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[Matt]

The idea of "split panes" (seeing two places like "Media Library" and "Playing Now" at once) has been a real hot button issue lately.

I'm just going to give some of my thoughts, and then open it up for discussion. (posting as a user here -- not an official voice for JRiver)

• For new users, it's one more confusing option / way to clutter the screen, and I don't see it being too useful for them.
  
  
• For people like me, it's way more control than I need.  If I play music, it's normally an artist, an album, or a genre.  If I burn a CD, I add songs and then order them later.  My brain isn't smart enough to order until all the songs are there anyway.
  
  
• When I do want crazy control, I use the forward / back buttons on my mouse.  I mean, I don't want split view of webpages -- I just go forward and back.  The same holds in MC.
  
  
• Programming a clean UI for split panes that properly handles view switching, view saving, history management, keyboard / shortcut routing, and other things is complicated -- both from a user experience side and from a coding side.
  
  
• Some people really, really want split panes and say we're stupid and maybe a little evil for not having them
  
  So fire away.  If nothing else, I'd like to understand why people want split views and figure out if it's really the most efficient way to accomplish what you're after -- or if there are easier alternatives.
  
  Thanks for any help.

[phelt]

# For new users, it's one more confusing option / way to clutter the screen, and I don't see it being too useful for them.

Other apps, including MMJB, do not seem to have this as an issue. I have yet to come across a newbie that was confused by this behaviour in other apps. Distinct labeling of the views might be a step in the right direction here.

# For people like me, it's way more control than I need.  If I play music, it's normally an artist, an album, or a genre.  If I burn a CD, I add songs and then order them later.  My brain isn't smart enough to order until all the songs are there anyway.

This is certainly different from my own process. If I build a playlist, or even a Playing Now list, I would like to see what I've done so that I don't accidentally add dupes and so that I can take a second to consider if songs are appropriate for the list that I'm building. The same holds true for CD burning. Or pr0n compilations - please do not forget the pr0n  

When I do want crazy control, I use the forward / back buttons on my mouse.  I mean, I don't want split view of webpages -- I just go forward and back.  The same holds in MC.

This seems like an "apples vs. barrels" comparison to me. From the user POV, webpages are primarily static containers of data for presentation. The interface of an application designed specifically for interaction with, and control of, media is completely different. If I only use the app for rudimentary browsing of media, then it's much the same. But if I'm using the interface to create something like a playlist, or setting up files for CD burning, or even browsing image thumbnails, it would be more efficient to see the results of my actions rather than repeatedly click back and forth. There are many burning apps and image browsers and file managers that give you such a view, for precisely these reasons.

Programming a clean UI for split panes that properly handles view switching, view saving, history management, keyboard / shortcut routing, and other things is complicated -- both from a user experience side and from a coding side.

I believe the latter more than I believe the former. If one screen's contents were selectable with a drop-down  (precisely the way that the Properties pane functions now) and had per view scheme memory, I could see that being a major coding PITA. But I don't see the drawback for the user. Maybe someone can give me examples of difficult cases, or maybe this will just have to be proven to me with repeated trials of splitscreen functionality  

Some people really, really want split panes and say we're stupid and maybe a little evil for not having them

If you can find an instance where I used either pejorative I will apologize ASAP. As should anyone, IMO. There's a distinct line between reporting dissatisfaction with an app and insulting behaviour, and not realizing that the J River team are truly and deeply evil geniuses is one step over that line  

[jleerigby]

You've set the scene really well as usual and I sympathise will most of these points.  Personally I don't see a need for anything as complicated as split screens.  I think most people just want to be able to view the playing now list whilst building it up when browsing the library.  

An additional window in the properties area would surely suffice. This would just be a simple view of playing now.  Maybe with just <name> by <artist> and nothing much more than that.  The only additional functionality that I would suggest in this window is the ability to drag and drop into it.

[Jonas]

• For new users, it's one more confusing option / way to clutter the screen, and I don't see it being too useful for them.

I don't think it would confuse new users.

