Topic: Media Center 11.0.7 Alpha (NOT RECOMMENDED) (Read 3556 times)

Matt · « **on:** June 15, 2004, 04:47:10 pm »

We're just starting work on Media Center 11. From time to time, we'll share our progress.

Think of these early builds like the hole in the ground before you start building a house. Much like the hole, it's hard to get excited about these builds, and if you're not careful with them, you'll get hurt.

The major changes so far are a rewritten database core, movement towards improved document handling, and a new user-customizable view called "tile view." Many more changes will come with time. We're listening.

BACKUP YOUR LIBRARY BEFORE INSTALLING -- THE DATABASE FORMAT HAS CHANGED AND THERE MAY BE BUGS THAT COULD CAUSE YOUR LIBRARY TO BE LOST

ftp://ftp.jriver.com/pub/downloads/music/MediaCenter110007.exe

11.0.7 (6/15/04)

1. Fixed: Upload status for Portable Devices did not always update correctly after switching views.
2. Changed: Removable and fixed drive Portable devices will display the volume label in the tree.
3. NEW: Added autodetection for Fixed Drive type portables (iRiver, Archos,etc) and any with a defined volume label.
4. Fixed: ASIO playback would not work with AudioTrak drivers. (Prodigy 7.1, etc.)
5. Fixed: ASIO wouldn't seek instantly with large ASIO buffer sizes.
6. Fixed: In some cases, MC could cut off the last portion of the last track in the playlist.
7. NEW: Added pane auto-sizing.
8. NEW: MC uses the system icon associated with a file for document file thumbnails.
9. NEW: Added new Track Info style tile view allowing fully customizable HTML based views inside of MC. (still a work in progress)
10. Fixed: Media Server didn't handle end of playlists on TiVo

Matt · « **Reply #1 on:** June 15, 2004, 04:52:14 pm »

9. NEW: Added new Track Info style tile view allowing fully customizable HTML based views inside of MC. (still a work in progress)

This is kind of a big one. Basically it'll allow user created track info style pages to be used as the items in a list of files or albums.

It'll offer a lot of flexibility, and open up some new possibilities for how to browse a list of files or albums.

Omni · « **Reply #2 on:** June 15, 2004, 05:03:08 pm »

Wow, you guys are really making it hard for me to remain content with stable MC 10.

Being a software developer myself, I'll understand if the answer is no, but do you have any estimate as to when the database format will stablize enough so that I don't have to worry about losing any database updates I make after I install MC 11?

(This wouldn't be an issue for me, but since we can't install both versions, I don't want to plunge into alpha testing MC 11 until things are a little less unstable I guess.)

Matt · « **Reply #3 on:** June 15, 2004, 05:29:57 pm »

Quote from: Omni on June 15, 2004, 05:03:08 pm

Being a software developer myself, I'll understand if the answer is no, but do you have any estimate as to when the database format will stablize enough so that I don't have to worry about losing any database updates I make after I install MC 11?

Plan on an upgrade path from here out. There may still be bugs though, so proceed with caution and make plenty of backups.

cascius · « **Reply #4 on:** June 15, 2004, 05:55:16 pm »

Well, Since we're talking about database issues, here's one I'm having: MC11 seems to drop name, album and artist tags quite easily. I'm not sure how this is happening but I know for sure that those files have the correct ID3 tags.

Kinda odd...

-Cascius

LonWar · « **Reply #5 on:** June 15, 2004, 06:17:31 pm »

Hi Matt...

Is the Library in this release going to be useable with the next build??

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** June 15, 2004, 06:33:44 pm »

Quote from: imjustagamer on June 15, 2004, 06:17:31 pm

Is the Library in this release going to be useable with the next build??

Yes. The database structure is frozen now (or we will upgrade if necessary).

Matt · « **Reply #7 on:** June 15, 2004, 07:26:01 pm »

Quote from: cascius on June 15, 2004, 05:55:16 pm

Well, Since we're talking about database issues, here's one I'm having: MC11 seems to drop name, album and artist tags quite easily. I'm not sure how this is happening but I know for sure that those files have the correct ID3 tags.

Kinda odd...

-Cascius

Please try to isolate it and give steps to reproduce. Thanks cascius.

Jaguu · « **Reply #8 on:** June 16, 2004, 04:24:03 am »

Quote from: Matt on June 15, 2004, 04:47:10 pm

7. NEW: Added pane auto-sizing.

Which panes do you mean? Content pane or list panes? In Content panes it was already there, in List panes nothing happens

Jaguu · « **Reply #9 on:** June 16, 2004, 04:36:21 am »

If you are going to make the Track Info Style tile more flexible, why not also add track info style for slide shows?

