INTERACT FORUM

Is there any way to control how tracks are displayed in the list view when you get to the bottom of the tree? At the moment, they seem to come up as [ARTIST] - [NAME], but I'd much rather see [TRACK #] - [NAME]. Could this be adjustable? In fact, could we have an option not so show tracks as the last level? That way, I could have a view scheme which only presented entire albums, or I could choose the way tracks were presented by adding a calculated field called [TRACK #] - [NAME] and setting that as my last column.

I'd like Hairstyle to remember my view mode at each level of the tree. When browsing albums, I usually like to see thumbnails, but when browsing tracks, a list is much better. It shouldn't remember for every tree location, just for each depth of each view scheme.

A hot key for Back would be nice. I suggest Backspace as it's the one Windows Explorer uses.

I'm still not sure that Hairstyle is going the right way. I can't stress enough how unintuitive some of it is to people.

1) I suggested SPACE to select files, but you have used it to PLAY. Why? SPACE is used in lot's of apps to select. Hairstyle should be no different.

2) Start Selection, Stop Selection? No need. Just use SPACE.

3) The way that LEFT and RIGHT cursors drill through menu's is confusing. You can't combine drilling AND navigation with just two keys. Cursors are for navigation. Onscreen buttons for DRILL BACK and ENTER for DRILL FORWARD (plus maybe TAB key and BACKSPACE key as extras.)

4) SHOW FILES. What pupose does this serve? ENTER maybe?

5) Most importantly. What is this new audio list? ALBUMS GROUPED, FILE TYPE etc etc, and then a list of GENRES? Isn't that slightly jumbled together and presumptious, not to mention that my view schemes are not listed.

I've just upgraded to v10 in a heartbeat because I love your program, and don't take this as being a complaint. Hairstyle is the single most important part of your program to me and I have spent hours trying to work out the best possible BASIC usage. I think what I have suggested works. Please think through my operation suggestions.

Regards

Vic

Please don't remove the Show Files button since I use it all the time. When I'm navigating in Hairstyle and enter into a view scheme, I usually have other view schemes to drill down into. But often I need to see all of the files at the level I'm at, in which case I use the Show Files button. I'm not sure if I explained this clearly enough but let's just say that it is necessary feature for how I have everything set up in Hairstyle. If there is a better way of implementing this functionality, I'm all for it but please don't just remove it.

Platu

Could we have a view somewhat like this:


Where it has cover art, artist name and album name then track listing.
myHTPC has this view scheme too and it's GREAT. MC is currently lacking it


Also,

This makes a LOT of sense to me - use buttons for the player controls instead of text and they can all fit on screen permenantly.
The layout in that shot is VERY clear and informative with a lot of controls.
CD info is always showing with just the tracks scrolling, can change cd drives easily and quickly, can COPY THE TRACKS to the computer straight from that screen - VERY IMPORTANT feature in my opinion.

Also, WHY do we no longer seem to have view schemes in hairstyle? We seem to have lost the ability to configure any View Schemes which makes NO sense since View Schemes are the main thing that make MC stand miles ahead of it's competitors.

I'd want to have around 4 as default in hairstyle under audio:

By Artist
By Album
By Year
By Genre

I cant work out whats happened here?

Bump, bump, bump. What Nila said!

I just discovered myHTPC, and there are many pointers hairstyle could take from it and then improve on.

The obsession with 5 button operation perplexes me slightly. I can see that it's the simplest way for visitors/newbies to use your system, but most remotes have lots more spare buttons we could use.

E.g. One key to play current item, another to select it, another to browse into it.
An Up/Back key

There should also, of course, be on-screen buttons to do the same functions but for speed of browsing, a few more buttons can do wonders

Huh? Perplexed? I think you just answered your own question. *** NEWBIES *** As in, the rest of the world. The non-geeks. They need SIMPLE. As in FIVE-WAY.

Extra buttons are gravy for us nerds, and can usually be programmed from remote to remote. That is, there doesn't usually have to be special custom support in Media Center. Excepting the assignment of hotkeys to all critical functions.

Does anyone know of a way to have Hairstyle default to specific views (thumbnails vs. list) depending on the category (audio, video or images)? I would always like to see audio start in list view while for photos & videos I would always start in thumbnail view. Can the xml file be modified to accomplish this? If not, I would love to see this functionality implemented in a future build.

Platu

No-can-do with the current Hairstyle.  But I think it's a good idea.

If you have a look at the main.xml in the Hairstyle directory, you'll see that it is dedicated to layout (presentation) and not functionality (i.e. presence of items, states, etc.)  I hope this changes.

Scott-

Thanks, I hope it changes as well. I think this setting would be most logically located in the "Configure Hairstyle" dialog.  It gets a little annoying to have to keep changing it manually every time I leave and enter different hairstyle categories. So, what do you say guys? Maybe next build?


Platu

Also, after enqueuing, the files are still shown as selected, so it is easy to enqueue them again

This is my major prob. with hairstyle.

JLee, thank you for this hard work. That's the specification for a great Hairstyle !

Uwe

bump
Yes, the skin is great, but I don't think building a new skin should have  the highest priority when making new improvements in HS. I don't understand why there is a new skin in HS, there 's a lot to do...
Uwe

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.

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.