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[ja]

I tried ver 9 about a year ago and though I found it to be the best program for my needs available, it still wasn't just what I wanted, so I let the trial period expire.

Now I'm checking out ver 10 and it's still coming up a little short (for me).  I aknowledge the fact that I might not be finding out how to do what I want to do, but I have tried (and tried).

Mostly, I use the Artist/Album view scheme with the thumbnail view.  Being able to scroll through my rather large collection of CDs, over 1,200, is just what I've been looking for.  But usually, I don't want to play an entire album, just selected tracks.  This doesn't appear to be as simple as it could be.

I've added a Name column so I can see the track names, but this doesn't make it any easier.  I want to be able to select a thumbnail and be given a list of the tracks that I can choose between.  Selecting the thumbnail does put a dot in the box next to the track names on that CD, but I must scroll through the list to find them.  I realize I can select the Artist in the Artist column and the Album in the Album column to get the list pared down, but that defeats the purpose of the thumbnails.

Is there a way to get the Track Name column to sort by the selected thumbnail, that I haven't figured out?  Or if that's not possible how about the individual tracks being available in the Right Click context menu.  All the tracks will apear as a ToolTip if I hover over the thumbnail, but naturally I can't select anything that way.

The perfect solution (for me) would be if the program behaved like digital jukeboxes in a bar, like Bose TuchTunes.  I'd select a thumbnail and the view changes to a larger image with the various tracks listed for selection.  Additional album / CD / lyric / bios / etc info available from there would be a bonus.

I asked a similar question last year, and a user recommended Music Lobby, which I believe is an add-on or alternate GUI for this program.  I've checked out Music Lobby, but I saw an FAQ question regarding the order of the CDs displayed.  The Answer said something to the effect that it is random to be like a real jukebox.  That was a deal breaker for me.  Media Center's advanced features are very desireable when I'm doing more than just playing music.

I'd also like to be able to view the Now Playing list while I browse through the thumbnails.  It could be another columns at the bottom or even the top of the main window.  Or preferably along the left side between the Tree and Action Window.  That way I wouldn't need to switch between views so much.  Is this possible?

Lastly (for now :-), I thought I remembered an Option in ver 9 that prevented MC from changing my actual files when I added cover art etc.  I've put a lot of time getting my files / tags etc. juuuust right, I really don't want the program to change tham unless I tell it to.  Am I misremembering this, or is it possible?

Oh yeah, 1 more.  Can I set the program to NOT go online EVER! without me specifically telling it to?  I'm the parranoid type (my post last year also questioned the programs tracking of media, not played, just inserted into my CD player, a definate feature for many, but one I wished to turn off) so I want to prevent the program from going online by itself.

Thanks for any input.  I really do like the program, I just wish I could make it more like the one I'd invent if I had the knowhow to invent one :-)

[JimH]

No need to be paranoid.

For finding albums, try right clicking on a track and choosing Locate.

[ja]

No need to be paranoid.

I'll take that as a "no", we cannot get media center to not go online short of forbidding it with our firewalls. Too bad.]

How about the changing file size thing?  Couldn't you keep MC from altering files, and just keep the various info in its own database before?

For finding albums, try right clicking on a track and choosing Locate.

Thanks Jim, that works.  It's not as graphically elegant as I would like, but it does get the job done.

I've added a back button to the tool bar to get back to my "normal" view when I'm done choosing tracks.  It'd be handier if "Back" could be in the right click menu too.

It is nice that the 2-Step Locate command will be at the top of the right-click menu after I use it, as long as I don't do anything else in between.

How about some of my other questions:

Can the columns in the Upper Pane be made to auto sort or pare down based on the selections in the Lower Pane?  Can they even be resized for width the way the ones in the Lower Pane can be?

I guess I'm using the interface backwards.  It seems it's intended to be used by choosing various selections in the Upper Pane and having them pared down  and shown, by those choices, in the Lower Pane.  That's fine, but I guess I'd then want just the album column above, set to thumbnail view.  This doesn't appear to be possibile.

How about getting the playing now list up all the time?  Just a list.  I don't need thumbnails or all the file properties, just a visable cue on the side or bottom of the screen showing what's coming up.

Another thing I was wondering about:  Can the list in the Lower Pane be collapseable.  By that I mean like ... forgive me for saying this here ... MusicMatch?

I find it real handy, if I do have to browse using a list, to be able to just expand the artist I'm looking at for the moment.  If I have multiple tracks by an artist, I don't want to have to scroll past all of them just to get to something else below.

Please don't say "Well, go use MusicMatch then."  I have/do.  But I'm looking for something better.  Like I said at the start of this thread, I wish to browse by the artwork ... like a jukebox.  I'd gladly pay a couple hundred dollars for the TuchTune software, but they won't sell it.  (I'd still have a place for MC though)

Please, anyone, jump in and teach me something, or comment about what I'm talking about here.  There were 60 views of this thread, but only the one response before I wrote this.

Can plug-ins do what I'm asking for (I warned that I don't know how to write code more complicated than HTML)

[Deivit]

Have you checked MC.11 out?

It can do some of the things you're asking for. For instance it has split views, which allows you to have "playing now" at the top and a view scheme at the bottom. It also has the new "library browser" which is a nice way to browse your collection in thumbnail view. I normally have 2 views, playing now at the top and library browser at the bottom... and you can expand or collapse any or both of them (even the subviews) at any time.

