Working with the Playlists in the Pane creates one problem: the View can not be changed from playlist to playlist. One change affects the entire catalog. But if one playlist is a big choral piece and the next is piano solo, I can't customize them... Can I?
You mean the files display below the Panes up top right? What do you want to change per playlist? Sorting? If it's sorting, you can add sort options to the Panes and then click on the kind of sorting you want to do. It will apply very quickly. I don't know of a way to save the sort order per playlist *and* display it in a Panes view.
Using a Panes view for Playlists is kind of backwards in a way. Because it does not honor playlist order (I don't think) and doesn't use any of the options from the regular Playlist view. The reason I suggested that you use it is that Panes have a flexible way of showing their files, using thumbnails, no thumbnails, album thumbnails, etc. Plus it's pretty easy to drill down into directories using Panes (which you also asked for). Panes have a lot of options that are well suited to displaying, sorting, and browsing lots of files.
It's also possible to build several Panes views for playlists and set up each one to sort differently. Did you know you can open multiple tabs in MC? So you can have a tab with Playing Now, another tab with an albums view, another with a Panes Playlist, and maybe more tabs with extra Panes Playlist views with different sort orders. Clicking between tabs is really fast (just like a web browser).
The way I'm seeing items listed in the Pane Playlist does not reflect how items are listed in the Root Playlist, including the way items are sorted.
Right. I actually didn't understand what you meant the first time I read it. Now I see what you mean: The numbered order of the playlist is not retained in a Panes view. This is a known "feature" of Panes views. I actually forgot about it until I started writing this post. Sorry about that.
Also, semi-related: some of the items in my collection have multi-channel options. When I import the album in, it imports both 2 channel and Multi into the same album, so a 5 track disc becomes a 10 track disc. Is there a way to either make the multi-channel invisible or to merge them?
Presumably you have some SACD rips that have 2 ch and multichannel layers. I've definitely experienced this. There are many solutions. Here are a few:
1. Tag each of these as separate albums. Select the 2 channel tracks and call them "Album Name (stereo)". Then select the multichannel tracks and name them "Album name (multichannel)". When you change their album tags, they will be separated into two different albums, so they will be truly separate.
2. Build new top level views like "Albums stereo" and "Albums multichannel". Write rules into your views like "[Channels] is equal 2" , which will only show you the songs on albums that are 2 channel (stereo). Built a similar rule into your multichannel view to only show tracks with channels greater than 2.
3. In a Panes view, add a column for channels. Then select what you want to see.
Each of these has it's limitations. You can kind of figure out what's important to you and use the solution you like.
Brian.