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[Kurt Young]

Now that there are Auto-smartlists, will you be doing away with the "system" playlists? (Top hits, recently played, and recently imported)

Is there any chance that the different icons will come back under the media library?  Like the little CD icons representing albums, the little people icons representing artists, etc?  They're all the same now,  

I notice the My Computer list in the left pane now, but what exactly is it good for?  What have people been using it for?

[Matt]

Is there any chance that the different icons will come back under the media library? Like the little CD icons representing albums, the little people icons representing artists, etc?

Probably.  Just remind us again in a few weeks if they haven't changed.

I notice the My Computer list in the left pane now, but what exactly is it good for? What have people been using it for?

You can browse your computer, and drag-n-drop into playlists, CD's to burn, etc.  It's also nice if you're not a huge "Media Library" type person, and would rather just play a directory of files.

Take care Kurt.

-Matt

[DocLotus]

Hi KurtYoung;

I notice the My Computer list in the left pane now, but what exactly is it good for? What have people been using it for?

I use it all the time similar to Explorer.  I also often use it to 'play' folders of images without actually making a long play list for graphic images.  That is neat when I want to see pictures as a slideshow at the same time as music is playing from a playlist.

[Matt]

Oh, and if you manage your files from inside Media Jukebox (move, create directories, delete, etc.), it'll keep you library synchronized, which is pretty handy.

[nila]

Please give us an option to customise the icons for each file type.
Right now when I use MJ I have the same icon for say my .m3u playlist as I do for the actual mp3's themselves. This is pretty confusing when inside of explorer.

Or at least the ability to give playlists one icon, maybe video's another, audio another and images another etc.
An icon for each type of format rather than each individual format.

For v9 could you please also introduce more wizards and automation tools to deal with our whole library, I know right now alot of it can be done through various schemes, but this takes knowing about all the methods that MJ has to offer.

U have tools to analyse replay gain but they're hidden several layers deep, it'd be  nice if in v9 a lot of these features were brought to the surface and put in a menu.
U have the tools menu with extra programs in it, but you also need to have a toolbar that has tools for the files themselves like: Analyse Replay Gain, Find Duplicates, etc etc. Tools for the actual files rather than external programs.

[RedJ]

Something I've always wished MJ did, but never bothered to communicate (my bad) before, and would like to see in MJ9 or earlier is an installer that remembers the settings from my previous install.

I always install with custom settings, because there are certain file types I don't want to associate MJ with (sacrilege, I'm sure) and I don't want to regenerate the shortcuts ever.  So every time I get an MJ update (which to JRiver's credit is all the time) I have to go through the installation process and uncheck file types, recheck others, and uncheck create shortcuts.  

It would be nice if there was installer recognition of a previous install, and give you an option at the very beginning to just go with the previous install settings.

The new forums are really nice, BTW.

[Doof]

I gotta go with Nila on this one.

I'd really really really like (need?) to see different icons for different types of files. Audio, Video, and Image.

And I really really think it's time to retire the brown jukebox icon. XP is capable of such nice icons. It's a shame not to take advantage of that.

[Kurt Young]

I gotta go with Nila on this one.

I'd really really really like (need?) to see different icons for different types of files. Audio, Video, and Image.

And I really really think it's time to retire the brown jukebox icon. XP is capable of such nice icons. It's a shame not to take advantage of that.

Three cheers for this suggestion!  

It's just weird having the same icon (and filedescription:  Mediajukebox.file) for everything that is associated with MJ.  Audio, Video, Playlist, and Images should all have different icons.  

I'd love to see an "Association Studio" built into MJ that I can use to customize what icon shows for a given association, as well as what its file description is.  

My reasoning for this:  

1.  As far as the Association Studio idea goes, sure, it could be done via Windows, but then you have to go through ALL of your associations and hope that you find the MJ ones.  If MJ's Association Studio only showed the associations that it was capable of controlling, you could edit them all easily right then and there.  Plus, you could make little templates that you could apply easily to different filetypes.

