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Author Topic: Redesign of MC10  (Read 1634 times)

jleerigby

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Redesign of MC10
« on: February 02, 2004, 04:56:46 pm »

Here's what MC10 looks like in Standard View on a Plasma monitor at 848*480 resolution.

As you can see, at this resolution the AW is not easy to use as there's not enough room and way too much scrolling to find the tags that you need.  The tree is not much easier either.  

I just discovered that you can hide the AW and the tree by double clicking on the vertical slider bar.  So now MC looks like this.

Now you're talking!  The AW is not really need on a HTPC any way - this is not the place for doing tagging.  And I can see loads more columns and a much nicer clearner looking interface.  Now if only there was way to call up those view schemes and playlists without redisplaying the tree.  From some sort of pull down menu perhaps?  I know this has been thought about before (white board photo springs to mind) but the idea was dropped for some reason.  

Maybe now is time for a change.  This is what MC 10 should be all about.
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Nolonemo

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Re:Redesign of MC10
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2004, 08:36:12 pm »
Nice look, I can't read squat on my NTSC TV.  For those of us who don't have HD yet, I'd like to see a way to increase the font size in the library view window, so perhaps names would be readable on a TV.  I find the artist/album view in hairstyle too cumbersome to use.  I prefer to drill down to what I want though genre->artist->album.
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Bryan

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Re:Redesign of MC10
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2004, 11:14:12 pm »
Wow, I expected it to be a bit clearer.  Although I've never seen a PC screen on a Plasma though.  Have you tried a higher resolution?

Aren't Plasma's kinda like Flat Panel LCD's in the fact that they have a "default" resolution that looks substantially better than any of the others?  Usually the highest one that it can be displayed natively (without interpolating).  That would match the physical number of pixels H x V within the monitor itself.

Not sure this applies to Plasma's but  you may want to look into that..

Bryan
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gpvillamil

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Re:Redesign of MC10
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2004, 11:53:06 pm »
Quote from: JLee on February 02, 2004, 04:56:46 pm
Now if only there was way to call up those view schemes and playlists without redisplaying the tree.  From some sort of pull down menu perhaps?  I know this has been thought about before (white board photo springs to mind) but the idea was dropped for some reason.  

Maybe now is time for a change.  This is what MC 10 should be all about.
I have a plasma screen too (except it runs at 1280x768 native), what I did was add "Favorites" to the top toolbar, and then add the view schemes I prefer to the Favorites menu. Voila. A drop down menu with all my favorite views. I can leave the tree collapsed until absolutely necessary.
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jleerigby

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Re:Redesign of MC10
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2004, 02:25:40 am »
Quote from: Bryan on February 02, 2004, 11:14:12 pm
Wow, I expected it to be a bit clearer.  Although I've never seen a PC screen on a Plasma though.  Have you tried a higher resolution?

Aren't Plasma's kinda like Flat Panel LCD's in the fact that they have a "default" resolution that looks substantially better than any of the others?  Usually the highest one that it can be displayed natively (without interpolating).  That would match the physical number of pixels H x V within the monitor itself.

Not sure this applies to Plasma's but  you may want to look into that..

Bryan

It's just the screen shot that's not clear.  The jpeg was 500 pixels wide and I enlarged it which made it blurred.  I can assure you that if the picture on my Plasma looked like that it would have been returned straight back to the shop!  ;D  

The picture is perfect but it does have a native resolution of 848*480.  I've run it at higher resolution but everything looks too small when sat some distance away on the sofa.  When purchased, higher res were very hard to come by in the UK without taking out a second mortgage.

Gpvillamil's idea of using favourites is a good workaround.  I thought about that but I have a lot of view schemes and playlists, all grouped in VS groups or playlist groups and it would be difficult to pick a few favourites.  I'm just trying to highlight the fact that MC 10 is still very much tree based which wastes a lot of valuable space in this type of set up.  Another annoyance is that when you hide the tree & AW as I have it returns whenever you close and reopen MC.  There's nothing worse than customising the look of an applicaiton just to find it forgets when closed.
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jleerigby

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Re:Redesign of MC10
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2004, 02:26:46 am »
Quote from: Bryan on February 02, 2004, 11:14:12 pm
Wow, I expected it to be a bit clearer.  Although I've never seen a PC screen on a Plasma though.  Have you tried a higher resolution?

Aren't Plasma's kinda like Flat Panel LCD's in the fact that they have a "default" resolution that looks substantially better than any of the others?  Usually the highest one that it can be displayed natively (without interpolating).  That would match the physical number of pixels H x V within the monitor itself.

Not sure this applies to Plasma's but  you may want to look into that..

Bryan

It's just the screen shot that's not clear.  The jpeg was 500 pixels wide and I enlarged it which made it blurred.  I can assure you that if the picture on my Plasma looked like that it would have been returned straight back to the shop!  ;D  

The picture is perfect but it does have a native resolution of 848*480.  I've run it at higher resolution but everything looks too small when sat some distance away on the sofa.  When purchased, higher res were very hard to come by in the UK without taking out a second mortgage.

Gpvillamil's idea of using favourites is a good workaround.  I thought about that but I have a lot of view schemes and playlists, all grouped in VS groups or playlist groups and it would be difficult to pick a few favourites.  I'm just trying to highlight the fact that MC 10 is still very much tree based which wastes a lot of valuable space in this type of set up.  Another annoyance is that when you hide the tree & AW as I have it returns whenever you close and reopen MC.  There's nothing worse than customising the look of an applicaiton just to find it forgets when closed.
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Bryan

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Re:Redesign of MC10
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2004, 07:47:38 pm »
Ok, that makes more sense.  

I've got an older widescreen 50" Rear Projection LCD and it's native resoltuon is 640x480 and 848x480 also. Basically 480 lines max.  It will do higher resoltuions but they look horrible when viewing a computer screen.

Bryan

I like that favorites workaround too.  I've been experimenting with it.  Would be nice to have access to favorites when in Theater View.

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jleerigby

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Re:Redesign of MC10
« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2004, 01:07:17 am »
On the subject of viewing / hiding the tree I'm surprised that there isn't an item under the view menu (i.e. Tree & Action Window) that you can place a tick next to.

Also it used to be possible to call up the action window with alt & enter in windowed mode removing the need to have the tree displayed.  The functionality appears to have been removed.
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