When my friends try to use MC (9.0) on my computer to play some music, the main problem invariably seems to be the concept of a media library.  They are used to having only a playlist where they can reorder songs using the mouse and where they add songs using a file selection dialog to find songs on the hard disk.

It takes a while for them to remember they need to go to the media library to find files, then add them to "playing now", then go to the tree to switch to "playing now" to see what happened and maybe reorder the songs so they can hear this song *now* without removing all the other stuff in the queue.  And then the next one who comes along must switch back to "media library" in the tree to find the music he wants to hear.

If we could see "playing now" and the media library at the same time, then this entire problem would disappear.  "At the top you have the songs being played, and at the bottom you have all the songs I own." -- that's much easier to explain.

• For people like me, it's way more control than I need.  If I play music, it's normally an artist, an album, or a genre.  If I burn a CD, I add songs and then order them later.  My brain isn't smart enough to order until all the songs are there anyway.

If I burn a CD I generally want stuff from a certain genre, but I want to get a good mix, not too much from the same artist and so on.  I'd love to be able to see "playing now" (or a playlist) all the time, it would help me remember what I had already added to the list so I could see what other music would "fit in".

• When I do want crazy control, I use the forward / back buttons on my mouse.  I mean, I don't want split view of webpages -- I just go forward and back.  The same holds in MC.

But isn't that a different scenario?  When I read web pages, either I search for a link to quickly take me where I really wanted to go (and I never go back), or I really read the page, which might take a few minutes.  Then I'm done with the page and I go somewhere else.  No other page is involved in reading the first page.

In MC, the task of adding songs from the media library to playing now involves both the media library and playing now, and I might need to switch every few seconds.

• Programming a clean UI for split panes that properly handles view switching, view saving, history management, keyboard / shortcut routing, and other things is complicated -- both from a user experience side and from a coding side.

I'd probably be satisfied with a new "playlist" or "playing now" view for the lower left corner (I believe this was mentioned by someone else).  It would even be OK to have quite limited options for customization.  Maybe you could always show artist/name/duration or something like that, and then allow drag and drop from the media library.  The full functionality could be reserved for the ordinary "playing now" view.

[Jonas]

Hmmm.  I didn't read the other replies before I wrote my reply, and now it seems like most of what I said had already been said.  Well, at least it seems like we agree on a lot of points :-)

[nila]

I gotta run as I'm late for a birthday lunch but I thought this might be helpful to this discussion:

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=MediaCenter;action=display;num=1055017036;start=33#33


I'll post later

Have a fun weekend all!!!

[knickelfarz]

I would like to be able to set MC to go to 'playing now' by default when i click on 'play'.

Just take a look at "Options > General > Behavior" and play around with the settings...

[MachineHead]

Two panes that would be of importance to me are:

1) Playlist that is currently being built. Not the grouping that is in place now. Target is just not quite as efficient as a pane above/below the library.

2) Of even more importance - File Properties as a pane if not able to place back where it was in 9.0. I still cannot get used to it being in the lower corner. And I do not like using it in windowed mode.

EDIT: So you guys are a little evil. What's the big deal with that?  

[zevele10]

knickelfarz

ET VIOLA !  thanks !

[knickelfarz]

I agree with phelt and Jonas. To add another comparison:

Think of using the Windows Explorer. If you only use it to find your files and move or copy some files from time to time, it will work OK for you. But if you do that quite often, you will see that it's easier to open two Explorer windows and drag & drop files between those windows. Because it's far too much trouble to set up those two Explorer windows every time you wan't to do some file movements, you will start to use something like WinCommander because it offers you the "split mode" by default...

I convinced a lot of people to download MJ 8 and they all found out that it's the best tool to organize and tag their music library. But after they organized everything and tidied up their harddisk structure to reflect their needs, they returned to their old way of listening to music: Using Windows Explorer as file browser and drag the files from there to the WinAmp playlist...They told me that they would continue to use MJ 8 for organization but that it would be far too much trouble to switch around between MJ's Library, MJ's Playlists and MJ's Playing Now just to set up their playlists for normal listening usage.

