Topic: Action Window/Tag/Image Option (Read 5673 times)

DocLotus · « **on:** July 23, 2014, 01:15:37 pm »

Action Window/Tag/Image (on lower left bottom corner) has never stayed put; it resets to Action Window every time MC loads & I have re-select Action Window/Tag/Image each time.

Is there a way to make the image the default upon loading MC?

If not, can an option be added to allow this to happen?

adamt · « **Reply #1 on:** July 23, 2014, 01:23:55 pm »

If I understand your question correctly, you can go to [Tools > Options > Startup > Startup Interface] and deselect "Show Action Window".

DocLotus · « **Reply #2 on:** July 23, 2014, 02:11:40 pm »

Hi Adam;

Tried that... Action Window still loads each time MC loads (possibly a bug)?

What I want is for my cover art to show up (automatically) in the bottom left corner of MC.

adamt · « **Reply #3 on:** July 23, 2014, 02:17:28 pm »

After you disable showing the Action Window on startup, close the options dialog and hide the action window manually. Media Center will remember the position of the action between restarts now, so the next time you launch it the Action Window will still be closed. It confused me for a bit as well.

I don't think It's possible to show cover art at start up because there isn't anything playing at startup. Which cover art would you expect to see there? When you start playing music, cover art should show up automatically though.

DocLotus · « **Reply #4 on:** July 23, 2014, 03:11:46 pm »

There appears to be no way to close the Action Window (no "X" to close or any right click option).

I have MC set to start "Playing Now/Current Play List" upon boot up. I want my Playing now cover art to show up in the lower left corner. The only way that currently happens is when I manually select "Action Window/Tag and click on the image in the top left corner of the "Tag" window.

adamt · « **Reply #5 on:** July 23, 2014, 03:54:43 pm »

When I try starting MC with your settings, as soon as music starts playing the cover art display pops up. Yours doesn't do this? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.

EDIT: This is the behavior I have

DocLotus · « **Reply #6 on:** July 23, 2014, 06:10:18 pm »

That is correct.. it does not.

When you say your cover art display pops up exactly where is it popping up?
A: Big cover art on the top screen just below the Amazon, AMG, Google, WiKi, YouTube tabs?
B: Smaller cover art on the lower left corner?

Your video looks like it is B: Smaller cover art on the lower left corner which is exactly what I want.

This has never worked for me going back as far as the very first version of MC to have Cover Art in the Action Window. This goes through many clean Windows & MC installs going back to Win XP, Vista, 7, 8.0., 8.1 & now 8.1 update.

It has been a long-time frustration that I have finally decided to look into.

Thanks for you kind help & quick replies;
Doc

DocLotus · « **Reply #7 on:** July 23, 2014, 06:15:48 pm »

I'm hoping it is just some obscure setting that I have overlooked. Reason I say that is although it has been a persistent problem for several years it may be a VERY old setting that has been carried over from one version to the next as I always re-import my library and all my settings with each clean install.

adamt · « **Reply #8 on:** July 24, 2014, 11:06:52 am »

I can't think of what setting would cause that. Anyone have any ideas? If you make a new test library, does it work better?

DocLotus · « **Reply #9 on:** July 24, 2014, 12:28:12 pm »

I used "Library Manager/Add Library" to a totally different folder and then did an import of my MP3's.

When the new Library played the same problem was there... no cover art in the lower left Action Window until I manually selected Tag & clicked on the cover art image.

One thing I should make clear is that once I select Tag & click on the Cover Art Image each song I play will correctly automatically show the Cover Art in the lower left corner Action Window. As soon as I re-boot MC the Cover Art will not show until I manually re select it once again.

marko · « **Reply #10 on:** July 24, 2014, 01:42:02 pm »

The tag window is not the place to be for the function you're after.

When playing music, look for "Display" in the lower left corner of the app, and click on it if it is showing as a line rather than a full square window.

