INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 13 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: johnnyboy on May 25, 2009, 10:58:20 pm
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Trying to setup some new View Schemes in MC to take advantage of all the different settings and options we have these days and finding it really confusing.
I basically want to create some views that I have seen in the past while using MC a while ago whereby it isn't thumbnails and panes, it is just all the tracks grouped together into thumbnails so I would have say::
Thumbnail for each year - I double click that thumbnail and it shows me all the artist albums in that year, I double click on that and it shows me each album that that artist released in that year.
Basically just clicking my way through thumbnails to narrow down a selection in the same way you click through panes - I cant for the life of me find it now though.
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Also,
how do I place a limit on the new albums view scheme to only show the last 5 albums? Cant seem to see a way to do it with the view scheme limits?
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Woah - JUST figured out what the 'Select Location to Change' thing was about.
This is REALLY confusing. It looks just like any other option on the page and really isn't AT ALL clear that this one option controls everything else on the page.
This really needs to be made to stand out more and be far more obvious.
Maybe two vertical tabs at the left side of the screen saying 'Top' / 'Bottom' or just something that makes this make sense to Mr Joe Bloggs because right now it confused Mr Sys Admin me.
Also - how come I get to choose group by options for this bottom part now but not for the top part?
I'm finding this whole thing really confusing? I dread to even imagine what some beginner computer user would think when presented with this.
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A small useability request - any chance we could be made to be able to drag, re-order the tabs like we can do in browsers these days?
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At risk of sounding patronising, I guess that what you're experiencing is 'just part of the learning curve'.
Don't be afraid to mess around with some of the less obvious options to see what effect they have on the view scheme, something that's helped somewhat by the the fact that changes update in real time behind the options dialogue.
You've probably sussed most of it out by now, but just in case, and for anyone else who may be slightly put off by the customise view system, maybe the following will help:
Adding a new view to the tree
To add a new view scheme to the tree, click on View in the top toolbar, hover over "Add View", and then click on 'Add library view...'. You will then be presented with the following dialogue:
(http://www.theganghut.co.uk/pics/ia/13/info/addview-1.jpg)
This is a list of preset view schemes, with a thumbnail image and description. If you see one there that fits the bill for you, the quickest way to add it is to double click on the thumbnail of choice.
The view will be added to the tree using the name as shown below the thumbnail, in the place on the tree specified in the 'Location' field.
If you wish to change the name, or the location, single click to select the view, make the required changes in the two fields below, and press the OK button.
For the purposes of this guide, I have chosen the 'Empty View'. When you choose this option, remember to give it a name, otherwise it will get added as "New library view" and you'll need to rename that in the tree directly after the view has been created. The view is added and you are immediately shown the "Customise View" dialogue.
Customise Current View
The customise current view dialogue for our new 'empty' view looks like so:
(http://www.theganghut.co.uk/pics/ia/13/info/addview-2.jpg)
Here, we can see from the "View as" field that the view scheme is set to use the classic MC "panes on top, details at the bottom" layout, also, note that the "Show Categories In This Order" box is empty.
Try clicking in the "View As" field and notice that the options presented here quite limited. Leave this set to 'Panes and Details' for now, and return to the categories box.
Categories (panes)
Categories are panes. To add new panes to your view, click the add button, and you will see a new dialogue that looks like so:
(http://www.theganghut.co.uk/pics/ia/13/info/addview-3.jpg)
- Library Field: The library field is the most used and easiest to explain. With a few exceptions, any field you have in your database, be it a bog standard, regular field or a custom, calculated data field, is present in the 'Select Field' list, so, you find it, select it, choose the sort order you desire, and if you would like grouping, specify that also, and press OK to return to the main customise view dialogue. 'Matching' is used for Playlist group and Search list type categories, and specifies how you want MC to treat multiple selections in the pane. If any of the settings options do not apply to a given field, they are disabled. In setting up this view scheme, we will be using the Library field option exclusively, but before moving on, I'll skim over the other options.
- File Path: This option allows you to add a pane that effectively contains a folder tree of the files in the list. If you leave the path field empty, then the tree is built using the drive letter(s) as the root, or starting point, otherwise, any folder you specify here becomes the 'virtual root' or starting point, and only files contained within that folder and it's subfolders will be listed.
- Playlist Group: This option allows you to select a playlist group from the tree, and all playlists and smartlists contained within that group will be listed in the pane. Only files that exist in the playlists and smartlists will be shown in this case.
- Expression: Expressions are a powerful and polarising option, and too much to get into in this post. If you're interested, there's a brief introduction here (http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Database_Expressions), an example here (http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Database_Expressions_AND_OR_And_XOR) and a full list of functions here (http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Media_Center_expression_language).
