. You'll be able to skip any category by selecting "All" (e.g., select Rock-All Artists-All Albums or All Genres-Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds-All Albums). The end result will always be a Showroom of the albums you've selected.

[kensn]

Thank you for both responses. On my original View settings I had Artist (grouped by 1)-Artist-Album, I removed the Album and that produced the view I was looking for with proper navigation back to the prior view....

On a side note, I thought it would be great to select what view style was implemented on a category or list as you set them up in the Theater View options screen. Next to the categories or list a drop down showing the available view style to select. If that could be tied to the particular category of a child view, different child views could have a different view styles.... Just thinking...

Thanks again..

Ken

[rick.ca]

On a side note, I thought it would be great to select what view style was implemented on a category or list as you set them up in the Theater View options screen.

+1. Yes, I find it annoying to configure a view, and then have to set those in Theatre View—especially since I seldom use the default thumbnail style.

[kensn]

Oh ya.. one more item.. In Theater View - Showroom if multiple ablums are shown (at the end of a drill down), one of them is in focus and if enter is pressed it rotates around as expected, but if just a single album is displayed, it is not in focus and an extra push of the remotes up button is required to put it in focus so the enter button rotates it. It would be nice if a signle album comes up it would be in focus by default.

Ken

[glynor]

On a side note, I thought it would be great to select what view style was implemented on a category or list as you set them up in the Theater View options screen. Next to the categories or list a drop down showing the available view style to select.

+1

[rick.ca]

It would be nice if a signle album comes up it would be in focus by default.

+0.01. If that's happening often, I wouldn't be using that style. It's rather pointless (compared to what can be displayed with info panes) unless there's at least a few screen-fulls of albums.

[kensn]

Well I do like the Showroom animation, and I do use for my favorite albums in one of my Theater View's views since I know the albums by cover (yes it would be nice to be able to show the album name under the cover art in Showroom). I just thought since the functionality was there that the focus problem could be easily fixed. I believe it has something to do with when showing multiple albums the first (from the left) center (top - center- bottom) album is in focus, but when a single album is displayed it is at the top, thus selecting up (on the remote or up arrow on keyboard) puts it in focus.

ken

[kensn]

Thank you for both responses. On my original View settings I had Artist (grouped by 1)-Artist-Album, I removed the Album and that produced the view I was looking for with proper navigation back to the prior view....

The only thing about this is I do not see a way to sort the albums by year, oldest first. I could before.

Ken

[stricko]

Sorry to jump in here but I've another thread open which is touching on the same ground.

I'm glad to see the explanation above about how and where List Styles can be used. I had a play with this, and for a query in my music collection, where everything is driven by tags, it seems to work as described. I have one list style for the categories, and one for the final file list. To be specific, there is one list style for ALL of the categories, not for each Category level. Change the list style aI any category level, and it changes at ALL levels, except the final File list. Is this what was intended, or should this be variable at an individual category level?

This also works as described where I have a folder path of Location (Root) to display images. Even though there are no categories as such, the list styles are being used in the same way. Each level of folder in the file structure is displayed using one List style, and when you reach a list of files (at whatever level) a different List style is shown. Clever stuff, I like it......

But, there is one difference. In the tag based audio query above, there are multiple querys available , ie; Audio > Albums, Audio > Artist etc, and these are visible and can be selected at the top level of each query. No change there. But for the folder path query, the behaviour is different. Even though there are multiple queries eg. Images > Folder, Images > Year etc. when you select Images, it ALWAYS goes straight to the query at the next level with the folder path, and the other queries at the same lever are not visible and cannot be selected. I've tried putting the folder path query at different positions in the sub query, but it behaves the same way whether it is first or in the middle. Deliberate or a bug?

And for a Videos query the same thing applies but with an added twist. There are two levels of roller and there are multiple queries specified at the level below one path on second roller, one of which is a folder path. The same thing happens as above, ie. the when you select the path on the second roller which contains the folder path based query, it always defaults to that the folder path query and any other queries cannot be seen or selected.

The twist? Going back to the original point about the list categories, for this Video query, there appears to be only one List style available which applies to all of the folder levels AND the final file list. I suspect that this may be because there are further screens displayed when you select a video file, where you can "toggle list style" even though there is one one item in the list.
I can't swear to to, but I thought that prior to the recent Theater View changes, you could change the list style at the file list level as described above. Again, deliberate or bug?

Thanks

[glynor]

I have one list style for the categories, and one for the final file list. To be specific, there is one list style for ALL of the categories, not for each Category level. Change the list style aI any category level, and it changes at ALL levels, except the final File list. Is this what was intended, or should this be variable at an individual category level?

Yes, that's how it is intended.

