INTERACT FORUM
More => Music and Movie Services => Topic started by: JimH on August 18, 2008, 04:28:28 pm
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Tonight's build (hopefully) will have a feature moved over from the Performer Media Center player we're working on.
It has a row of text links:
Artist Album Image Wiki Youtube [More to come]
It's right next to the thumbnail slider, so they're easily accessed.
Some of these links have been in the last couple of MC13 builds, but they were buried as right clicks in some subterranean level.
What they do will be obvious, but for now, here's a quick description.
Artist -- links to google.com to search for the artist
Album -- same for album
Image -- links to images.google.com and searches for the artist
Wiki -- links to the artist page at wikipedia.org (this has interesting results sometimes)
Youtube -- links to youtube and searches for the artist.
We expect to make this somewhat customizable in a future build.
So... as always, use it for at least 15 seconds before you post feature requests or rants. This means you, glynor.
We know that these should not appear in all views, but we've tried to err on the plus side for now. We'll trim it back in a build or two.
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Jim, if you needed a dollar, you should have just asked.
(we'll explain later)
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It's awesome. I'm loving it! ;D
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Jim, if you needed a dollar, you should have just asked.
Is it too late?
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So... as always, use it for at least 15 seconds before you post feature requests or rants. This means you, glynor.
I'll try to go the extra mile and give you whole minutes of usage this time. ;D
It's awesome. I'm loving it! ;D
I see how it works. Doesn't apply to Mr. ChriZ, unless he's got some sorta magical time-travel device. Mmmm Hmmmm.
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9. NEW: "Links" included in view header of any view with files.
Any chance the Links could stay present even when you've browsed to one of them?
Also...
When I'm in Audio, I have "Google Images Wiki YouTube"
When I'm in Images I have nothing.
Shouldn't Audio not have Images listed under the Links bar, and Images should have it listed?
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9. NEW: "Links" included in view header of any view with files.
Spent some time playing with this, and I really like it. Great, simple new feature. I love how it handles playing videos from YouTube right in the player. Very slick. I also noticed Right-Click --> Links --> Manage Links (currently grayed out). I'm intrigued, to say the least! I played with it on both Audio and Video files (didn't see anything available on Images). Great pre-set choices.
I have seen two random error messages when using it (dialog that offers Debug or Cancel), and then actual empty "Pop-Up Windows". Unfortunately, I didn't capture these (they weren't super helpful though, just referencing a script error and a line number). These both happened with files with weird [Name] tags: "Done with AutoMKV 0.80a http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=854221" and similar (my MC13 library isn't very well tagged because I'm keeping it at the defaults mostly and just auto-importing a subset of my files).
Otherwise, I only have a couple of tiny little things I'd suggest:
- Option to open Links in a New Tab would be super-swell! I looked around but if it was already in there you put it somewhere I didn't think to look.
- It'd be great if it was smart enough to recognize search queries that end in ", The" or ", A", etc and trim that portion off when it performs the search. I enter all my Artist names in that way (I know MC can ignore articles, but other players can't so I keep them stored that way). As is, when I select a song by "Apples in Stereo, the" and hit the Wiki link, I get the Wikipedia "No Page Matches" result. The proper result is usually right there to click on in the suggestions, so it isn't a huge deal, but it would be slick if it automatically trimmed those extra articles off for you.
- Along those same lines, in a text-input field in an internal-browser window the Backspace key still does the Back command when you have multiple characters selected. So, if I select "Apples in Stereo, the" and hit the Wiki link, it takes me to the Wikipedia "no article matches" screen with the search bar. If I then highlight the ", the" part of the search and hit Backspace (as you would in any web browser), instead of deleting the text, MC goes "Back" a page (back to the file listing in this case). If I want to actually use the Search box to search for something else, it works as long as I don't try to select some characters and hit backspace (backspacing normally one character at a time works fine).
- For Google Images (and all supported image "playback") it'd be great if one of the options presented in the Popup Dialog was Copy File to Clipboard. I use Google Image Search all the time to find cover art. In Firefox/IE, when I find a cover art file I like, I usually just right click and choose Copy, and then find the files in MC and do right-click --> Cover Art --> Paste from Clipboard. It'd be even nicer to do this right through MC.