- Search list: This option allows you to add a pane that contains several search rules, each one being selectable in it's own right and the file list will adapt accordingly. For audio, imagine a pane with things such as 'Recently Imported', 'Most Played' 'Never Played' etc. etc.. You give each search a name as you would like it to appear in the pane and specify the rule you'd like the pane to apply. The beauty of these is, that you can specify different sort rules in the searches and when selected, they override the sorting specified in the "Customise Current View" dialogue
So, getting back to our view scheme building, the first pane we want is the [Date] field. Select that, press OK, we are returned to the Customise view dialogue, and a second or so later the [Date] field shows up in the categories box. Go through these steps another two times to add the [album artist (auto)] field and the [album] field. If you are not happy with the order of the categories, you can drag and drop them into the order you desire.
You should now find that that there are many new choices in the "View As" menu...
(http://www.theganghut.co.uk/pics/ia/13/info/addview-4.jpg)
We are going to choose the "Date Thumbnails" option for our view scheme. Having done that, you will notice the view behind the dialogue change, the panes have now gone, and in their place, there are thumbnail fans representing each year...
(http://www.theganghut.co.uk/pics/ia/13/info/addview-5t.jpg) (http://www.theganghut.co.uk/pics/ia/13/info/addview-5.jpg)
(click image to view full size)
Everything else in the customise view dialogue will be at default settings, press the OK button and click around in the view scheme for a bit....
Each category (or pane if you prefer) now becomes a view in its own right. In a pane view, you would select a year in the year pane, and the artist and album panes to the right of the date pane will filter according to the date selection, as will the file list below the panes. This "Date Thumbnails" view works in the same way, it just displays the information differently. Double click on a year, and the view will change to show thumbnails of artists with music in that year; double click on an artist, and the view will change to show thumbnails of that artist's albums from that year. We are now in our third and final pane; if you double click on an album, the file list will open up to show the tracks on that album, double click on the album a second time, and the file list will close. Note that as you progress through the view, a breadcrumb trail builds up at the top of the view and you can click on these stages to return directly to that part of the view. When you're done clicking around, return to the date thumbnail view, hover the mouse over the word "Date" at the top of the view (the 'view header') and when the drop menu appears, choose 'Customise View' to open the customise view dialogue once more...
Fine tuning the view
You will have noticed that when we chose to use the 'Date thumbnails' view options earlier, the customise view dialogue changed a bit. The "Columns to show" options have been removed, and a new option, "Select location to change" has been added above the category picker. This option always defaults to "Top" and is a little misleading as the file list (the bottom) defaults to hidden.
(http://www.theganghut.co.uk/pics/ia/13/info/addview-6.jpg)
Start at the top
Contrary to my screenshots above, leave the sorting option at 'Default' for best results, and move over to the options on the right...
thumbnails
- Size and Spacing: These are purely down to individual preference. I always leave spacing set at zero, and find it easier to use the thumbnail slider in the view header to set the size the way I want.
- Text: Here, you can specify the text shown beneath the thumbnails. Again, this is a little confusing to begin with as you'll notice that it defaults to "[Name]". When setting up any library view that is not 'Panes & Details', [Name] in the thumbnail text refers to the the name of the category itself, not the actual [name] field in the MC database. As an example, try adding this expression as a second line beneath [Name] in the text options: if(isequal([name],[date]),,[date]) (It asks MC to check if [name] and [date] are the same, and if so, to do nothing, but if different, show the date. In the date view, you will only see the date, but in the other views, you will see the artist or album name, with the date underneath. We used to be able to set different thumb sizes and different thumb texts on a per level basis, but sadly, that is no longer possible and these settings apply to the entire view.
- 'Show as fanned' and 'Show stack indicator': Again, these are down to personal preference. With regards to the stack indicator, you'll know what that is if you use stacks, and if you don't use them, it won't matter to you which way this is set.
View Details
- Always show files: When selected, the file list is always visible, just like a traditional 'panes & details' view.
- Display an alphabet: With this option selected, an alphabet is displayed at the top of the view, and clicking a letter, L for example, will select the first item beginning with L, clicking L again will select the next item beginning with L, and so on. Again, purely personal choice, personally, I never use it.
Tree
- Allow tree selection: This option only applies to views that contain sub-views. For example, you may have an 'Artist/Album' view as a sub-view of audio. When selected, you will be able to select this view in the tree and it will display to the right of the tree as expected. If this is unchecked, MC will never load this view, instead, when selected, it will expand the view and select the last used sub-view contained within, just like the default behaviour for MC13 when you click on "Audio" in the tree.
- Image: Use this option to set an icon to be displayed beside the view entry in the tree. The list is limited, but adequate, and non-configurable.
- Position: This option allows minimalistic control over the view scheme position in the tree. You get to choose from top, bottom or automatic. Automatic sets the scheme alphabetically within its chosen group, the other two are self explanatory.
