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[6233638]

I've been spending some of my time over the holiday break to finally set up some custom views for Theater View and force myself to stick with it and a remote for playback, rather than going back to the Standard View.
 
Overall, I'm very impressed with it, and happy with how it works now that I have it set up. There are a number of things that Theater View does which I would like to see brought to Standard View actually.
 

• I'm using this on a television, and from across the room, I do find the default size difficult to read. Theater View can be scaled from 50-200% and that seems to work very well though, so setting it to 150% solved that.
• I really like the way that everything is aligned to a grid in Theater View, and how things scroll exactly one line at a time. I wish Standard View behaved like this, as that's one of my long-standing annoyances with it. (doesn't scroll by lines, and doesn't obey the system preferences for scrolling)
  
• Groups of items seem to be static in Theater View, when they are dynamic in Standard View. When they are selected, it would be nice if they cycled through the items within as Standard View does.
• I really like that Theater View will skip categories if there is only a single item contained within. This actually solves one of the annoyances I have with Standard View.
  
• That being said, I would like to see an option for categories that prevents them from being skipped. I always want to see Artist → Album, even if I only have one album in my library.
  
• I would also like to see an option to set a custom header for a view. My albums are displayed by [Year] Album, with album on a second line, so the header is always [Year] rather than the Album Name. For TV shows, I would like to see "The Wire: Season 1" rather than "Season 1" as a header.
• Two lines is often not enough for album names - especially when I also have [Year] displayed. Cover art for music seems to take up the same space as poster art for films, so it seems like a third line could be added without changing the grid spacing at all, and just removing that extra gap.
• Oh god, please stop changing the letter case in the headers.
• I have the same problem in Theater View as Standard View, where the way that files are grouped, is also the way that they are sorted. Grouping and sorting should be separate. At least in Theater View, you can display different text from the way that items are grouped.
  
• Customizing Theater View can be a bit of a chore, as you have to exit Theater View, and are often three dialog boxes deep into the options when making changes, which you then have to close and re-launch Theater View to see.
  
• It would be really nice if the back button would bring up the exit options for Theater View when you are at the top level. Sometimes MC will get into a loop where it just switches between Display View and Theater View and I have to get up and hit Esc on the keyboard to exit. (which fixes it)
• Can I prevent the "details" view from showing up in certain views? If I'm displaying a list of music tracks and I select one, I want it to play rather than show me information on what kind of file it is.
• It would be nice to have an option that displays the "all" group only in a specific category. I have a view for films I have seen before which starts out with RatingStars() as its top level. In that view, I would like to be able to select all items - I might be looking for a specific film and not remember its rating. However, I do not want the "all" option visible any level deeper than that - it doesn't make sense there.
  
• I have a view for "downloaded videos" that I also use in Standard View. Because there are no controls for tagging YouTube downloads in Media Center yet, they all end up in the "Unassigned" group rather than being grouped by the channel they were downloaded from. This view is sorted by [Date Imported] which works in Standard View, but in Theater View, the "Unassigned" group always displays at the end rather than being sorted. (and is actually called "Unassigned" rather than being empty)
• Is there any way to have the Description field fill the available space? By default it is very small, when you highlight it, it expands, but it has to be selected to view the full text. I would actually prefer to see all other fields listed from the bottom-up, so that they remain in a fixed position.
  
• It would be neat if fields on the "info" screen would perform a search when selected - such as the Director field shown in the previous images.
• The same problem with low-quality thumbnail images persists. Selected and animating, animation completed.
  
• I'd like the option for some views to remember your position. I have one view which lists ~150 videos, and every time one finishes playing, I have to scroll through most of them again to get back to where I was.
• Some views only seem to allow for a single line of text, and I haven't yet figured out why that is. Episode 12 here is how I would like all items to be displayed.
  
• I would really like to be able to move the "Playlists" item inside my Audio group rather than having it as a top-level item. (I don't use playlists for video)
• It would be nice if hitting the back button while at the top level of a category (e.g. Audio) would select the rollers (e.g. Albums / Classical / Podcasts) rather than taking you to the top-level view. (Audio/Video/Film)
• Similarly, it would be nice if the rollers were the default item which is selected when you enter a category so I could just hit left/right to select the view I want, rather than hitting up first.
• It would be nice to have an optional A-Z list down the left-hand side in some views (e.g. Albums) to speed up navigation. (whether you use it for selection, or simply an indicator of where you are when scrolling through a large list of items)

[connersw]

I'll have to go back thru your whole post when I have more time, and I can follow along in Theater View.  Real quick though, I wanted to let you know that you can do this with Expressions.

• I would also like to see an option to set a custom header for a view. My albums are displayed by [Year] Album, with album on a second line, so the header is always [Year] rather than the Album Name. For TV shows, I would like to see "The Wire: Season 1" rather than "Season 1" as a header.

In your Theater View options, edit the Library field you want to customize and change it to an Expression.  In Expression to group by, just use the same Library field.  In Expression to display, customize it how you would like it to look.  Think of it as the Thumbnail text tip/trick in Standard View. 

