I don't claim to know the Action Window purpose, I'm not part of the development team. I'm providing my thoughts as to what I think the purpose should be. The Action Window is new and still rough and still in the requirements stage, I know that, and now is the time to voice these thoughts before it's too late.
Most of the Actions it offers access to, are all easily run from other places, so the actions offer nothing new, just another way to run them, with more mouse clicks than before.
It does have value as a display area. It would be nice if there were screen space to display all of the items at the same time, but screen space is limited, so compromises must be made.
A useful goal for any new feature should be to provide extra functionality, while not eliminating any existing functionality or making existing functionality harder to use on a day to day basis. That's a tough goal, as I've learned, we all use MC differently (that it can be used differently is a strength of MC).
So far, the Action Window has provided to me a view of the Playing Now, I like that. All the other views it offers have little value to me (note that I say for me, not everyone). I'd like the image view, but only if it shows the image for the currently playing now track, it doesn't.
The properties view is way too narrow to be of value to me.
Burn Cd eludes me. I select tracks in the track area and click Burn Cd and it says no files selected.
Anything in Tools eludes me. I select anything in Tools and I get a large MC icon in the Action Window area ??
I select Handheld and I see some text that says "Nero Fast Burning Plug In" ??
What is Playlists for? It brings up a dialog for Path? What is that for? Are these supposed to be the same playlists in the tree?
What are these things supposed to do, even if they are not working yet, what are they supposed to do?
If the Action Window is set for undocked, and out of sight, and I select some tracks in the track area and click a toolbar Burn CD button, up pops the Action Window with a picture of a stack of cd's and the only text being how many tracks I selected and the total time. So I kill that window and can burn a cd.
Moments later I select some tracks and click the Properties button on the toolbar, do I get an undocked properties? No, I get the same Action Window with the picture of the stackof CD's, no properties. Then I must start clicking to get the Properties display. Multiple clicks to get what should be one click and what used to be one click.
So far, the Action Window is more of an annoyance than a help for the way I use MC. The only new thing it offers me is Playing Now, and to use that, makes using Properties way harder, so I keep the Action Window as undocked, out of my way.
I can easily live with the Action Window configured to be undocked and set to Properties. I would very much appreciate it if I could use MC this way without the Action Window switching from Properties to other things.
I know MC can't please everyone at all times. Thanks for listening.
Some will agree with me, others won't. That is perfectly okay and the purpose of discussion. If you disagree, tell me why, don't attack me.