[rick.ca]

Even though there are multiple queries eg. Images > Folder, Images > Year etc. when you select Images, it ALWAYS goes straight to the query at the next level with the folder path, and the other queries at the same lever are not visible and cannot be selected. I've tried putting the folder path query at different positions in the sub query, but it behaves the same way whether it is first or in the middle. Deliberate or a bug?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I have no problem using "Location" Categories—alone or in combination with other types—and it all seems perfectly logical. A Location Category, of course, is going to follow the path to the end before it moves on to the next Category. But at any point (as long as you've left it enabled) you can select "All Locations." That will behave as you would expect any Category to: All the files in the current folder and any of it's subfolders are selected, and then you'll choose from the next specified Category.

A filepath is not always going to be the most elegant way to navigate to a desired selection. It may, for good reason, have more folder levels than is required for the selection at hand. Worse, there could be an irrelevant level separating to two levels you really need to make a selection. Selecting one irrelevant value would leave out the rest. Selecting "All" would skip the second relevant level entirely. Fortunately, there's another tool that useful in these situations. Use ListItem([Filename (path)], N, \) in an "Expression" Category to extract a subfolder name at a specific level, N. For more information, see ListItem(...): Returns a specified value from a delimited list.

Going back to the original point about the list categories, for this Video query, there appears to be only one List style available which applies to all of the folder levels AND the final file list.

Maybe you've found a circumstance I'm unaware of (in particular, I don't use any stock views), but I don't see this in any of my views. One List Style applies to all Categories, but a different style can be applied to the File List.

[stricko]

Thanks for getting back. PIcking up the first point.

Under Images, I have 4 queries. Album, Year, Genre and Folder. Album, Year and Genre are Category based queries that use tags. Folder is a simple path type query with Location (root).
IF I select Images, it goes straight to the folder query, every time, and the other queries are not accesible in any way that I've tried. Maybe I'm missing something stoopid, but I've used the product this way for several years, and this is the first time I'm not been able to se all of the queries this way.

I'm sorry but I'm not meaning to champion the folder structure method of viewing files. I know that using tags is more elegant, more flexible etc etc etc, BUT, I happen to have all my stuff in a well structured folder structure, and it's very very easy for me to look at them that way. Some stuff is tagged, so I can see it across the file structure, but I'll probabbly never get around to tagging all of it. I'm not making a point, I'm just being lazy. I like MC not only because it can do clever, complicated stuff really well, but also because it does simple stuff (like folders) really well. Best of all worlds.

The last bit looks like a bug to me. I'm going to load up an old version later today to see if it's consistent.

[stricko]

OK just loaded v60 on a different machine, and it confirms what I first thought.

Under v60 Where you have a folder path query, any other queries at the same level are visible (on the second line, greyed out until you select them) and accessible. Unber v87, if there is a folder path query, the second line is not visible and cannot be accesssed.

For the Video query thing, under v60 the category and file list, list styles can be toggled independently. Under V87 they cannot. BUT, a but more testing suggests that the 2 problems may be related, or it's something to do with the primary/secondary roller thing.

So I've got

Video (secondary roller)
   Television (primary roller)
       Programs
            Folder
            Series
            etc
    Other
       Folder
       Name
       etc

If in Theater View, I take Video > Other, I get the problem where I can only see the Folder query, the Name query is not visible. BUT, I can at least independantly toggle the List style for the category level and file list.

However, If I take the Video > Television > Programs route, I still have the problem that I can't get to the other queries at that level (eg Series), AND I lose the ability to toggle the List styles independantly. If I toggle the list style at the file list level, it changes the list style for all of the folder levels above it.

Not sure I can make it any clearer than that.

I thought I'd get around it by just removing and rebuilding the Television level. May be related, or may be deliberate, but I was able to remove the exsiting query header, but I could not then add anything back in. If I add a library item at either the Video or the Television level (i.e. the 2 levels specified as rollers) the item appears at the root level. You can add items lower down the structure OK.

[rick.ca]

I've recreated your view structure in the current beta version and it works perfectly. I'm not aware of any changes since build 86 that would change anything relevant to the difficulties you're having.

Unber v87, if there is a folder path query, the second line is not visible and cannot be accesssed.

Once you're in a Category selection chain—whether that be a single "Location" Category (or "folder path query") or a group of Categories (of any type)—the second roller is not available for selecting other views until the navigation is complete. It doesn't make any sense to make a partial selection and then jump to other view. If you want to go to another view, navigate out of the category selection and then select it from the second roller. As I explained before, if you just want to move on to the next category in the chain, you have to select something. If you don't want to select from the current category, select "All." (If you've disabled "All," you would have to select something.)

If in Theater View, I take Video > Other, I get the problem where I can only see the Folder query, the Name query is not visible.

