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Author Topic: How do I view column browsers on a playlist?  (Read 3135 times)

flight16

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How do I view column browsers on a playlist?
« on: September 07, 2015, 05:03:49 am »

When viewing a playlist, I would like to see the Genre / Artist / Album column browser panes above the playlist.  How can I do this?  I couldn't find anything in "Customize View..." or the "View" menu.
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Arindelle

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Re: How do I view column browsers on a playlist?
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2015, 06:48:08 am »

Panes are a UI "view", of your database, grouped by default on ALBUMARTIST(auto) or just ALBUMARTIST and ALBUM fields,  playlists or smartlists  are not.  If you have your playlists organized by playlists groups or sub-groups, then there is a way to get around this. If you don't you should, before trying this - or just create one and call it All Playlists or something of the sort and move your PLs in under it. (otherwise you have a lot of little boxes to check ;) )

What you can do is is choose a blank view and choose the Panes option or just start using the out of the box panes view and saving it as a different view.

Go into customize view and add a rule using Playlists as the field, then "is all" in the middle box and tick the root which would be the name of the Playlist subgrouping in the right box.

Then what I do is I add a category (which will create a new column) but choose to add a Playlist Group. Then choose the "dump" group(s) you are using, as I mentioned at the beginning. This way you can choose the playlist or lists you want to look at or work on easily from the pane itself without searching for it.

What you see in the data below the panes will, by default, break the playlist order and divide it by album artist/album of course.  You can break the grouping if need be, or choose different sort orders, grouping orders, like you do with a more conventional View., and include advanced filter options options if required. You could show the playlist at the same time in the left pane or open a secondary window if needed, if you want more screen real-estate at the same time if thats what you are looking. Never tried, but I do not believe you can change the playlist order from a view.

Hope that will get you started, I'm sure others have found different ways to do this too.

I use this all lot for admin smartlists. You could also further sub-divide these up and create a sub-views under a new tree item if you need to load different media types
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flight16

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Re: How do I view column browsers on a playlist?
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2015, 08:30:57 pm »

Thanks for the reply and I'm glad to know there is a way to do this, although it's quite a bit more complex than I expected.  I will try your approach.

It would be a nice feature if you could customize a playlist view just like you do the tree items under "Audio."  I don't know or care how it's implemented or why it was done that way, but it seems quite inconsistent to me as a new user.
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blgentry

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Re: How do I view column browsers on a playlist?
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2015, 09:09:08 pm »

Why do you want to do this?  Is it mainly for easier access to your songs as you build the playlist?  If so, there might be an easier way.

JRiver has split views.  You can set up a set of splits horizontally.

View > Split View > Rows
View > Split View > Show 2 Views

Then select a Panes view in the top split.  Go to the bottom split, click it, and find the playlist you want to work on.  Roll the header of the Playlist away by clicking the double up arrow in the upper right corner.  Now you'll have just the songs in the list showing.  Finally, adjust the border between the splits to show as much of each one that you want to see.

I think that will get you what you're looking for *if* this is for editing.

If it's to get a better idea of what's in your playlist, you can limit your view to just that playlist if that will help you.  Just a few ideas for you.

Brian.
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Arindelle

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Re: How do I view column browsers on a playlist?
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2015, 05:59:20 am »

Why do you want to do this?  Is it mainly for easier access to your songs as you build the playlist?  If so, there might be an easier way.

Not sure why the OP want to do this, but I use this like this as it allows one to edit/create/merge multiple playlists at the same time. I Think it depends on if you have a real lot of playlists and/or if you have a really large library. Its actually quite eay to set up if you know about views, but it is not obvious that Playlist Groups can be used in views -- fields and expressions are obvious, playlist groups less so so just though I'd share it. Also has a side benefit of not needing the tree, which I use as little as possible (or just use it for the tag window or playlists.

I use the multiple window split screen sometimes, as you know longer need the tree visible, you can use the playlist window full screen so you don't have to open a second window. Or you can use the second window for a second playlists which allows me to   work on a new one and create a new one based on already created playlists. This is also sort of cool with Dr. Who playlists, but this is pretty new so I'm just playing around with this
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flight16

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Re: How do I view column browsers on a playlist?
« Reply #5 on: September 08, 2015, 08:11:24 pm »

I want to use the playlist as a filter for playback.  I have several large playlists (eg. work, evening, morning).  Then, at work, I want to select work to filter my library and choose an album to listen to.

I like browsing my music in the 3 column layout as I care about it on the album level.  I don't want to see a list of 1000s of songs when I'm choosing what artist or album to listen to from a given work/morning/evening/etc playlist.
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Arindelle

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Re: How do I view column browsers on a playlist?
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2015, 05:41:20 am »

I want to use the playlist as a filter for playback.  I have several large playlists (eg. work, evening, morning).  Then, at work, I want to select work to filter my library and choose an album to listen to.

I like browsing my music in the 3 column layout as I care about it on the album level.  I don't want to see a list of 1000s of songs when I'm choosing what artist or album to listen to from a given work/morning/evening/etc playlist.
my suggestion might be overkill with only three playlists (you can just check the three of them -- no groups required btw), but it will do exactly what you want. Give it a try :)
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