If you do not see cover art, right click inside the display window and choose "Cover Art"

DocLotus · « **Reply #11 on:** July 24, 2014, 02:10:56 pm »

Hi;

When you say "lower left corner of the app" do you mean MC?

Are we talking about the bottom Tool Bar? If so, all that is showing in mine is the name of the currently playing song, MP3, time & size and nothing else.

marko · « **Reply #12 on:** July 25, 2014, 01:03:26 am »

In the lower left corner of the app, MC, where the action window is.

Have another look at Adam's video.. https://vimeo.com/101559696

Once he begins playback, the display window opens, with cover art (because that's how he has his set).
In the video, he minimises and maximises the display window to show you exactly what he is talking about.

Note that if you have the tag window open at the time you begin playback, the display window should still open, but will not replace the open tag window (because that would be annoying if you were working in there at the time). In those cases, you would expand the display window yourself, manually, as Adam demonstrated.

If you are playing audio and not getting the display window, something obscure is wrong. I say obscure as there would a lot of noise here if the display window had gone AWOL for many users. There's no setting for it. It's appearance during audio playback is default behaviour with no options controlling it, other than what it actually displays, as shown in my screenshot.

-marko

glynor · « **Reply #13 on:** July 25, 2014, 01:23:29 am »

Further information on Action Windows:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Action_Window

What you are looking for is the Display Action Window. This is displayed automatically whenever MC is playing files in Standard View, and Playing Now is NOT the currently active view.

marko · « **Reply #14 on:** July 25, 2014, 01:41:56 am »

Ha....

Quote

Playing Now is NOT the currently active view

Yes!

DocLotus · « **Reply #15 on:** July 25, 2014, 10:04:43 am »

Display Action Window does show up automatically in the top right of MC but is not where I want it. I want it in the lower left corner of MC WITH Playing Now as that is how I have MC set up to start playing the current play list & want my cover art to show up in the lower left corner.

The problem is that in order to get MC to come close to what I want I have MC set up like this...
Top Left... Tree.
Bottom Left... Action Window (with /Tag/Image manually selected for cover art).
Top Right... Display Action Window with Visualization/Spectrum Analyzer/Stereo.
Bottom Right... Player/List Style/Details View of my music.

Sooooo.... With the Display Action Window being occupied by Visualization/Spectrum Analyzer/Stereo the only choice I have to also see my cover art is to manually select "Action Window/Tag/Image" each time MC loads. Once selected, the cover art does automatically change with each song played but I have to manually select it each time MC loads.

What is needed is one of two new options...
1: Allow "Action Window/Tag/Image" to be the default upon MC start up. This will also need to allow double-clicking on the Image so it can be maximized full screen like the Display Action Window can.
2: A "Secondary Display Action Window" to allow two actions to take place at the same time. This will need to allow Playing Now to be the default upon MC loading.

adamt · « **Reply #16 on:** July 25, 2014, 10:43:34 am »

Ahhh, I think I understand what you're doing now. That's pretty creative. Does it look like this? Unfortunately I'm not sure of a way to load it automatically.

DocLotus · « **Reply #17 on:** July 25, 2014, 12:01:42 pm »

YOU GOT IT!!! Exactly.

The only difference is I'm using the ThunderStorm Skin with custom reverse colors (mostly Beige/brown) to match my desktop & True Launch Bar colors.

Now that we know what the problem is all that is now needed is a fix. Hope some new options can be forthcoming on this subject as it would really provide some great new functionally to my beloved MC.

Thanks to everyone for all you help on this.

Cheers;
Doc

glynor · « **Reply #18 on:** July 25, 2014, 02:03:49 pm »

Quote from: DocLotus on July 25, 2014, 10:04:43 am

Display Action Window does show up automatically in the top right of MC but is not where I want it. I want it in the lower left corner of MC WITH Playing Now as that is how I have MC set up to start playing the current play list & want my cover art to show up in the lower left corner.

