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[forbigd]

Forgive me if these have been discussed. I couldn't find any reference in a search.
There is just one option left that our old Jukebox (eJukebox) did that we wonder if it is possible with Media Center. Ok two options .... Ok maybe more.... I will try to put all my wishes here

1.  When eJukebox is playing songs, and no one has touched the PC for at least a minute or so, on the next song change, the display changes and only shows songs or albums by the artist playing. For example, the Jukebox is playing along by itself, and the next song is by the band "311". If you walked up to the Jukebox while 311 is playing, the "view" would only by of 311 stuff. So you say "Gee I like this song", you wander over, and there is a list of other songs by the same artist. Every time the artist changes, the view does too. If someone is actually using it, it doesn't change, only after a couple of minutes or so of inactivity.

2.  Jump to Artist on click from Playlist. On the "Now Playing List", you can show the artist (and anything else), I wonder if you can make the artist name in Now Playing clickable. For example in the now Playing you see 311 just played. I would like to be able to click the word "311" in Now Playing, and have the "view" change to that artist, not have to look for it. I do see I can right click and navigate to "locate artist". That is close to the functionality. But to be able to just click the name would be cool.

3.  Now here's a real dream. I use a touch screen for input. The scroll bars are way too small to grab with a finger. Is there a way to make them wider? Even more of a wish, can the default action for a sliding finger be to scroll through a list, and not try to move something on the list? In other words the Artist list can be very long, I want to touch one artist and slide my finger up to scroll through the list. (much like iOS). Now if you slide across the Artist list it tries to move files and warns me it as about to. Not a deal breaker, but it would be awesome to just flick and touch my way though the interface.

Thanks for listening. And many thanks for the Stretch option just added. It fixes a major problem I had.

Don

[JimH]

On #3 ... try the Obsidian Touch Screen skin for Theater View.  You can "flick" screens to scroll.

[mark_h]

Forgive me if these have been discussed. I couldn't find any reference in a search.
There is just one option left that our old Jukebox (eJukebox) did that we wonder if it is possible with Media Center. Ok two options .... Ok maybe more.... I will try to put all my wishes here

1.  When eJukebox is playing songs, and no one has touched the PC for at least a minute or so, on the next song change, the display changes and only shows songs or albums by the artist playing. For example, the Jukebox is playing along by itself, and the next song is by the band "311". If you walked up to the Jukebox while 311 is playing, the "view" would only by of 311 stuff. So you say "Gee I like this song", you wander over, and there is a list of other songs by the same artist. Every time the artist changes, the view does too. If someone is actually using it, it doesn't change, only after a couple of minutes or so of inactivity.

You could create a smartlist to show all tracks by the currently playing artists but MC doesn't auto-refresh smartlists.

2.  Jump to Artist on click from Playlist. On the "Now Playing List", you can show the artist (and anything else), I wonder if you can make the artist name in Now Playing clickable. For example in the now Playing you see 311 just played. I would like to be able to click the word "311" in Now Playing, and have the "view" change to that artist, not have to look for it. I do see I can right click and navigate to "locate artist". That is close to the functionality. But to be able to just click the name would be cool.

Ensure that General->Features->Linkable Columns is checked then simply click the little -> arrow next to artist and it'll show all tracks by that artist.

Cheers,

Mark

[forbigd]

Mark, Thanks for the answer.
I had seen the little arrows, but they only seem to appear in audio files, videos have no arrows, or do I have something set up wrong?

You could create a smartlist to show all tracks by the currently playing artists but MC doesn't auto-refresh smartlists.

Ensure that General->Features->Linkable Columns is checked then simply click the little -> arrow next to artist and it'll show all tracks by that artist.

Cheers,

Mark

[mark_h]

I'm an audio only user, sorry...

[rick.ca]

I had seen the little arrows, but they only seem to appear in audio files, videos have no arrows, or do I have something set up wrong?

They're for Audio only. [Artist] and [Album] are not commonly used for Video. [Genre] might be, but it's a string field, and movies require a list field to handle multiple genres.

Regardless of Media Type, the same command is available on the context menu as Locate... Using that allows any field to be selected, and once you have done so, that search will appear at the top of your context menu. This can be convenient for any repeated search (e.g., finding movies with the same Director).

Both methods of using Locate just execute a simple search of the value in the selected field—as can be seen in the Search bar. In some cases, such a search is not valid (e.g., dates are sent as raw values, rather than formatted strings). In other cases, it's easier to just start typing the value in the Search bar and choose from the resulting list of suggested search terms. Bear in mind these are all just ways to execute a search, and you'll soon learn the most convenient and effective way to do so in the circumstances—Locate, Search bar or Search Wizard.