I told my friends to take a look at the MC 9.1 betas and they were enthusiastic about the new look, the panes and the usage of Album Thumbnails. But after they tried to use the new properties system, they told me: "OK, we will stay with MJ 8 until this has been fixed. It's far too much trouble to drag around the separators to get the window to a useful size and drag them back after tagging. And why don't they use tabs for that? And why didn't they improved the making of playlists?"

I have to say that I agree with my friends here. I love to develop new stuff for MC and I believe that these problems will be removed some day...but I use MC 9.1 only on my workstation for testing and developing. On my living room music server, there's still running MJ 8 and over there I do the organize stuff, because I don't trust in the properties system of MC 9.1 so far. The "expand and collapse control" is the wrong kind of control for that purpose and it's too small without draging around and I don't like using the windowed mode of the properties window, too. In MJ 8, the properties were windowed, but the application was "locked" untill the properties window was closed. With MC 9.1, it's like in the above mentioned Explorer comparison...you have to drag around to set up a view where the properties window is next to MC to make it useful - otherwise it can be hidden behind MC and the trouble starts... Altogether, the current properties system of MC 9.1 leaves the users with feelings of unsafeness and awkwardness. I think that an implementation of a clean split screen view is the only thing to solve this problem - and many other things like making playlists, burnlists and so on. I believe that most people prefer "What You See Is What You Get" when they do stuff on their computers...

I agree with phelt that "Distinct labeling of the views might be a step in the right direction" to avoid confusion...Maybe you would like to take a look at the GUI improvements for MC 9.1
thread again. This thread is from the "pre-pane-era", but it shows some examples how a "split screen view" could be realized. You can even see examples for "distinct labeling" there. I thought about making some new examples that take the new panes into consideration several times...unfortunately, I don't have the time to make them at the moment. But I will try to post them in a few days.

Sorry for the long post and my bad english and if something sounds too harsh - I'm just trying to explain things and I'm dreaming of pushing the usability of MC to a higher level  

[lee269]

When I do want crazy control, I use the forward / back buttons on my mouse.  I mean, I don't want split view of webpages -- I just go forward and back.  The same holds in MC.

Well, I dont always craft my playing now lists with infinite care, but a lot of the time I do end up oscillating between the library and playing now, checking whats in there, have I added song X yet? etc. For me this (and the constant clicking involved) is the thing that makes me want split panes more than anything else. It just seems that it would be so much simpler to be able to see two places at once. Im not a newbie, but I am comfortable with this sort of situation - I use multiple explorer windows often when copying files etc. My guess is it wouldnt be too difficult for new users, but we could debate this endlessly.

Programming a clean UI for split panes that properly handles view switching, view saving, history management, keyboard / shortcut routing, and other things is complicated -- both from a user experience side and from a coding side.

As a non-programmer I accept that totally. Personally Id be happy with just a non-editable view of playing now, as a minimum compromise solution if its easier. That alone would be a big improvement.

-- or if there are easier alternatives.

Ive been trying to think of some, but everything I can think of would seem to add a new quirk that would probably only add to newbie confusion. I keep coming back to a split screen, which would have the benefit of consistency. For me at least, its hard not to be persuaded by knickelfarzs mockups as referenced by Nila.

[NoCodeUK]

First of all I want to give all my backing and thanks to you guys.  You have a sweet program here and if anyone ever seems disappreciative we are not.  I for one am fully behind everything you guys do.  If I wasn't I wouldn't spend all my free time (and a lot of my not so free time!) using your software and posting to this forum.