Yeah. You can't do that. The Display Action Window closes when Playing Now is opened.

HPBEME · « **Reply #19 on:** August 30, 2014, 12:01:41 pm »

For me, the “Display” Action window has not automatically shown itself when I navigate away from playing now for quite some time now. I know at one time it did, but I cannot remember when it disappeared… maybe a couple of versions back?

Like the OP, I can click on the image in the tag window and it expands to fill the space. However, the Action Window Title says “Image”, not “Display”. When I change tabs, the cover art disappears, or is replaced by an image corresponding to the active tab (and the Action Window Title remains “Image”)

Any idea what I could have done to make the auto-“Display” functionality go away? I have scoured the options, and nothing appears to apply.

6233638 · « **Reply #20 on:** August 30, 2014, 12:52:58 pm »

If you have the zone open in a tab, you don't get the mini display view.

HPBEME · « **Reply #21 on:** August 30, 2014, 01:12:58 pm »

I have never used zones, but it appears one is created by default? In the Player menu, it shows “Player” as my 1 zone. Is that the problem? Should I rename it (if that is even possible)? Sorry for all the questions, but I simply have no experience with zones.

HPBEME · « **Reply #22 on:** August 30, 2014, 02:03:30 pm »

Never mind... now I get it.

Yes, I always have Playing Now in my first tab, and this disables the mini window for all other tabs (since Playing Now exists in a tab). I closed that tab, and sure enough, the mini display window automagically appears! Thanks for straightening that out for me.

But when I think about, why should this be? I'm not willing to give up having "Playing Now" in 1st tab, but it would be nice if the mini display window still showed when I navigated to my other tabs. Perhaps this should be a feature request.

6233638 · « **Reply #23 on:** August 30, 2014, 02:04:36 pm »

Quote from: HPBEME on August 30, 2014, 01:12:58 pm

I have never used zones, but it appears one is created by default? In the Player menu, it shows “Player” as my 1 zone. Is that the problem? Should I rename it (if that is even possible)? Sorry for all the questions, but I simply have no experience with zones.

There is nothing that you need to change from the default, and all playback happens inside a zone.
The issue is that having a zone (even the default one) open in a tab, will prevent the mini display view from appearing.

Here my Zone "0. Audio" is open in a tab - notice that there is no mini display view:

Once I close the tab, the mini display view returns:

Edit: Darn, you just beat me posting with a solution. I'll leave it up here in case it helps anyone else.

6233638 · « **Reply #24 on:** August 30, 2014, 02:18:33 pm »

Quote from: HPBEME on August 30, 2014, 02:03:30 pm

Never mind... now I get it.

Yes, I always have Playing Now in my first tab, and this disables the mini window for all other tabs (since Playing Now exists in a tab). I closed that tab, and sure enough, the mini display window automagically appears! Thanks for straightening that out for me.

But when I think about, why should this be? I'm not willing to give up having "Playing Now" in 1st tab, but it would be nice if the mini display window still showed when I navigated to my other tabs. Perhaps this should be a feature request.

Even if it is not visible, if it is open in a background tab, the display view is still being rendered to that tab.
Since the display view can only be active in one location, it cannot be active in the tab and a mini display window.

While it may not be an technical challenge to render the cover twice with music playback, changing that behavior could introduce some big problems for video - especially if you use multiple displays.

If you're the kind of person that uses tabs a lot, what you may find useful, would be to start using split view. (View → Split View → Show 2 Views)
I use a 2-pane vertical split, where the left pane contains all of my zones and the right pane is for navigation. (I actually have quite a lot of zones - they were edited out of the screenshot for simplicity)

HPBEME · « **Reply #25 on:** August 30, 2014, 02:35:45 pm »

OK... I guess I understand how that could be problematic.

And yes... I love my tabs, and use a 2X vertical split view as well, but not in same way as you. Thank you so much for spending time replying!

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Author Topic: Action Window/Tag/Image Option (Read 5673 times)