[forbigd]

Thanks for the response. 

After enjoying Media Center and wanting better sorting for my Music Videos, I DO have Artist - Album - Name.xxx for my naming structure and use "Get Tags from Filename" To sort by Artist and Album. By Filtering both ways we can pick a song by artist 1 and see all the albums he has. (Albums defined by me, like full Concert names, or locations, or TV shows ..IE. "Fallon") Click on an album like "Fallon" and see all the Artists who we have clips for that have performed on Fallon. Click one of those and see all the "Albums" THAT artist has. It is really an awesome program. I have been missing this configurability for years because all the others liked the eJukebox interface. All is better now. Being the guru for several jukeboxes, I just told them we were all going to move and support was with MC and was being dropped for eJ. (Whew)

I will try the Locate option. I remember trying it already on Mps3 and it took a very long time to look through it all.

I see most started with Audio. I came to MC for the Video and am just uncovering all the things I can do with MC.

Thanks again.

Don

[forbigd]

On #3 ... try the Obsidian Touch Screen skin for Theater View.  You can "flick" screens to scroll.

Thanks, I tried it after you suggested it. It does work like I want, but I want more stuff on the screen, I need a playlist and a place to pick from on the same screen. I have a decent amount of music, and scrolling through the pages flicking would take a long time. I enabled scroll bars, and touched one and scrolled it down half the page (about 35k of 70k tunes) and it crashed MC. It is repeatable. Play enough with the scroll bars in theater mode and it crashes. Not sure it is a bug, and without a playlist on the same screen I can't use it, so I am not complaining. Even if the scroll bars in Standard view were about twice as wide, that would help alot. Trying to "hit" the thin scroll bar with my fat old fingers can be a chore, twice as wide would fix it. Is there an option for that I am missing? There seems to be an option for everything else. Some .xml or .ini I can "modify"

Thanks!

[JimH]

You could modify your views to split them into A-D, F-J, etc.

[forbigd]

I am not sure I understand. I did go get an expression some kind soul posted that gives me an alpha pane. That helps. Is that what you mean?

And just to make sure, There is NO way to modify the width of the scroll bars?

Thanks!

[gvanbrunt]

I think the confusion may be in how you are accessing MC. Are you using Theater View or Standard Views? In either case they are skin able but I'm not sure if scroll-bar width can be changed. Theater View (especially Obsidian Touch Screen) is much more finger friendly. I too have a large audio collection and created views in Theater View to group by first letter. If you need help with that let us know.

It is probably a good idea to aquatint yourself with Views and SmartLists. They are the keys to power in MC. Learning them will make many things possible.

[forbigd]

Thanks for your help. So much to learn....

I will try it some more, but my machine and Obsidian don't play well together. It is an ACER touchscreen, and when I grab a scroll bar on the left and scroll through the big artist list, it crashes. It works well and smoothly, but only a few seconds. It isn't the way I touch it either, it crashes just the same if I grab the scroll bar with the muse and drag it.
Maybe with more definable panes I can make the list smaller.

[gvanbrunt]

if you are getting a crash it is driver related. I would update your video and sound card drivers

[forbigd]

I would update your video and sound card drivers

Oh come on I thought, how can it be drivers? Mine are mostly current, I built it only a few months ago.......

Fresh new Nvidia driver and the problem went away, thanks.
You learn something you should have remembered every day it seems...

Don

[MrC]

Oh come on I thought, how can it be drivers? Mine are mostly current, I built it only a few months ago.......

Fresh new Nvidia driver and the problem went away, thanks.
You learn something you should have remembered every day it seems...

Something more to add to the memory banks... Software, and hence Drivers, are not like Apples and Milk that are good when fresh, and spoil when old.  There is no Freshness Factor.  Updates are typically done to solve known problems, add features, or accommodate new hardware.  Using the latest drivers, one hopes the number of known problems is reduced, but usually unknown problems are introduced, so the cycle is endless.

[gvanbrunt]

Oh come on I thought, how can it be drivers? Mine are mostly current

Yep. Been there. Done that. When you have a problem no one else seems to have (or only a few) it is most often drivers. Especially with crashes. Sometimes even putting in OLDER drivers fixes an issue. I've seen that with ATI more than a couple of times, but it can happen to any vendor.