For example with TV shows.  In Items To Show, click on the view you want to customize.  In Details, click on Season -> Edit.  Change the Type radio button to Expression.  In Expression to group by: [Season].  In Expression to display: [Series]: Season [Season].   

You'll notice I added text there since it actually only displays "1" for Season, not "Season 1."  You can also use HTML tags to change font properties (bold, italic, etc) just like you can in Thumbnail text in Standard View. 

[6233638]

Thanks for the suggestion, but it doesn't do what I'm looking for.
 
I already use different expressions for grouping and how the groups are displayed.
But how they are displayed is not what I want the headers for those items to be.


For example, my Albums view uses:

Code: (Expression to group by) [Select]

formatdate([Date,0],yyyyMMdd) [Album]

Code: (Expression to display) [Select]

<font alpha="50">delimit([Year],/],/[)<//font>
[Album]
Which results in the header being [Year] on its own, as the header only uses the first line.
What I'd like to see would be:
 

Code: (Header to display) [Select]

[Album]

[apostos]

• I really like the way that everything is aligned to a grid in Theater View, and how things scroll exactly one line at a time. I wish Standard View behaved like this, as that's one of my long-standing annoyances with it. (doesn't scroll by lines, and doesn't obey the system preferences for scrolling)
  

You can jump more than 1 line if you want to (I use the 'Channel Up, Down buttons as TV is not a viable option in my fair land). The number keys can also move you through a view. As do the 'Home' and 'End' buttons on my remote.

• Oh god, please stop changing the letter case in the headers.

I believe this is implemented to provide visual feedback. Oddly enough, I don't even notice it anymore.  ::)

• It would be really nice if the back button would bring up the exit options for Theater View when you are at the top level. Sometimes MC will get into a loop where it just switches between Display View and Theater View and I have to get up and hit Esc on the keyboard to exit. (which fixes it)

The 'Exit' button on my Harmony One remote is configured to bring up the exit options.

• Can I prevent the "details" view from showing up in certain views? If I'm displaying a list of music tracks and I select one, I want it to play rather than show me information on what kind of file it is.

Pressing 'Play' will play the highlighted song. Pressing 'Enter' displays the track info, as does the 'Right Arrow' button I believe.

• I would really like to be able to move the "Playlists" item inside my Audio group rather than having it as a top-level item. (I don't use playlists for video)

You can 'Nest' the 'Playlists' item, though you may not like the default folder view. I prefer it where it is as I use that feature a lot.

[6233638]

You can jump more than 1 line if you want to (I use the 'Channel Up, Down buttons as TV is not a viable option in my fair land). The number keys can also move you through a view. As do the 'Home' and 'End' buttons on my remote.

Oh, I wasn't saying that was a bad thing - I like the scrolling behavior in Theater View.
I dislike the scrolling behavior in Standard View because items are not sized to fit the available space, and ends up cutting off the top or bottom of the information being displayed.
Standard View doesn't scroll by lines, but goes by a certain number of pixels instead - even if your mouse is set to scroll a page at a time.

I believe this is implemented to provide visual feedback. Oddly enough, I don't even notice it anymore.  

It already changes in brightness and draws a big white rectangle around the selected items. This is unnecessary and really hurts the visual presentation.

The 'Exit' button on my Harmony One remote is configured to bring up the exit options.

I don't have an exit key. Everything important should be navigable via four directions, enter, and back.

Pressing 'Play' will play the highlighted song. Pressing 'Enter' displays the track info, as does the 'Right Arrow' button I believe.

One of my annoyances which I had not listed (I was going to put it in a separate post) is how inconsistent the playback controls are in Theater View.
Play should always do this, or never do this. (in my opinion, never)
If playback is stopped, play will play the selected items, but if music is already playing, or paused, play will pause/resume playback instead.

You can 'Nest' the 'Playlists' item, though you may not like the default folder view. I prefer it where it is as I use that feature a lot.

Strange, I don't get the option to nest the Playlists or Blu-ray items.
 


Edit: Well, it looks like I can add a "playlist group" to a regular view, which lets me add the Car Radio playlists (though not the root playlist view) which is all I really make use of right now, so that works.
Edit 2: Though items in my playlists are showing out of order when I do this? ?

[raym]

• I'd like the option for some views to remember your position. I have one view which lists ~150 videos, and every time one finishes playing, I have to scroll through most of them again to get back to where I was.

Yep. You may have seen me bang on about this with Matt.  This is one of my biggest gripes. The cursor position used to always stick, in EVERY view, and then part way through v18, it broke.

Matt says it's a complex problem. I don't pretend to understand why. It used to work flawlessly.

This, and many other points you raise are minor in the whole scheme of things but sometimes its the small details that make all the difference.

[JimH]

Try reporting it again in the bug thread when we're back at work Thursday.

[6233638]

Because everything gets cropped to a fixed aspect ratio in Theater View, it would be nice if series art supported transparency.