2.  Do a search of your hard drive for .mp3, .m3u, .avi, and .jpg -- In the results window, sort by "type" -- they're all the same type, "Mediajukebox.file"

3.  Currently, when you change one type, they ALL change.  Yuk!

The brown icon is, IMHO, not so great.  v9 is a great opportunity to "get pretty!"

[nila]

Add my vote for an installer that remembers file types already associated.
You release so many builds of MJ constantly that reselecting the file types each time is a bit of a pain.

Dont get me wrong, I LOVE the fact you release so many builds with bugs fixed each time some are found, I just dont like having to manually re-select each file type each time.

[JimH]

I always install with custom settings, because there are certain file types I don't want to associate MJ with (sacrilege, I'm sure) and I don't want to regenerate the shortcuts ever.  So every time I get an MJ update (which to JRiver's credit is all the time) I have to go through the installation process and uncheck file types, recheck others, and uncheck create shortcuts.  

It would be nice if there was installer recognition of a previous install, and give you an option at the very beginning to just go with the previous install settings.

Try just an ordinary install without uninstalling.  That's what I do and it does remember the file types I want.

[sekim]

Same as Jim. If your just installing a new version it keeps everything the same as the previous version. Even view schemes that I've made up over time.

If, however, you're jumping back and forth between v8 and v9 your hosed. The files aren't saved because of the uninstall and differences between the two versions. I think.

[Jaguu]

Another suggestion for v9:

1) That MJ may be able to properly install itself for every user account on the system, so that in a family type of environment every user can set their own preferences and have their personal libraries plus of course shared libraries for everyone.

2) Also it would be a nice option to have the data folder of MJ program files selectable.
I have 4 OS installations on my pc (2x XP, 2x W2K, 2 productive and 2 test installations). But I have only one folder for Documents and Settings on Drive D:\. Whatever OS I boot I would be able to access the same up-to-date library and playlists. So I would personally move the data folder of MJ to D:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\J River\Media Jukebox\Data to make it accessible to every OS I boot.

This also has the advantage that I just have to backup my D:\ folder with my personal data and the M:\ folder for my music.

[Doof]

I'd also like to see MJ detect the system folders already in place for Music, Video, and Pictures, and use those by default for File Locations, rather than always creating C:\Music on a fresh install.

And why does only music get the whole File Location treatment? My system (XP) has a My Documents folder with My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos under it.

All three of these locations can be determined from the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" key (Under XP).

[dragyn]

I would have to agree with Doof on the My Pictures, Video, and Music.

And I have to agree on the systray icon aswell. I would like to see a surfing jukebox in "pretty" colors. Oh and the separate icons for audio, video, and image too would be nice.

Something "I" would like to see is to be able to use skin features but also be able to not have skins enabled. Just like you do with the Player window. Like change text colors, backgrounds, and alternating grid colors, etc. if it's in the xml.

So many things, so little time.

[Kurt Young]

<snip!>
All three of these locations can be determined from the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" key (Under XP).
<snip!>

Not to be nitpicky, but we've been messing with shell folders a lot here at work lately, and I can say, from experience, that the folders located in the key you describe seem to be dynamically generated from folders mentioned in:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

I suggest targeting the User Shell Folders key as a place to do your edits.  I'm not a Windows Genius or anything, but with the amount of tinkering I've been doing in this area lately, I figured I'd pop in with this.

BTW, thanks for the suggestions for uses for the My Computer tree in MJ... I've started using it, and it's pretty handy.  I just needed to retrain myself to use it instead of an explorer window.

Lastly, as of preview 5, the icons I mentioned in my original post are all CD-shaped now ( ), and the auto-smartlists still won't die.  Die default playlists, die!!  