Instead of having one single way of displaying a slide show, we could have several HTML based slide show templates to choose, so that we could

display 1,2,3,4 or more images per screen
display framed images with fancy frames to completely eliminate black borders
display images with customizable image tag info
picture in picture display like displaying a photo and a small photo of the photographer inside the photo or having the image of a painting on the screen and the image of the artist in a small corner.

LonWar · « **Reply #10 on:** June 16, 2004, 06:46:20 am »

Quote from: Jaguu on June 16, 2004, 04:24:03 am

Quote from: Matt on June 15, 2004, 04:47:10 pm
7. NEW: Added pane auto-sizing.

Which panes do you mean? Content pane or list panes? In Content panes it was already there, in List panes nothing happens

This looks like it automatic... Add a bunch of columns and you will notice that they are not all the same size... Would be better if the user could adjust it....

LonWar · « **Reply #11 on:** June 16, 2004, 06:58:16 am »

Can not import Access databases... .mde and .mdb

Can this be added?

Thanks,

Jaguu · « **Reply #12 on:** June 16, 2004, 07:14:30 am »

Quote from: imjustagamer on June 16, 2004, 06:46:20 am

Quote from: Jaguu on June 16, 2004, 04:24:03 am
Quote from: Matt on June 15, 2004, 04:47:10 pm
7. NEW: Added pane auto-sizing.

Which panes do you mean? Content pane or list panes? In Content panes it was already there, in List panes nothing happens

This looks like it automatic... Add a bunch of columns and you will notice that they are not all the same size... Would be better if the user could adjust it....

It seems to auto-size only after adding the 6th pane, not before! Haven't tried to test it with my productive library, but only with a small test library

LonWar · « **Reply #13 on:** June 16, 2004, 08:08:16 am »

It auto Sizes on my 5th... Not before.

Matt · « **Reply #14 on:** June 16, 2004, 08:42:21 am »

Quote from: imjustagamer on June 16, 2004, 08:08:16 am

It auto Sizes on my 5th... Not before.

If everything fits using the same width for each column, it'll do that.

If you reduce the width of MC, you'll see at some point it starts splitting the space up. More space goes to wider columns.

IlPadrino · « **Reply #15 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:21:14 am »

Quote from: Matt on June 15, 2004, 04:47:10 pm

8. NEW: MC uses the system icon associated with a file for document file thumbnails.

Great idea... but it seems to use just the small icons (i.e. the ones you see in Explorer's "List" view) and scales them up accordingly. Is it possible to use the same resolution as the icons on the desktop (or Explorer's "Thumbnail" view)?

IlPadrino · « **Reply #16 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:25:25 am »

Quote from: Matt on June 15, 2004, 04:52:14 pm

9. NEW: Added new Track Info style tile view allowing fully customizable HTML based views inside of MC. (still a work in progress)

This is kind of a big one. Basically it'll allow user created track info style pages to be used as the items in a list of files or albums.

It'll offer a lot of flexibility, and open up some new possibilities for how to browse a list of files or albums.

Awesome addition! If we're able to use many different templates (i.e. MC remembers what template gets applied to a specific branch on the library tree), this will be extremely powerful.

LonWar · « **Reply #17 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:30:06 am »

Hi Matt,

What might be better is having the column Name 2 deep and having the Column Name wrap, then have the system auto size the panes...

I have 5 rows
Vendor
Document Type
Customer Name (grouped)
Customer Name
Doc #

Ther resizing is ok except on, Customer Name (grouped) and Doc #
The grouped one is way to wide, (to accomidate the name) this only has A-C, D-F and so on.

The last one, Doc# There isn't enough room to it cuts the #'s off.

If the Header row was wrapped then the Customer Name (grouped) would be alot narrower..

Did I explain well?

drosoph · « **Reply #18 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:07:02 am »

I see that Media Server is now running again, but it is only sending 4 files to the client ...
Any idea when you will have a slick interface to allow us to choose which fields (files) will be sent to the clients and when the Server will be functioning again ?

dynamic · « **Reply #19 on:** June 16, 2004, 11:17:30 am »

handheld plugin doesn't support playlist transfer for ipods.
when i sync i can't seem to see any of my playlists i just
synced, either on the ipod or in mc>ipod>playlist. i hope its
a bug and will be fixed soon.

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Author Topic: Media Center 11.0.7 Alpha (NOT RECOMMENDED) (Read 3556 times)