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[gkerber]

How many panes do most people use?  3? 4?  In other words how many levels do most people make their view schemes?

I ask since although I don't use the panes, I keep thinking they might be useful, but I lose too much screen space...that is another discussion, not for here....

Anyway, I'm throwing out an idea, I have not really thought it through, nor do I know if MC would even be willing to listen, but what the hell, this is a discussion board.

What if the tree was gone as we know it now on the left, what if it became the contents of the 1st pane?  That would take pane space, but it would be neutral since the whole left frame for the current tree would not be there.

And then maybe the PlayingNow/Properties/CoverArt could be another pane - and then the rest of the view scheme panes would be there to the right of the tree and/or playing now and/or cover art panes.

This would give us the entire width of the screen to view track information.  I'd lose number of visible tracks having the panes always there, but I'd gain in the number of fields displayed per track.

Would my idea jam up the panes to much?  Maybe a button for the TreePane and a button for the PlayingNow/Properties/CoverArt panes?  These hide/unhide buttons could give more room for other panes when not needed if a user had very many view scheme levels.

Again, I am just thinking out loud, any thoughts?  Is this a good idea?

[Markeau]

I at least need to see both the contents of the library AND playlist contents and/or cd queued files for burning ... I just can't believe MC9 won't support this.

[dragyn]

You can hide the tree. That would free up some room for panes now.

I have one view scheme that has 7 different panes in it. I'm not gonna say what they are but it comes in handy for detailed searches.

I also use the tree a lot and I know a ton of other users do to. That's why they brought it back after the panes where there. So removing this would be a big no-no.

One thing I don't like about panes (besides the reseting problem discussed numerous times) is that you have to be in one to see other columns in full detail.  IE: The tree view doesn't show <All> as a search.

[gkerber]

The tree would not be gone, the tree would be in the first pane.  It would be there.

[gkerber]

Ah, tree in the pane would help. I do like to be able to hide the properties / action window and have the full height for the tree though.

Then give the panes more room and the tree gets longer.

[phelt]

From a functional standpoint the tree _is_ a pane. It's just separated from the rest. But selections within the tree appear to cause cascading changes just as the other panes. Someone please clarify if I'm getting that wrong - it's just my observation.

Like many folks on this board I've been thinking a lot lately about all the UI stuff, including the potential "disappearance" of the tree. I can't get over the idea that tabs - actually something similar to tabs - are the most efficient way to utilize available display area, maintain accessibility to a wide range of functions and display methods, and minimize interface space. By "similar to tabs" I mean buttons which control what is displayed in the upper window - panes, playing now, video/image, etc. They might also be drop-downs in order to allow subselection - this is not unlike the current functionality of the pane column headers. Similarly, tabs for the Properties section would be welcome.

Please note that I'm not trying to take credit for these ideas as they have been put forth in different fashions by multiple contributors to this forum, and they have existed in other interfaces for a few years now. My sole interest is in seeing a version of MC which kicks the cr4p out of all other media players  

back to gkerber's questions:
I use 3 panes.
I'm trying to visualize how well the tree would fit within a pane. As I mentioned above, to some degree this is already the way I'm using the tree - I select a tree-level like images or audio and use the panes to filter down. This potentially becomes more dicey when you start trying to drag and drop, between drive locations and specific view scheme branches for example.

Initially I don't particularly like the idea of a separate pane for Playing Now/etc. If you've already got a big viewport, why not make it easier to switch what it displays?

[digitaltrapper]

I use 6 panes for audio (subtype, genre, mood, artist, year, and album..)

Man, I may not be the best at using panes but this seems like a complicated way of organizing things. So if you want to listen to Bruce Springsteen you have 6 steps before you get there?

I keep my panes simple. Since I don't use Genre (yet) I just have Artist (grouped by 2) then Artist, then Album.

If I get the time, maybe I'll get around to classifing songs by mood or situation. untill then...

[nila]

Hmm,

I use 5 panes for audio:

Year/artist(group 2)/artist/album(group 2)/album

as my default.

I like the tree seperated but what I think it needs to have done is to be like MS Outlook.


Have the groups to replace the top level tree nodes - that way - they're ALWAYS visible whereas now they can disappear as you browse tree's.

It'd make burning and CD's a LOT easier - for the items in that group they could be set to 'icons large' so we'd have two big icons for both CD rom drives - easy to drag and drop to - for the view schemes we'd have small icons - perfect to let us fit lots in.

Setting it up like the outlook bar style just means that at ALL times we have ALL main areas available which is a big step up I feel

I do LOVE where the media library is though in terms of grouping and stuff - it looks perfect to me!

[LisaRCT]

I have  pane in my lower back . . . .  think I pulled a muscle.

[nila]

I have pain all over - my body is on fire - I am sooo badly sun burnt it's not even funny. Taking a morphine derivative - all it's doing is making me tired - I still hurt like crazy!!

Wish I was black - or anything except 100% white boy!!

[fex]

Especially if you take a hot shower...

[nila]

supposedly though hot showers are good for sunburns - I had a warm bath though and it really felt great to be honest - i thought it was just Aussies taking the piss but it worked


I am in PAIN!!

[Doof]

I have an Images view scheme that uses 8 panes.

Date (year) / Genre / Sub-Genre 1 / Sub-Genre 2 / People / People / Places / Events

Yes, text gets cut off a little bit, but it's still really easy to figure out what's what.

Basically I only use it when I really want to narrow down my search. Like... All cave diving-related pictures taken in 2003 with me and my friend in them while I was in Florida taking my Intro to Cave class.

In this case it would go like this:

Date (year) : 2003
Genre : Diving
Sub-Genre 1 : Cave
Sub-Genre 2 : <all>
People : Me
People : My friend
Places : Florida
Event : Intro to Cave Class

Of course I don't need to specify any criteria for fields I'm not interested in. I could just as easily ask for all pictures of me in Florida in 2003 and get all of the pictures I would from using the critera above, but I'd also get a whole bunch more.

[Markeau]

I use 8 panes, too; but, 4 of them are legacy MMJB tags which really helps to easily find desired tracks:
Genre, Artist, Album Artist, Album, Mood, Preference, Situation, Tempo.