As for the panes thing...in a lot of areas this kind of view would not affect me.  I do not use playlists.  Like Matt said I usually just play a single artist or album...I could never really get on with the big WinAmp playlist.  Thats one of the reasons I came to MC in the first place.  However I do use MC as my primary software when doing discos and in this instance I can see it would be very useful to have the panes at the top with a special disco view scheme showing tracks too and a playing now view underneath.  It doesn't even need to be a split screen permenant view.  I used an extension for explorer that allowed the kind of thing knickelfarz mentioned but from within explorer itself.  It added buttons to the bottom of explorer in a bar.  If you clicked the button a new pane appeared in the bottom of your explorer which could be set to any location within your PC.  This then allowed drag and drop within a single explorer view.  If something like this could be added where a pane could appear if needed that could show Playing Now, CD Burn list, Properties + anything anyone else can add this would be great.  If it never happens MC will still work well.  And I would not think you were stoopid or evil if you did not implement anything like it  I just think like was said above something like this could take MC to another level.  I understand that doing discos is not something you have probably ever considered but MC is f**king great for it, better than the specialist DJ software I have used.  Keep up the fantastic work and please don't get disheartened by us bunch of moaning whinge bags!!  You Rock!!

Adam

[sraymond]

I used an extension for explorer that allowed the kind of thing knickelfarz mentioned but from within explorer itself.  It added buttons to the bottom of explorer in a bar.  If you clicked the button a new pane appeared in the bottom of your explorer which could be set to any location within your PC.  This then allowed drag and drop within a single explorer view.

What extension is that?  I've been thinking about buying PowerDesk 'cause Explorer is such a kludge.

Scott-

[nila]

Directory Opus - HIGHLY recommend it - someone recommended it to me on here and I tried it.
It can totally replace explorer - even to the point where when we press Windows Button+E - it opens it instead of explorer.

It can also give the sizes of each folder as one of it's columns (such a rare but so obviously needed feature of almost all file browsers) and gives split screen.

[gkerber]

The way I select my music is more like Matt's and I would have no use for split panes (well I'd play around with them).

This is not to belittle those that really really want them, just my opinion based on how I select my music to play.

So, if it is added PLEASE make it transparent and hidden to those that prefer to use the current interface.

Screen space is valuable, I'm a full screen guy, and having split panes would futher erode the size of my screen ( one of my objections to using panes).

[Marko]

Directory Opus - HIGHLY recommend it - someone recommended it to me on here and I tried it.
It can totally replace explorer - even to the point where when we press Windows Button+E - it opens it instead of explorer.

It can also give the sizes of each folder as one of it's columns (such a rare but so obviously needed feature of almost all file browsers) and gives split screen.

I just knew you'd like it.

(it's customisable;) )

[gvag]

Hi -
I posted a link to an earlier version of this script but it wouldn't work with 9.1.  I've revised it and it now works but I run Win98 so I have no way of knowing about other versions of Windows.
http://members.shaw.ca/gvag/MC_TLV.zip

If you do download it I'd appreciate some feedback.  Ran OK, crashed, not what you want, etc.

Check the ReadMe file for instructions.

Thanks

GVag

[rocketsauce]

Like a few other people mentioned in this thread, a Media Library/Playing Now split pane wouldn't be of any use to me because I don't really use playlists. Actually, other than being able to set the track sequence in a playlist, I don't really understand why so many people use them with MC when there are so many options for building lists automatically using smartlist rules, smartlists and view schemes.

As knickelfarz points out, playlists are the old way of doing things:

I convinced a lot of people to download MJ 8 and they all found out that it's the best tool to organize and tag their music library. But after they organized everything and tidied up their harddisk structure to reflect their needs, they returned to their old way of listening to music: Using Windows Explorer as file browser and drag the files from there to the WinAmp playlist.

Rob

[sraymond]

on Today at 6:48pm, Nila wrote:Directory Opus - HIGHLY recommend it - someone recommended it to me on here and I tried it.
It can totally replace explorer - even to the point where when we press Windows Button+E - it opens it instead of explorer.

It can also give the sizes of each folder as one of it's columns (such a rare but so obviously needed feature of almost all file browsers) and gives split screen.  



I just knew you'd like it.  

(it's customisable;) )

Better than PowerDesk?

