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Author Topic: Please Correct Long-standing UI Anomaly  (Read 1237 times)

HighConcept

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Please Correct Long-standing UI Anomaly
« on: April 28, 2023, 02:11:13 pm »

Even though I just play music, and haven't used "new features" for years, I dutifully upgrade hoping that a long-standing anomaly in the User Interface will get fixed that, as a heavy user and as a professional programmer, drives me nuts! It's in the "unexpected behavior/inconsistent treatment" category.

Since I don't know the formal terms for each of the areas of the UI, let me explain with a screen shot, attached. I'm a PC user.

If I right-click on the Album Cover at "A", I get a context menu that allows me to select "Play", and the entire album is loaded into the player. Nice.

If I right-click on the STACK of Album Covers at "B", I get a context menu that allows me to select "Play", and the entire set of albums in that stack is loaded into the player. Expected behavior.

However, If I right-click on the Album Cover at "C", down where all the tracks display for the album(s) I selected in the upper half, I again get a context menu that allows me to select "Play", but only the single track that happened to be directly to the right of my cursor when I was hovering over the Album Cover "C" -- in this case "One Less Bell to Answer", highlighted in light blue -- is loaded into the player.

This is unexpected behavior. I "learned" from above that right clicking on an album COVER (or stack) gives me the context for the entire album.  I would expect (and truly want) the same behavior for the cover icon to the left of each set of tracks.

I TRY to use this all the time, being forgetful.  I get in the mood for a particular artist or genre or some other set, and search for it. Then, I browse through the tracklist of the found album(s), decide which album I want to listen to, and right click the corresponding cover, only to be reminded (when only a single track plays) of this anomalous behavior.

As a programmer, I know exactly how to fix this, and of course, so do you. Consider it a "feature request" that I've been meaning to request for almost a decade! Thanks.
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Matt

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Re: Please Correct Long-standing UI Anomaly
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2023, 06:33:02 pm »

C is a list of files.  The menu is going to act on the selected files.  That seems right to me.  How else would it work?
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

Matt

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Re: Please Correct Long-standing UI Anomaly
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2023, 06:39:04 pm »

Maybe you're hoping for the image to have a discrete menu?  It does not today.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

Matt

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Re: Please Correct Long-standing UI Anomaly
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2023, 06:50:30 pm »

I've got an idea we can try in MC31.  We'll just make right-clicking the image select all the album's files.  Would that work for you?
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

Daniel Warner

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Re: Please Correct Long-standing UI Anomaly
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2023, 07:02:30 pm »

I like the idea of a 'Play Album' link/button in that list - Is that possible?
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lepa

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Re: Please Correct Long-standing UI Anomaly
« Reply #5 on: April 30, 2023, 09:51:05 am »

Also I think that if user double clicks on that album image then that group should start playing from beginning of the group just like if user would double click group header.

EDITED POST: ah didn't read well that the original request was for the right click. well anyway the GUI would be more consistent if with other list types if left double click on image would behave just the same as the group header
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HighConcept

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Re: Please Correct Long-standing UI Anomaly
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2023, 06:18:32 pm »

I've got an idea we can try in MC31.  We'll just make right-clicking the image select all the album's files.  Would that work for you?

Yes. That's exactly what I am asking for.  If you think about it, that's what happens (behind the scenes) when you right-click either the album cover at "A", or the cover stack at "B": you implicitly select all tracks (or all tracks in all albums in the stack) and then apply the context menu to them.

If you do the same at "C" (just over the rectangle of the album cover), as you proposed, then the program is now consistent, and exhibits predictable behavior at "C". Instead of allowing the "hot spot" for the cursor selection to remain an extension of each track in the list to the right of "C", extending under the album cover to their left, just make the rectangle around the album cover "C" be the hot spot for selection all tracks to the right, simultaneously.
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