- Support tree browsing: Enable this option and as well as having the 'click through' thumbnail view, you will also be able to drill through the view using the tree. When selecting a drilled to item in the tree, the view automatically switches to list view to display the selected files. Click back on the main view entry in the tree, and the view reverts back to the thumbnail system. The best of both worlds? You will have to try it and decide for yourself how you would like this set. I don't use it much, but apparently, it makes tagging via drag and drop a bit of a breeze.
<cont...>
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Advanced
- Set rules for file display: Click here, and the MC search wizard launches. You can use this to enter rules as you see fit. For example, if you do not want any multiple artist albums, and say, no classical music either, then you would create a rule here along the lines of: -[genre]=classical -[album artist (auto)]=multiple It's a powerful option and should be used in conjunction with the next option...
- Use parent scheme rules for file display: Imagine this is a sub-view of 'Audio'. If you uncheck this option, then go into the 'set rules' option exlained above and set a rule that states [media type]=Image, then you will be creating an image view scheme within the 'Audio' branch of your library. If you're 100% happy with the files returned by the default audio filter, you can safely leave this option checked, and the 'Set rules' option completely untouched and empty. If, later, you find things you would rather didn't show up in this view, open up the 'Set Rules' option and add the necessary exclusions.
- Filter in both directions: A bit complex to try and explain in words, this (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46917.msg321606#msg321606) is the best I could come up with at short notice to explain bi-directional filtering. If you find something better, let me know and I'll update the post.
- Lock View: If you enable this option, it doesn't actually lock the view. If you edit a locked view, when you click on the OK button to commit your changes, MC warns you that the view is locked, suggesting that you save the edited view as a new view instead. Also present on this dialogue are buttons to save the changes anyway, or to discard all changes and save nothing.
Saved Views
- Load a view...: Click on this and the thumbnailed 'View Selector' we saw right at the start is shown. Double click on one of the thumbnails, and the view is loaded, keeping the customise dialogue open, allowing you to see how the view has been created, and to tweak it to suit your own needs if necessary.
- Save this view..: Allows you to save the current view settings. Give the view a name and a description, and it will then be available for selection, with an automatically generated thumbnail, in the view selector we saw at the start.
Finally, if you change the "select location to change" option in the top left corner from 'Top' to 'Bottom', you will be able to set the options you require for displaying the file list. I think that these are self explanatory, pick your columns, set any grouping settings you may want, set sorting options, click OK, job done!!
One point worth noting here is that if you find yourself repeatedly setting up the same list columns, you can save them as a preset. Check out the options under the 'Preset' button. A handy little time saver hidden in there, to be sure.
Well, there you go, in more than 12000 characters, hence two posts, adding a view scheme (hopefully) explained. Hopefully it makes sense, and someone finds it useful.
Have fun,
-marko.
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Also,
how do I place a limit on the new albums view scheme to only show the last 5 albums? Cant seem to see a way to do it with the view scheme limits?
Open the customise current view dialogue.
In the right hand options area, expand "Advanced" and click on "Set rules for file display"
Click on the "Import / Export" button
Paste this in there: [Media Type]="audio" ~sort=[Date Imported]-d ~limit=5,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~sort=[Date Imported]-d
Click OK three times.
Job done?
-marko.
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I hadn't sussed it out, I'd given up and dont think I would have from the dialog box - "show categories in this order" doesn't make me think of panes or grouping at all. The word categories just isn't at all suggestive of what it represents.
Anyway, thanks a LOT for this, it is exactly what I had needed. Was totally lost and had given up before.
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Open the customise current view dialogue.
In the right hand options area, expand "Advanced" and click on "Set rules for file display"
Click on the "Import / Export" button
Paste this in there: [Media Type]="audio" ~sort=[Date Imported]-d ~limit=5,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~sort=[Date Imported]-d
Click OK three times.
Job done?
-marko.
I did this and the display now shows me what looks like the number of albums and at first I thought it worked perfectly but now when I click on some of the 'albums', at the bottom for the files contained within it shows only one track for that 'album'.
Basically its not limiting it to displaying full albums in here I presume?
Any way to fix this so it just shows me the most recent full albums added and doesn't include random tracks?
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Thanks marko for this walkthrough. It should be included in help wiki.
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Adding a new view to the tree
To add a new view scheme to the tree, right click on an existing tree item, preferrably the parent of your new view scheme, and click on 'Add library view...'. You will then be presented with the following dialogue:
Thanks marko, I always learn something from your posts. I don't get a CD and DVD Listings library view option which I can only assume this is one of your presets. Any chance to get a copy of the view?
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Yes, this should be added to the Wiki. Great work Marko.
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great stuff marko
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Got it how I want it and it looks great now on this big screen.
Its a view scheme called Soundtracks I'm looking at at the moment, all my cover art soundtrack albums at the top, the bottom showing the details of each album I click on and its a split screen that is super narrow on the right hand side showing me playing now (just the track names).
