INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: nila on May 24, 2003, 09:43:36 am
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Hiya,
I've started using MC for a lot more than my music and am also starting to set it up and recommend it to my friends as an overall product with suggestions on how and what to do with it.
The following features are still lacking however in terms of being able to organise all my media and they are really needed:
- Date features - these need to be put back in and finished off so they're intuitive and easy (be able to search by days, weeks, months, years, etc not seconds) or by specific date ranges
- Custom Properties groups - I've started to use MC to organise a lot of different media types which was your plan and it works great but it's messy and cluttered at the moment to have it do each of my media types. I have a huge properties pane with loads of different fields that dont apply to one type but apply for another.
ie. I've started using it to organise all my TV Series - it works great - I've got all my friends series on it but all the properties for TV Series are mixed in randomly with the other properties - I have these fields: Series Name, Series, Episode Number, Description, Quality, Rating, Year - I'd want them all in their own group called: TV Series - not having to be mixed in with the other panes.
This is a BIG one if you want to give it as much flexibility as possible.
- List types - This is a great idea but until some sort of GUI is added to it, trying to remember previous entries to then write them in again is just too much effort for me - I use MC to organise my files to make my life easier, as a means to an end - not as an end itself. I dont want to be having to try to remember previous list values.
- Ability to mark files as 'offline' so that when we do a 'clean library' it expects them to be offline and doesn't remove them from our library if it doesn't find them.
- An option, even if just a registry option, to have the properties field lists give us ALL values in the library in the drop down list, not just in the files we have selected.
For some people having only the one displayed might be good if they have limited memory - I bought a Gig of memory so I wouldn't run out, but MC isn't letting me take advantage of this :(
U guys are definitely pushing the boundaries with it and I'm constantly finding new uses for it.
I REALLY hope these features can make it in sometime soon - v9.1? None of them are that that big that they should have to wait for v10.
They'd make it that much more intuitive and easy to use.
Thanks for a great product.
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this is probably posted in the wrong place but had no idea where else to place it . . .
Deleting files in 'Playing Now' does not offer the option of deleting the file from the disk drive or the library as well as from the playing list.
Could this be added?
I hate seeking out the folder view just to delete a file I have just heard based on it's sound or content.
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Hi Lisa,
If you hold the SHIFT key when deleting in "Playing Now" view, the dialogue with the option to delete also from the library will pop up ;)
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Listening to: 'Over My Head' from 'Ocean Beach' by 'Red House Painters' on Media Center 9.0
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Heres my vote for custom properties groups. For me this is the only thing currently lacking organisation wise.
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Is there any easy way to remove a certain part of each tag, on each of a group of files, without disturbing the remainder of the tags?
I.E.: if you have an album with all the songs named
01 songnameA
02 songnameB
03 songnameC . . . etc,
How can I remove the numbers only and not the remainder of each individual name?
Having to go through editing each song in the album(s) individually is tiresome! Any tricks?
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First make sure your file naming template is set the way you want (ie artist - album - track # - name). Now highlight your files, open properties and find the "rename file from properties" option. Option may be under Tools>More Tools as well...it's there somewhere. Of course, your tags need to be complete.
10-27
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Thank you,
but I have already used that method where I could.
Somehow I've gotten alot of files where the file name is just as messed up as the tags so this does not work on those. Just looking for an easy way out . . .
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Post an example of what the messed up filenames look like (are they all messed up in the same way?). Maybe someone can come up with a way to fix them.
Rob
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Post an example of what the messed up filenames look like (are they all messed up in the same way?). Maybe someone can come up with a way to fix them.
Rob
Yes they are messed up in the same way (groups of files anyway, not ALL the same) . . example:
Artist - Album - Name - Track
Pink Floyd Animals 01-Pigs On The Wing 01
Pink Floyd Animals 02-Dogs 02
Pink Floyd Animals 03-Pigs 03
Pink Floyd Animals 04- Sheep 04
Pink Floyd Animals 05-Pigs On The Wing 05
File name and tags both have same error on song name and I have had to manually edit out thte track number from each song title. Very time consuming with lorger groups of error'ed files and albums.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but this can be fixed by simply doing this:
rename from properties:
artist - album - track # - name
gives us:
Pink Floyd - Animals - 01 - 01 - blah blah blah
Then do:
fill properties from filename:
artist - album - ignore - track # - name
Then do:
rename from properties to again fix the file names
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Artist - Album - Name - Track
Do the files really have that much space between the dashes (hyphens)? Or are they more like:
Artist - Album - Track #-Name - Track #
In any event, I would suggest downloading the most recent beta of Tag&Rename. I believe it has a 30 day trial. It has a feature that, AFAIK, MC doesn't have. It lets you specify a fill properties from filename mask and has an option to ignore part of the filename.
Once you get the mask setup properly to use your wacky filenames to fill the tags, then you can use the tags to rename the files.
Rob
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No...it will give you...
Pink Floyd - Animals - 01 - 01-blah blah blah
which makes the last - 01- hard to extract and eliminate because MC still thinks it is part of the name. I think it's going to remain a manual edit operation. If you could insert spaces in the right spots then Nila's template should work.
10-27
edit: On 2nd thought, it may all depend how MC handles the delimeter "-", so maybe it would work.
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artist - album - ignore - track # - name
This works in MC? If that's the case, then it can be used to fix the files, instead of T&R. LisaRCT, you just need to play around with the Fill Properties mask until it matches the filename and you should be able to fix the tags and then use the corrected tags to rename the files.
Rob
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Nila -
These may not exactly be organizational features but I'd sure like to see them:
1. Ability to hide fields in the property page and the Visible Columns list.
2. When you rigth-click a column have "Hide Column" at the top of the menu. I like to place special columns at the start of the fields shown and hide them - "Filename" is a good example. Having to right-click/Visible Columns/field is a pain when all you want to do is hide the column you just clicked. If your setting up a new view or playlist the current method of hiding and moving columns is really cumbersome. Especially as MC will not scroll the Content pane when your dragging a column.
3. Make Visible Columns a dialog with two check boxes for each field Show and Do Not List with move up/down buttons for arranging the field order. It would also have a button to show all fields and a child dialog for setting the sort order.
4. Cover art needs work. Right now if you have your cover art as a sub-folder under your Music folder MC will not import new cover art you have to manually import it from Explorer.
a) When you associate an image with an album MC should automatically set the artist and album fields for the image file. Right now its a real pain to get thumbnail browsing of albums working logically because you have to manually link the image back to the album.
b) This is a feature/organizational request. When you double-click a cover the album starts playing and instead of displaying a static image full-screen it would start a slideshow that you could configure: show image associated album ---> [Artist] - [Albumn]; cycle all images associated with current album ---> [Artist] - [Album] - *; cycle all images associated with current Artist ---> [Artist] - * - *; cycle All.