(Don't misunderstand, I love them, but I've renamed some and deleted ones that I don't want/need... and they keep coming back!  I'm freaking out! )

[Doof]

Actually, I did know about the User Shell folders key, but it didn't seem to have the Video one on the system I was at, so I mentioned the standard Shell folder key instead.

[RedJ]

Try just an ordinary install without uninstalling.  That's what I do and it does remember the file types I want.

This has never worked this way for me.   In fact, I almost never uninstall first.  :-/

In fact, just to make sure I didn't miss some functionality change in an update since the last attempt at this, I just did an install, and I ended up with the file default file type associations (including ones I don't want), Media Scheduler activated, the shortcuts created.  I get the same result whether I install from Auto Update or straight from the FTP.  What could I be doing differently from you?

It just occurred to me, installing the latest v9 beta:  Could my not using the Media Scheduler be the reason the install doesn't recognize which file associations I have set?  I don't run Scheduler because I don't have a real reason to, and don't like anything extra running in the BG if it's not essential.

[nila]

Some features I'd like to see for v9:

1. Feature to control tempo etc as sometimes I like to speed up tracks when I am listening to them for practising dance routines to. I think you'll find something like this could get dance studio's interested as they could organise their music and play it at the required speed.
2. The whole burning side of MJ totally re-done.
I'd like to see support for every single burner that can support it to be able to write cd-text. Not just a limited select few. I'd also like to see the ability for tracks to be mixed in together when burnt to create a continual album. Take a look at Nero, it gives options to do things to the track before burning it. MJ is specialist audio software, it should include all these features Nero offers as they are all directly related to music which is MJ's forte.

[ChicoSelfs]

Some features I'd like to see for v9:

1. Feature to control tempo etc as sometimes I like to speed up tracks when I am listening to them for practising dance routines to..

I would like that too but it's possible to make that in real time without having to save the file?

[nila]

Another feature - Full Multimedia keyboard button support, when MJ is in or out of focus.
If Winamp can do it then there's no reason MJ shouldn't be able to as Winamp isn't an MS product either.

[michel]

Try just an ordinary install without uninstalling.  That's what I do and it does remember the file types I want.

It remember the files you want but not the files you don't want ! Each time I install a new build I have to remove asf, avi, rm, wav, wma, etc... associations.

[Doof]

Another feature - Full Multimedia keyboard button support, when MJ is in or out of focus.
If Winamp can do it then there's no reason MJ shouldn't be able to as Winamp isn't an MS product either.

I've never been clear if this is something that was programmed into Winamp, or if it was programmed into the keyboard drivers.

I have this working on my system at home using Girder and mjextman commands. It works great. Of course, I realize that most people don't want to have to run Girder just to get this working, but in my case, I had it running anyway for use with my remote control, so it was no big deal.

[JimH]

asf, avi, rm, wav, wma

Those are the default file types.  You're probably right that we could ignore the defaults after you've set it once.

[JimH]

I've never been clear if this is something that was programmed into Winamp, or if it was programmed into the keyboard drivers.

This is usually done by the keyboard manufacturers.  How about bugging them?

[nila]

Add my vote for ignoring the defaults.
I dont want MJ playing my .avi, .wav etc files.
I like it for my music collection and .avi's aren't usually in my music collection, they're just small sounds in windows that I still want dealt with by wmp 6.4, no organisation for them wanted.

Once I've installed once and set file type preferances I'd like to never have to do it again

[Doof]

Nobody says you have to import your entire file system.

I let MJ import 3 folder.

My Music
My Pictures
My Videos

Everything else stays where it is. I don't want MJ importing sound effects from Windows or games or whatever. So I restrict it searching only those three folders.

[nila]

I dont mean from importing it.
I mean when you double click on say a .wav
MJ registers this as default and it adds it to my library.
I dont want this.
I want any mp3's I double click to be added but not .wav's

This isn't a problem by just unselecting .wav's
the point is it's not remember this choice each time we do an install.