Looks awesome and am loving it.
I can make sense of it now thanks to the tutorial but I still find it all pretty complicated lol.
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You're welcome. Glad it's helping.
Open the customise current view dialogue.
In the right hand options area, expand "Advanced" and click on "Set rules for file display"
Click on the "Import / Export" button
Paste this in there: [Media Type]="audio" ~sort=[Date Imported]-d ~limit=5,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)] ~sort=[Date Imported]-d
Click OK three times.
Job done?
-marko.
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I did this and the display now shows me what looks like the number of albums and at first I thought it worked perfectly but now when I click on some of the 'albums', at the bottom for the files contained within it shows only one track for that 'album'.
Basically its not limiting it to displaying full albums in here I presume?
Any way to fix this so it just shows me the most recent full albums added and doesn't include random tracks?
Did you use copy and paste, or did you type from scratch? It sounds as though the 'minus one', in bold blue in my quote above, has dropped it's preceding minus sign.
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Thanks marko, I always learn something from your posts. I don't get a CD and DVD Listings library view option which I can only assume this is one of your presets. Any chance to get a copy of the view?
See attached file. Extract the .jvi file and save it in the "Saved Views" folder that you'll find beside your .jmd library files. If that folder does not exist, just go ahead and create it. Once saved, so long as you have it in the correct location, you should see it in the 'add library view' view selector. Note that this view is set to "Ignore parent scheme search rules" and will list every file contained in the CD database regardless of media type and regardless of where you add it in the tree.
-marko.
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[Media Type]="audio" ~sort=[Date Imported]-d ~limit=30,-1,[album],[album artist (auto)]
Thats what I have (changed it to 30).
It's def just showing random tracks and not just full aubms?
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OK, I'm pretty sure it's showing all the tracks from the 30 albums. Having got those tracks, try applying some sorting, and/or grouping to get them back into some kind of order that suits you.
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Don't be afraid to mess around with some of the less obvious options to see what effect they have on the view scheme, something that's helped somewhat by the the fact that changes update in real time behind the options dialogue.
Agreed on the 'somewhat' and it's been a sore point for me when working with a complex viewschemes that display the entire library as it can take forever to get done. Ooh i'll twdiddle this thing here, wait for the refresh, nope, bad idea, wait for the refresh again ::)
Course it really works out better if you have either a huge screen or two monitors but if you have just one, then you cant really see all that well, what happens behind the viewscheme dialog. Agreed its more intuitive this way but its so much slower compared to the less intuitive way it was done in v12.
The workaround i have is setup the rule to show just one album, yeah, just the one and things become much more workable.
otherwise, as always, great job on the explanation :)
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See attached file. Extract the .jvi file and save it in the "Saved Views" folder that you'll find beside your .jmd library files. If that folder does not exist, just go ahead and create it. Once saved, so long as you have it in the correct location, you should see it in the 'add library view' view selector. Note that this view is set to "Ignore parent scheme search rules" and will list every file contained in the CD database regardless of media type and regardless of where you add it in the tree.
Thanks!
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Would really appreciate some quick help if possible guys!
Just upgraded from MC12 to MC13, and now for some albums I see 2 or more "album thumbnails" for the same album. This happens in albums that have different "Album Artist" in the "Album Artist" tag (the actual tag in the file)... These "Album Artist" tag differences within the same album did not matter in MC12 and I saw only 1 thumbnail for each album when in "Panes and Album Thumbnails". Any suggestion? Anyone knows which database field MC13 uses as criterion to group albums in "Album Thumbnail" view?
Thanks a lot!!!
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Nothing has changed in v13 wrt thumbnails. If there are different album artists for the same album, it shows up as that many thumbnails.
If you want to restrict it to just one thumb per album , then you will need to change the view from Album thumbnails to just thumbnails and use a limit smartrule to display just one file per album.
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Dear hit_ny,
Thanks for your help!! strange though, MC13 do show album thumbnails different in my case (would show you the pics but could not find a way to upload images here sory for my amateurism!!!)
A thing I notice is that for the albums that appear many times in MC13 and not in MC12 the following happens:
* in MC12 the library field "Album Artist (auto)" is (Multiple Artists)
* in MC13, the library field "Album Artist (auto)" is the same as in the file tag, so for a same album there are different values in the "Album Artist (auto)" field...
I think this is the root of the thumbnail display problem...
Any idea on how to fix the "Album Artist (auto)" field?
Thanks a lot again,
ReTango
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To post pictures on the forum, you need to host them somewhere else imgshack, flickr etc and then add the url here.
* in MC13, the library field "Album Artist (auto)" is the same as in the file tag, so for a same album there are different values in the "Album Artist (auto)" field...
This is a little curious and not sure how it has happened.