Scott-

[NoCodeUK]

Scott

After about an hour and a half of searching I finally found the file I was looking for.  It is available from TuCows or from the developers homepage www.baxbex.com.

It is called folder box and basically it works how I described above.  You can have multiple "boxes" which can point to different locations.  When the boxes are not in use they tak eup no real estate.  When you click them it divides explorers right hand "large pane" in two so you have the original folder on top and the "box" at the bottom...

I think this kind of implementation could work really well in MC.  For those who do not want to use it it is totally unobtrusive. For those who do they could basically set "boxes" to point at whichever parts of MC they needed - playing now, a particular folder from My Computer, the burnlist, the playlist window etc.  As I said I am not overly fussed about the split view thing the only time I can see it being useful is if it displayed playing now at the same time as the medi a library and if the script mentioned above does what I think it does then this may solve my problems anyway.

Keep up the good work guys!

Adam

[slikvik]

I HAVE THE ANSWER!

This solves the following issues.

Programming difficulty, Layout, Ease of use.

Basically since we have moved away from a tree and moved to panes, why not make more use of the tree window. When you right click and Add a song to playing now, it appears under the Playing Now section in the Tree window (as a collapsable branch!)

We used to have the whole bloody library open up there and now thats moved over to the Panes Window why not have your currently generated playing now list or playlist. You can then drag up, down or over to customize it!

Here's a shot:

http://www.fmdplus.com/images/image4.jpg

[DJ_Hazelwood]

I HAVE THE ANSWER!

YES!!!

I think this would be the solution for all our playing-now-problems!

[Stilton]

Looks like a very good solution - though perhaps they'd need to be grouped in trees for large lists (alphabetical groups, my album or artist, whatever)

[_K_C_]

Not a bad idea, but

(1) It should also include playlists.  ie send a file to a playlist, that branch of the tree opens up with the contents listed just as you have with playing now

(2) I think it'll quite quickly run into space problems - eg playing now / playlist with thirty or more tracks...

I think I'd prefer a solution similar to the Outlook Bar (I've seen similar solutions in other software as well), but placed on the right hand side, so you would have


TREE  / Pane / Bar
 .. / File List / ..


In Outlook the Bar is a set of overlapping windows, you click on the title of the window and the other windows minimise to reveal the contents of that one.  In MC the default bars would be

Playing Now
Properties

You could add individual playlists as individual windows when you're working on them.  And of course, you can always switch it off by moving the slider to the right.

[knickelfarz]

I HAVE THE ANSWER!

Sorry to say that, but that won't work!

The goal of a split screen is to make and show different lists for Playing Now, Burning, Analyzing and so on. The advantage is, that you can drag things from the library directly to the right place or move inside the list without changing the view. You can not do that with a tree, because a tree has to sort alphabetical and you can drag things only from nodes to nodes.

And there is another point why the Playing Now node should not be wasted to show single tracks: Imagine that MC will grow up to a "real" multizone system someday...wouln't the Playing Now node be the right place to show what's running in those zones? You can have an entry for every zone there and then switch between the different Playing Now of every zone...

[Pink Waters]

I suggest that we make the upper part of the panes that contains the artists and albums .. etc is a combination of 2 tabs.. the default tab and a playing now tab

so we would be able do quick tag files in playing now

[knickelfarz]

... split pane wouldn't be of any use to me because I don't really use playlists ...
I don't really understand why so many people use them with MC when there are so many options for building lists automatically using smartlist rules, smartlists and view schemes

That's the point. If you mostly listen to full albums or things that were generated by smartlists / filterings, you will not see a need for "split screen". It depends on how you are listening to music ... There are a lot of people that use playlists to make their own mixes. Smartlists and filterings can help you to find the files that you want to add to your playlists more quickly - but no logic in the world can reflect what you may want to add to a playlist.

... As knickelfarz points out, playlists are the old way of doing things

"Old way" in this case means that they use WinAmp and Explorer. There is nothing old fashioned in using playlists. The example just points out that MC is not very useful / luxurious for making playlists for some people. For a lot of people playlists are the reason why they use the computer to listen to music instead of playing DJ with their CD collection.

