I've used 9.0 in Hairstyle mode with a remote on my HTPC for a long time now and have just downloaded v10 to give it a go. Hairstyle now looks a lot more powerful, but could still use some improvement. I don't think it's ready to be installed on my HTPC for full time use. Here are my first thoughts:
The Audio/Image/Video top level is nice, but could be more flexible. Since each one needs to correspond to a view scheme, you could have a check box for each view scheme called "Appear as a Media Mode". For example, I'd rather replace Audio with two called Music and Spoken Word.
It would be nice if Hairstyle would remember the view mode for each level of each view scheme. That way, I could browse Artists as a list, Albums as thumbnails, and Tracks as a list without having to constantly switch.
It annoys me the way there is an implicit Name level at the bottom of every tree. While browsing music, I always set the last level to be a calculated field called "Track# - Name" but Hairstyle always adds a Name level below that. If i wanted a Name level, I'd add one or do Show Files
The little 2x2 thumbnails take far too long to display. Could they be cached?
A hotkey to go back up a level would speed up navigation a lot. Could I suggest Backspace for compatibility with Windows Explorer?
If I select an album thumbnail on the right side of the screen and press Return, then Left, Left to go back up a level, then Right, the highlight jumps back to that thumbnail. I can see why this was done, and should behave like this for Tab, but I think Right should always go to the nearest item the the right. Otherwise it's rather counterintuitive.
Aaargh. I've just tried it on my plasma at a widescreen resolution of 1360x768. It all looks horrible. The buttons become rectangular. Single thumbnails look OK, but the 2x2 ones are squashed. Nasty.
Could I request an "Enqueue as next" button as well as the standard Enqueue?
I'll add other things as I think of them. Does anyone agree/disagree with these suggestions?
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Topic: v10 Hairstyle thoughts (Read 1141 times)