This seems to be exactly the same issue. If you're in the view, you have to leave it before the views will appear on the second roller. In other words, just press <Left> until it appears.

I see no inconsistency in the List Style behaviour in these views. Changing the style at any category changes it for all the categories in the view. The style for the File List level is independent and can be different from that used for the categories.

[kensn]

Ok, I see that if I change list style to the Showroom style that I lose the sorting that is in all the other list styles for the same list list. Is this going to change, or is it going to remain this way. I only ask because I would really like to set up my views in theater view, but I am waiting for the updates that are being worked on to determine the path I would like to go down.

I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed using this product, and highly regard this forum for the timely help given.

Thanks

Ken

[stricko]

Sorry Rick, I'm probably using the wrong terminology. In the first quote you use, I'm not talking about the second roller, I'm talking about the second menu line on a standard Theater View query screen.

So. for example, using my earlier example, I have a following structure...

Video
  Other
     Folder
     Name
     Year
     Genre

I select Video > Other and it will only jump to the Folder query. The top line of the query reads

Back   Other  Play All   more    playing now

There is no second line. And yes, it really does say "other", not "folder"

If I now change the structure, and remove the Folder query, which leaves only tag based queries, the results are different

I select Video > Other and I get the first query in the list, Name. The top line of the query reads

Back  Name   more    playing now

AND.....

there is a second menu line which lists the available querys, ie

name   year   genre


This doesn't seem correct. To be sure that this isn't something screwy on my setup, I've just cleared the database, and reset Theater View. So as default, I have the standard Theater View stucture, with all tag based queries, and the double roller under videos. With an empty library, Theater View behaves exactly as I would expect.

Select Videos > Television and I get the first query in the list with the following

Top Line; Back, Programs, Live, Guide
Second Line: Recent, Series, Genres, Season

I loaded up a few videos, and the queries worked exactly as I would expect. No issues.

Add a new query, between Series and Genres in the above list, called Folder, but for the time being I don't set it to be a File path, and the query structure still behaves normally. The new query appears (as it should on the second line; eg, Recent, Series, Folder, Season

Finally, I add a File path to the Folder query, and.... now if I select Video > Television, I am pushed stright to a screen which reads

First Line : Back, Programs, Live, Guide
Second line : completely blank.

And I get the results I would expect from my Folder query.

So. The presence of a File path query is completely blocking any other queries at the same level. Is this what it is supposed to do? If so, why are you allowed to have multiple queries, if one of them is a File path?







 

[stricko]

HANG ON A MINUTE

I was just trying to put my library back together so it was at least usable. As a shortcut, I set up a new File Path query under Television > Programs, but pointed the File Path to the specific directory where my TV videos are held, and HEY PRESTO, it worked. New file path query, all other queries visible and OK. Brilliant

In my earlier attempts, I didn't need to select a directory, and the higher levels the query structure were already using tags to select the appropriate files. So just to be sure, I reset my new query, left the file path blank, and now the problem reappears.

So.... it only looks like it's an issue if you have a file path query with a blank file path, ie ones that shows up at Location (root)

[kensn]

And Now back To......

Ok, I see that if I change list style to the Showroom style that I lose the sorting that is in all the other list styles for the same list list. Is this going to change, or is it going to remain this way. I only ask because I would really like to set up my views in theater view, but I am waiting for the updates that are being worked on to determine the path I would like to go down.

I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed using this product, and highly regard this forum for the timely help given.

Thanks

Ken

[rick.ca]

Is this going to change, or is it going to remain this way.

I wouldn't count on it changing. It was originally designed as a separate, non-configurable view—a Showroom—not a view style in the same sense of the other styles. Previous requests along the lines of converting it to another configurable view have resulting only one change—making it available as a style.

[kensn]

Thanks for the Reply Jim...

By all means not a deal breaker for me, I just wanted to know if I was doing something or configuring something wrong. I do like the Showroom view, I will try to incorporate it where it is feasible to do so. For myself it is where there are just a few albums to choose from..

Any thought on the focus part...?

if multiple albums are shown (at the end of a drill down), one of them is in focus and if enter is pressed it rotates around as expected, but if just a single album is displayed, it is not in focus and an extra push of the remotes up button is required to put it in focus so the enter button rotates it. It would be nice if a signaler album comes up it would be in focus by default.

I just thought since the functionality was there that the focus problem could be easily fixed. I believe it has something to do with when showing multiple albums the first (from the left) center (top - center- bottom) album is in focus, but when a single album is displayed it is at the top, thus selecting up (on the remote or up arrow on keyboard) puts it in focus.

Thanks again

[kensn]

A simple yes or no will suffice....

Thanks

Ken