[jleerigby]

Smartlists and filterings can help you to find the files that you want to add to your playlists more quickly - but no logic in the world can reflect what you may want to add to a playlist.

Why not?  Isn't it just a Mood or a Genre or a Decade or a BPM or a Rating that reflects what you might want together in a playlist?  I don't use playlists either as I group similar tracks with various tags and use groups & schemes instead.

[jleerigby]

The goal of a split screen is to make and show different lists for Playing Now, Burning, Analyzing and so on.

Who says that's the goal?  Some people here have said they would be quite content with a view of playing now so they could see what they have added as they build up the list.  I'm not saying the tree view is necessarily the way forward - but it could certainly remain in the pot as an option as far as I'm concerned.

[knickelfarz]

Why not?  Isn't it just a Mood or a Genre or a Decade or a BPM or a Rating that reflects what you might want together in a playlist?

Sometimes, sometimes not It's the way to find the tracks, but the process of then adding the tracks to a playlist could be improved...

Who says that's the goal?  Some people here have said they would be quite content with a view of playing now so they could see what they have added as they build up the list.

Well, I would be even quite content with a view of playing now besides the library - but if there will be made changes to implement something like a split view, why not use it for other lists that are made from the library? Many people ask for things like that in many threads before...

I'm not saying the tree view is necessarily the way forward - but it could certainly remain in the pot as an option as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe it's a good start to point out something new. But there are some reasons why single files should not be shown in a tree view. Look at Windows Explorer, Outlook or other applications that use a "tree on the left / panes on the right" scheme. Would they be consistent if they would show single files underneath some nodes of the tree? How would the tree look if it expands to show 500 files?

[Wobbley]

Treeviews cannot show single file listings.  Think of every instance of a treeview node that you have ever seen...I can't think of one, not even the Windows Registry, that shows single files as an item under a node.  There must be a reason for this...

MMJB has a playing now pane to the right of the player's controls and main menu items.  Both the player controls and playing now arer above the music library.  I do not like MMJB, but that sort of functionality NEEDS to be in MC.  I am constantly switching between my friggin' library and what I've added to playing now because I can't ever remember what I've actually added to playing now.  It may sound funny, but build a playlist of 100+ songs and you'll see that you sson forget what you've added...unless you bought those memory tapes as seen on TV...

Wobbley

[Stilton]

Treeviews cannot show single file listings.  Think of every instance of a treeview node that you have ever seen...I can't think of one, not even the Windows Registry, that shows single files as an item under a node.  There must be a reason for this...

Microsoft FrontPage and Visual Studio 2003 are the first two that spring to mind...

I'm not saying that that the files-under-playing-now idea is the best one, but it does fit in with convention.  Adding an optional new pane that can be customized to show any view would clearly be best solution and would please everybody, but the coding for this would be extensive and hence may not t be considered by the team (as Matt says above). The Playing Now list idea would seem to me a relatively quicker solution and perhaps a compromise.

[zevele10]

Something i do not understand.
If you take MusicMatch ,yes there is a pane 'playing now'
But in MusicMatch you have only the file names in this pane.
Visu ,art sleeve are in another panes == you need to open it ,set it ect ect.

If there is a "playing now' split pane in MC ,it is INSTEAD of the full 'playing now' window we have now?
In this case it would be impossible to go to 'playing now' full window with the visu ,slideshow or art sleeve  or track info set as you did the last time ,or use as a permanent setting?
The 'visu' part would have to be as well a split pane?.

If yes ,NO ,i do not want split panes.

Sorry to be so much basic ,but when i want milk ,i go to the grocery, i do not drive one hour to find a living cow and milk here.

Beside this i know that for sure i would get better milk , but much easier to do the first.

The same for a jukebox.

[jleerigby]

If yes ,NO ,i do not want split panes.

