Restarting MC with a specific library via a link is much better than leaving it up to the non-MC expert to figure out this step, but it's only a partial solution. The user must still confront the complex MC UI, figure out how to find the desired playlist and start it, then (ideally) know how to switch to Playing Now (or Theater View) to see what's happening. What is needed is a method (even command-line options) for a user to to one-click refresh the library and resume playing.
I started this thread months ago because I haven't found any "average music lover" who can (or is willing to) master MC's UI "just to play music" (it's easy to see why simplistic iTunes is popular even if laughable). Because refreshing the MC library is complex -- several non-obvious steps -- "normal" users don't do it. So they don't get library changes (usually more tunes, but sometimes songs are reclassified or even removed) and just keep playing the old library. Worse, when the server connection is briefly lost, the users are really lost too. Every time I hear a CD in a CD player, or an iPod in a speaker base, I know a user thinks MC is no longer "working" and they simply walked away from it.
This thread is a wish that MC gets a "refresh" library button that reloads it "in place", keeping the user in the same playlist and even display mode to the extent possible. From the user's perspective, just refresh the library and resume playing.
But apparently this is not simple to implement. MC has the same conundrum faced by many database products over the years: FileMaker, FoxPro, dBASE, Access, etc. They all struggled to provide deep functionality needed by "advanced power users" (like the folks who read this board and likely selected MC because of its power). But to be successful these databases ALSO needed to be "usable", plain and simple for basic users to do basic things.
Some database products do this by having two interfaces (complex/simple, or developer/user), others by requiring drill-down from the simple level to get to the power tools. Some allow a developer to build a default custom UI that hides the real UI. IBM split up the power of the Lotus Notes collaboration database system across three different clients -- user client, admin client, developer client -- talk about confusing! Windows Media Player and iTunes do it by presenting a very simple UI, leaving it to the user to discover, understand and use options if desired, and even then, these dumbed-down programs don't come anywhere close to MC's power. Getting the UI "right" is the hardest part of every app I've ever built, and rarely achieved.