If you haven't done so, check MC.11 out. You'll not regret. It's still in beta but very stable... And for a limited time there is a special upgrade price
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=23311.0

The first thread of this board has a summary of the improvements.

Hope it helps.

[ja]

Thanks to both Deivit and marko for your advice.  I will try ver 11 this weekend.

I avoided it 'till now, because I'm testing the software at work and I don't want to risk making this system unstable.  Since ver 11 was coming out, I figured ver 10 should be rock solid.  Betas make me nervous, and I've seen a lot of post headers regarding problems with ver 11.

For what it's worth I've had several crashes with ver 10.  Only the program itself, it didn't bring down the whole system.  I atribute that to the onboard graphics we use here, though they are nForce 2 MBs.

I look forward to seeing the new interface, and I will be back here to discuss it.

Thanks again.

[ja]

Thanks yet again for your advise.  I've installed ver 11 and the Album View Plug in and here's what I found.

SPLIT VIEWS

Split Views are very cool.  The way I tried to set it up to match my wishes from my earlier posts was to have 2 Views.  I used my 'normal' Artist/Album view at the top (with thumbnails of course) and Playing Now at the bottom.  This answered my request to have the Playing Now always visable.  I did hit a snag though.  Because I'm cramming in two views, the Display portion of Playing Now becomes cramped and worthless.  No problem, I really only wanted the list anyway.  I just slid the divider up to eliminate it.  So far, so good.

Then I decided that when I'm not browsing for songs to play, I'd like to have the visualizations instead of the Artist/Album list.  One way would be to toggle the Split View on & off, but that eliminates the bottom view which I want to keep/expand.  I switched the two views around so that Playing Now would be the only view when I go back to one view, but that still requires manually resizing of windows to see the visualizations.  And switching the Spit View on & off is less than convient, it's three levels in.  The other way was to leave my 'permanent' Playing Now at the bottom, with the Display portion gone.  Then swith the upper Artist/Album view to Playing Now when I want visualizations.  This works, but the new Playing Now View is also displayless like the one at the bottom.  I can fix that by dragging the border, this time to only show the display.  Cool, just what I asked for.  Unfortunately, if I switch the upper view back to Artist/Album to add some more tracks, the Lower Playing Now switches to the Display only view that I had on top.  Darn!  It's a Close workaround, but not quite there.

LIBRARY BROWSER

The Library Browser in ver 11 is pretty close to what I've been asking for, but I do have a couple issues.  1st, I can find no way to adjust the Artwork size or the Text size/content/placement.

The Play (for the entire album) and Files (to choose indidual files) are a nice touch.  But if I were king, a large version of the Artwork would be the backround image while choosing in the File list.  And even though I expanded the Right Click Recent Command Count, since Back isn't a normal choice, I can't get it to appear there.  With all the back & forth I'd be doing, the Back command would be very handy here.

Additionally, though I understand the logic of grouping all the albums by an artist under one header in Artist view, I'd like to be able to view all of the albums at once.  Just use Album view you say?  Yes I can do that, but now they are sorted alphebetically by album name insead of grouped by Artist like the regular Artist/Album view.  I had the same reaction when I tried Theatre View.

THATRE VIEW

The 10 foot interface is where I am heading.  It's the biggest reason I have been looking for an application such as this.  So far I've only used the Hairstyle view, because I couldn't get the other two to work.  I see the Theatre View as one of the most important aspects of a program like this.   I saw a recent post where the moderator basically said it wasn't that high of a priority in development, especially to their large customers.  I appoligize for not having the exact quote,  (I just looked for it again quick, but didn't see it) but that was the jist of what he was saying.  I think he's all wrong.  It's a new market, yes, but it will explode.  And it just might be what MC needs to become HUGE.  There are tons of people like me that don't want to use Windows Media Center Edition's sophmoric interface.  I will not choose between MY PICTURES, and MY MUSIC.  When I put together a new PC, the 1st thing I do is change MY COMPUTER to SYSTEM :-)  (And I didn't even get into digital rights managment)

My main request for the Theatre View is explained above. I want to scroll the list with all the albums showing, but grouped by artist not alphebetically.  I appoligize if this is adjustable, but I haven't found how to do it yet.

ALBUM VIEW 2

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten too far with Album View.  It crashes my system constantly.  Like I said before, the graphics on this machine are weak, and I'm running Win98.

From what I have seen, though, it may be the answer to my prayers.  I'm going to load it at home tonight.  I'll be back here to discuss it after I live with it for a while.



Thanks to anyone that read this far.  And thanks in advance for any help or input you have to offer.  And thanks to the developers of the program.  I'm sorry if it seems that I'm only complaining.  I'm simply writing about what could make MC a better program TO ME.  Consider my endless praise to be implied.

[raym]

THATRE VIEW

The 10 foot interface is where I am heading.  It's the biggest reason I have been looking for an application such as this......... I see the Theatre View as one of the most important aspects of a program like this........There are tons of people like me that don't want to use Windows Media Center Edition's sophmoric interface.  I will not choose between MY PICTURES, and MY MUSIC.  When I put together a new PC, the 1st thing I do is change MY COMPUTER to SYSTEM :-)  (And I didn't even get into digital rights managment)

Amen!!!