INTERACT FORUM

I never use category views in standard view, but I just ran a test and I couldn't get it to work either.  I didn't spend a whole lot of time but I think it may be impossible as I assume you've tried and failed.

Moe, thanks.  Yes I tried several ways.

Rod, Hi have we met? Yes I'm aware of the top pane and the bottom (file list) pane. But it's not accurate to say it shows two levels.  It shows one level (above) and the lower pane shows as files the sum of everything selected in the top pane.

So there will be no misunderstanding, I'll describe what I'm trying to do.  First, some definitions, although I'll simplify a bit.  First, I am using for this view a couple of user-defined fields:
Composition: this is a calculated field, and is a group of tracks that make up a single classical composition
Grouping: this is a group of albums (all albums that share the same value of [Grouping])
GroupSet: This is a set of Groups (via the [Grouping] field).

For example, an album of Mozart Piano Concertos may have 40 tracks, but 10 Compositions.
Further, each of the Mozart symphonies is in its own Album.  Since there are more than 40, it makes for a less cluttered view to group them.  So I have a group of "Mozart Symphonies (Gardiner)".  There's another group of "Mozart Symphonies (Solti).  Those two groups (along with others) can be in the GroupSet "Mozart Symphonies".

So I have a 5-level view defined as you see here:



The actual definitions are:
Album Artist (auto) = [Album Artist (Auto)]
GroupSet Expression = FirstNotEmpty([GroupSet],[Grouping],[Album])
Grouping Expression = FirstNotEmpty([Grouping],[Album])
Album = [Album]
Composition = [Composition]

So in this next image, you see after drilling into Mozart, the top pane is showing albums (wich are not in groups) along with the GroupSet "Mozart Symphonies".



You can drill into Mozart Symphonies and you see "Mozart Symphonies (Gardiner)" and "Mozart Symphonies (Solti)" etc. Then you drill down to the album level, and finally to the composition level.

The problem comes when you drill into something that is NOT in a GroupSet or Group, just an individual album.  If you do this in theater view, it drops right to the bottom level, Compositions.  Wonderful!  But look what you get in Standard View if you instead drill into an individual album "Mozart Wind Concertos":



Look at the legend up top.  You have to drill through those two extra levels (GroupSet and Grouping) that both have only one entry, before you can get to the compositions.  The list of Compositions is NEVER displayed in the bottom pane in standard view, because Compositions isn't a file, it's just a construct.  That's fine.  If you click on one of those compositions in the top pane, it shows you just those 3 tracks that match it in the bottom pane.  That's great too.

The only problem is that Theater View intelligently skips useless levels, and Standard View does not, as far as I can tell.  I consider this pedantry on the part of Standard View to be a shortcoming, that makes me click extra times needlessly.

So now you know exactly what I mean.  Can you come up with something clever, or is your answer still the same?

And yes I used your attachment trick!

Yes, that's what I thought.  I did try an expression that returned null if the grouping fields weren't set, but that just left an "Unassigned" mess as you suspected and did not affect the number of levels you had to drill through.

I utilize many things like this in theater view, this is just one simplified example.  Theater view is actually my main mode for day-to-day use of MC; I just use standard view for tagging and maintenance.  But I found the grouping functions so handy I wanted to replicate them in a standard view...

I think this is a type of intelligence it would be nice for standard view to have.  They already implemented it for theater view.  It's very handy for people who construct complicated view schemes, and for people who have large collections, especially classical.

Thanks,

Will

This is something that comes up from time to time.  I've played with it myself.  ...and of course found that it's not possible to do in MC's Standard View.

This is one of those limitations that changed my workflow.  Because it's not possible, I stopped doing certain groupings that I thought would be really cool.  Now they just aren't super cool, but they work consistently.

JRiver could almost certainly do a code revision which would allow this.  It seems like a fairly easy change (maybe a few man hours?), but I am totally guessing.  If Theater View can do it, then we know it's possible.  Though there might be some thorny hard stuff lurking in the background because Standard View is quite different than Theater View in it's logic and implementation.

If you really like the idea of optional groups and quick navigation, your best alternative is Panes views.  Panes are not nearly as sexy as Category views.  There's this organizational appeal to Categories almost like opening layers and layers of boxes embedded inside each other.  It's all very elegant and satisfying.

Panes don't have that same super clean appeal, but boy are Panes FAST!  You can really drill to what you want quickly with a nicely put together set of Panes.  Once you learn that you can set the Advanced Option to "filter in both directions" Panes become even more powerful.

...and while it's not part of this discussion, it's worth mentioning the killer power feature of Panes:  Saved Searches.  Saved Searches make things possible like my Duplicate Finder view, my Cover Art review, and some others that I haven't shown to anyone.  You can really do a lot with saved searches in Panes.

Brian.

Brian, yes of course I'm familiar with panes views and saved searches, and use them all the time.  I use different types of views depending on the task, and sometimes I prefer the graphical nature of the category view.  Thanks for your confirmation on the not possible.

Moe, I agree both of these topics would be good for the group... Using clever expressions to get theater view and standard view to do things they can't normally do, and some of the nifty things you can do with panes views.

-Will

Hey, where's your avatar?

Come on, Moe.  Be realistic...

LOL

I am highly amused. 

Brian.