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[kstuart]

Basically everything in MC's Library operates at the "file level".  Levels above the "file" are all metadata tags, not physical database entries (in almost all cases).  The file is the "atom".

Given this, the MediaCenter GUI is basically views.

When someone posts that they need to do something in MediaCenter, the reply from MrC, Marko or Glynor most of the time is a customized view often including an expression, based on MediaCenter's internal expression functions and/or regex.

This has some really great advantages in that you can group audio, video or image files in any imaginable way.

However, to do anything past the default settings requires either being a professional (or amateur) computer programmer - and spending a lot of time studying the view system and the expression functions, or else having the aforementioned very helpful Beta Team members do it for you.

I have found that other software, including other media players, bridge the gap between those two situations by having people export (and upload) their setups - just the same way that MC does with skins and plugins.

The reason this is effective, is that a thousand different MC users don't actually want a thousand different setups.  They just have a different subset of tasks they want to do.

For example, most MC users have no classical music.   In contrast, MC user Vincent Kars wants an MC view that is right for classical music.   He wants "Composer" to be prominent, as well as "Work" ("Piano Concerto No. 3").

I am sure that when Vincent is finished, it will be just fine for my own classical music listening.

So, instead of both of us (and many other MC users) having to spend many hours doing the same thing, it would be helpful if Custom Views can be exported and uploaded, just like Plugins and Skins.

At that point, all those Views become Features of MC.  A reviewer can then say "And you can download an excellent Classical Music View to setup MediaCenter just right for classical fans."

Seems a win-win to me.

[JimH]

Right click on a view and choose Customize.  You can save it when you're done.  Please see the attached image.

[MrC]

This has been discussed before.  There are two issues I recall: 1) views are related to their location in the tree, and 2) views rely heavily on fields, and custom views often rely on a user's custom fields.

While you can export and import a view, you still will have to go create the custom user fields the view employs, and populate that data.

[marko]

I made some observations regarding the load/save system and its perceived shortcomings a few years ago that are still relevant today...

The saved library views system used by MC is too complicated imvho.

I notice from your screenshot that you are only seeing the "Empty View", when I would at least expect you to see the default "Genre, Year, & Rating" view as another option too. Generally, saved views do not show up in the "load a view" options because they've either been saved in a non-default location, or they list different media types than the parent view you're trying to add it to.

Here are some facts that may, or not, help:

• When saving a view, the dialogue opens with the default "Save" directory already selected. There's also a "Browse" button there. If you use that, and save the view somewhere other than the default location, the view will not be available in the "Load View" options. If you wish to load the view at a later date, you must save it in the default location.
• When a view is saved, the media types listed in that view are also recorded. The idea behind this is that by doing so, when you choose to add a view to the "Video" branch of the tree, the "Add library view" dialogue will only present you with thumbnails of views saved with videos in them. So, if you save a view from the video branch that contains video files and picture files, you will only be able to load this view as a child view of a view that also contains video and picture files. Similarly, if you save a view that contains audio and cover art, you will not be able to load that saved view as a child of a view that contains purely audio files and no album art. Hopefully, I'm explaining this well enough
• No default actions are asigned to the .jvi file extension in Windows, so double clicking on one in Explorer will not work

I find all of the above far too tiresome and tend to do exactly as Lasse_Lus described and just drag and drop and copy. Then I open up the customise view dialogue and make any tweaks that are needed. Doing things this way, it's extremely easy to copy a view from one media type node to another, where for sure, initially, it may show zero files, but does not require much adjustment to get it working properly, and if there's not a good 'copy' candidate, I'll just start from scratch.

If anyone needs any help with the "customise view" dialogue, I posted a pretty comprehensive review of all the options on offer earlier this year, so, if you're not sure about anything, have a look at this and see if it helps.

-marko.

Also, from glynor last year...
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=72514.0

-marko

[kstuart]

This has been discussed before.  There are two issues I recall: 1) views are related to their location in the tree, and 2) views rely heavily on fields, and custom views often rely on a user's custom fields.

While you can export and import a view, you still will have to go create the custom user fields the view employs, and populate that data.

Have the export include the custom user fields.

The data would populate in the same way it does now if a user adds a custom field.

... I didn't know that the Save actually saves it as an independent file.   The comments by other posters explain why the .jvi is not posted by people as a substitute for a recipe on how to modify the current views...

[MrC]

You're under thinking/over simplifying.  MC would have to then also create those new user fields.  It would have to deal with field name collisions.  It would have to export the field definitions too.  It would be safe to also perform a library backup too just prior to import.  Where would the data from the user-custom fields come from?  Your tags won't have the saved values, and your tags might have them named differently.  Your files would then possibly be altered when an imported field definition is configured to "Save file in tags when possible".

It's probably safe to assume the smart, good, honorable developers have already thought of doing this, but realized it is larger and more complicated than they care to undertake.

[kstuart]

It's probably safe to assume the smart, good, honorable developers have already thought of doing this, but realized it is larger and more complicated than they care to undertake.

Half of the reason to make a suggestion is to find out that is already available by going to ____ ...

The other half of the reason is the assumption that all the smart, good and honorable people in the world surely have not thought of everything already.

Also sometimes they have thought of it, but the time was not right (mp3 players existed for years before the iPod, smartphones and apps existed for years before the iPhone, and tablets existed for years before the iPad).

[marko]

All valid points. I don't think it's too much to ask though, that if a jvi is saved using only stock fields, we should be able to share it. The most obvious way to do that is to allow someone to download the file to their desktop and double click it to load the view, which would also copy the jvi file to the default Saved Views folder.

The default saved views folder does not exist until a view is saved for the first time.

This means that currently, if we want to share a view, we need to make it available, direct the user to the default saved views folder, instructing them to create it if it does not exist, then over to MC and guide them through the add a view process.

By the time you've gone through all of that, you need to go for another shave!!

-marko

[MrC]

Probably the best way to share these views and setup would be to share a Library.  A user could load the library, look around, make some modifications, and test drive in their environment.