- For Videos... For most of my TV Shows, sending the [Name] tag to IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes isn't going to be very helpful. It'd be slick if it could somehow read the value of the [Media Sub Type] field and pick which field to send based on that information. So, for TV Shows, it could send [Series] instead (or maybe [Series] - [Season] or something). Perhaps this could just be solved by the future "Manage Links" capability though...
And then one not-so-tiny thing I'd suggest... My standard internal-browser complaint (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47777.msg327544#msg327544), which I won't bother to rehash here other than to say: I can't use this on my HTPC, because the font is too small to read from the couch (without a full-page zoom feature). That's unfortunate because that's where the Links feature would really be the most useful. Either a more "integrated" approach (that'd be hard) or a simple option to open Links in an external browser would solve this problem for me.
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When I'm in Audio, I have "Google Images Wiki YouTube"
When I'm in Images I have nothing.
Shouldn't Audio not have Images listed under the Links bar, and Images should have it listed?
While I agree that it might be nice to have some Links for Images (including Google Images searching perhaps on the [Keyword] field), don't take it away from Audio. Searching for Artist and Album artwork is nice.
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While I agree that it might be nice to have some Links for Images (including Google Images searching perhaps on the [Keyword] field), don't take it away from Audio. Searching for Artist and Album artwork is nice.
Ah! Of course! I should have thought of that. I use Google Images all the time for that reason.
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Had a quick play with this and I like it!
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Some comments:
1. I think the links should change to underlined or change color on mouse over and display a small tooltip that would briefly explain what they do.
2. I wonder if you should add an option for hiding them. Some users might not want to see company names like Youtube or Google all the time. Link Bar could be one of the features in Options > General > Advanced.
3. I too would like to be able to open the clicked link in a new tab or in a separate full browser window. The back and forward buttons don't work nicely when I want to quickly switch between the library view and the web view.
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I kind of wish I could specify what to run the search on, actually.
Like for Google and Wiki, [Artist] is fine. But for Images, I'd generally like [Artist] - [Album] to be passed along. And for YouTube, [Artist] - [Name] (to search for a music video of the song I have selected).
Also, it would be really nice to put my own links up there, like a Lyrics search that could do a Google search of [Artist] - [Name] + lyrics.
Of course I can't really think of any good way to make it configurable at run-time, which would be the ideal. If we could add our own custom search links to the bar then it would be pretty easy to just add an "Album Image Search" link to it if we wanted.
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Very nice. It will be interesting to see how this evolves. Is this using IE for the browser? I assume it is not using the default browser (FF3) I have setup.
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Otherwise, I only have a couple of tiny little things I'd suggest:
Shorter me:
0. Nice!
1. Option to open links in another tab would be sweet.
2. Selecting characters and hitting Backspace inside a Text field in the internal browser does a Back command instead of deleting the text.
3. Don't include things like ", the" or ", A" as part of text strings sent to the external links.
4. I suspect that some level of configureability for the links will be possible. It'd be awesome if this was on a per [Media Type] + [Media Sub Type] basis. If this isn't possible, then perhaps at least on a per-viewscheme basis?
5. Can't read the font on my HTPC and the internal browser is klunky. Perhaps a global Open Links in External Browser option?
Sorry I get so verbose sometimes. I really do actually try, but when something is new I tend to gather my thoughts as I go. Not that you've ever noticed that or anything. ::)
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If this isn't possible, then perhaps at least on a per-viewscheme basis?
I'd really like to see this. It could be part of the snazzy new whizz-bang "edit view" menu: Select links to show
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Is this using IE for the browser?
Yes.
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This works very well. I love the artist and album tab. Not so much the other ones, but I don't use them much in MC13 either. Could you maybe reveal the the artist and album links so we could add them to vanilla MC ;D
Wiki -- links to the artist page at wikipedia.org (this has interesting results sometimes)
From wikipeida on "wiki"
A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.[1][2] Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.
wiki=!wikipedia!