Am I missing something zevele.  I thought you said that you would never use 9.0 or 9.1 as it's way to complicated - so why do you care whether split panes are introduced in 9.x?

[knickelfarz]

I'm afraid that it's too late for MC 9.1...but here is a quick example how it could look like...


Bigger, animated picture here.

Any kind of criticism welcome

[lee269]

I'm afraid that it's too late for MC 9.1...but here is a quick example how it could look like...

JRiver: Sign this guy up for v10 now!

[rocketsauce]

...but here is a quick example how it could look like...

That's a great example of JLee's suggestion of an additional Playing Now view in the Properties pane, which I think is a really good solution.

Rob

[zevele10]

I use 9 since few months.
Yes it is complicated.
Much to much for my needs.
What i said is what i cannot ,most of the time , give any opinion because i'am lost.

BUT i have 50.000 songs ,Mp3 ,OGG ,MPC ,APE ,WMA lossless, si i have to do with MC.

I do know that my comments are rather very basic, but i do make a point:
Do Jrivers can make his bread with the few power users or do Jrivers needs 'mister idiot in computer' buying his program to make bread?
If the last needed ,they are not on the right way..

My feeling is that power-users and JRiver people are not living in the real word.
in the real word  , computers shops make they living with reformating ,cleaning virus , sometimes just deleting cookies,spywares and scan/defrag NEVER did in 2 years.....
In the real word there is still A LOT of people with Windows 98 .
So ,if they need money from the real word ,they have to make a real word friendly software-- can be a Media Jukebox 9 , and at the same a MC 9,1 or 10-

I have no opinion about 9,1.
The only thing i see is that more and more it is a very powerfull program who less and less is for average public.

My problem is that i'am part of average public.......

[graham131]

I'm afraid that it's too late for MC 9.1...but here is a quick example how it could look like...

[

Why is it too late?  That looks great - bet Matt could add it in a jiffy

[Cmagic]

Hi,

My problem is that i'am part of average public.......

C'mon Zev you're Mr average... are you ?


Knick. it's a very nice virtual screenshot you've made.

IMHO The reality is that the JRiver team listen **a lot** to the MC/MJ community power or average users. I did not count but maybe half of the features in MC 9.1 might comes from users suggestions. The problem is that each user has its own vision of how to use MJ/MC and what he/she wants to do with it. I think that it is why MC has evolved in what it is now as MC9.1, because of its development model. I like to see the way MJ/MC is developped as "in-between" proprietary software such as MMJB or WMP and open source software like foobar or xmms. I like to call this development model "Open Ideas" or "Open Invention" (thanks SGI). Where the JRiver team is always fueled by ideas and suggestions from a user base. This model may have reached its limits with such a full-featured product as MC9, I don't know.
Maybe you should leave each major version some time (at least 6 months) before throwing new betas. (I must admit I was surprised to see 9.1 beta very soon after 9.0 official release) so that you guys have time to work on your own. Anyway, you know that anytime you need fuel, ideas, suggestions or wine ( ) we , the interacters, will be here !

One think I know for sure, is that the people behind MJ/MC are the real premier feature of the product and that even the average computer user can feel !

à la vôtre !

C.

[_K_C_]

knickelfarz

Does your new pane really need the full width of the app?  eg with Playing Now / Playlist views, is it necessary to have all the different column properties in there?

I'd prefer to have it run vertically down the right hand side: that way more of long Playing Now / Playlists can be displayed in one go, maybe displaying only Artist / Album info.

Do that and you're pretty close to my Outlook Bar suggestion a few posts ago  

[zevele10]

J'en ai raz le c.. de tout cela.

Ca devient tres complique pour simplement jouer un morceau.
Mais il n'y a pas d'autre alternatives face au nombre de morceaux et aux different formats.

En fait oui ,mais juste un player en beta.

Je risque d'etre deconnecte le 1ier Aout.
Dans ce cas je reste tout Aout sans internet - une cure de desintox-. Retour en Septembre.

Bonnes vacances.. africaines cette annee?

[Cmagic]

Ou la la, mon Zev, t'a l'air d'en avoir marre.

Alors une cure sans web et sans mail c'est très bon, je fais cela tous les ans et je l'ai même conseillé à Jim !

Pas d'afrique cette été, j'irai fin décembre. Je vais aller me ballader avec mes enfants : près de Narbonne et à Gordes (en provence), très chouette, je pars dans 10 jours.

Bonne vacances à toi et à bientôt. Faut qu'on s'organise un truc avec le michel un de ces 4 !

Christian

(! Sorry folks for the non-english passage I was just replying to our friend Zev !)

[zevele10]

Je suis bloque.
Mon ami est tres mal et partir est impossible.
Et ca risque de durer ....................

[clout]

I would give a big YES PLEASE for having the playing now as a split pane.  I use MC for live disco work and the ability to see the playing now and the media library would make the program so much more viable. For example as punters request songs they could easily be dragged into a suitable position directly into the playlist without having to "add to playing now", switch to playing now, going to bottom of list and dragging to a suitable location to keep the flow going, then switching back to the library to continue.

If the playing now could display whatever fields I want, I could locate a song in the library, scroll to find a suitable point in the playlist based on genre, year or BPM and just drop the song into place.
Doing a 6 hour disco where you have no particular playlist to start, but allow the punters to dictate the style of music on the fly is very cumbersome without being able to view the playing now list.

On many occassions, I find myself using MC for it's great database & search facilities but sending the files to winamp, just so i can have the playlist & the media library visible.

Kniclefarz's idea looks great but looks like it could require a lot of work to implement. I'd be happy with just the "Playing Now" being available under the Library.

[Doof]

It can be rather suprising sometimes to see 9.0 released and almost immediately start seeing 9.1 betas arriving.

But that's when you gotta stop and realize that it's because we hang out in the beta forum all day. For the average user, somebody who will download MC, use it and then check back 6 months down to road and see 9.1, it doesn't seem that way.

I think most companies have betas early on after releasing a new version. The general public just isn't privy to them, is all.

[Jonas]

I'm afraid that it's too late for MC 9.1...but here is a quick example how it could look like...

That's excellent, I like the interface and I'd really love to see something similar in MC!

[Marty3d]

I'm afraid that it's too late for MC 9.1...but here is a quick example how it could look like...

knickelfarz! It's nice!!

I'm one of the people that was nagging about split panes during 9.0 beta.

My personal opinion is that split panes only is good for you when building/editing playlists, Playing now and burning. When you would need it handling images, I don't know.

But knickelfarz' proposal was a nice, clean one. In the ol' days there was strong opinions against tabs from some people, but I still believe they work for us, not against... So go for it! Let the tabs in! And knickelfarz' idea IS good...perhaps you would like to have the option of viewing PLaying now fullscreen, but hey! It's a start!
/Martin

[jcouch93]

OK, as a longtime MJ\MC user here's my opinion...

I wholeheartedly embrace the idea of the pane system.  My personal example is when I'm getting ready to clean my apartment I queue up a LOT of songs, not just by a particular artist or album but just what I feel like hearing at that time!  I have about 3000 songs and by the time I've scrolled through them and picked out what I want to hear I can't remember what I picked first!  Also, I may come back halfway through and want some more but not remember what's there or in what order.  

Remember, this is just one of the things that I do with MC, but it is the MAIN reason why I feel that the split pane system would be invaluable.

phatrabt

[gvag]

My apologies to the group a posted a link to a script but didn't realize there was an error in the compiler.  I have patched the error by adding a needed file to the archive manually, it should have been incorporated directly into the exe file.

Here's a shot of the ugly interface:


but it does work.  

Here's the link to the new archive:
http://members.shaw.ca/gvag/MC_TLV.zip
I wrote it because I do a lot of compilations for friends and wanted to be able to see what I had in their burn list while browsing my library.

I know its not a slick interface but if you really want/need to see two playlists at once it does the trick.

Feedback?

Thanks

George