Topic: Merged Media Library and Library Browser PART II (Read 16403 times)

urlwolf · « **Reply #50 on:** December 13, 2005, 02:44:38 pm »

so what's going to happen to the document view?
And how do we set up references in this new system so MC boots with a particular view (that in my case, was the docment view?)

LonWar · « **Reply #51 on:** December 13, 2005, 02:48:41 pm »

Hello, Can you please put in a drop down list for the tree?
I like to have the tree closed, and having a Drop list to navigate like the View list would be great!!!

park · « **Reply #52 on:** December 15, 2005, 08:54:22 pm »

Will different sized thumbnails happen? (even small/medium/large would be an improvement on the current system).

bopz · « **Reply #53 on:** December 16, 2005, 04:03:47 am »

Can you please put a "Views" drop down list for EVERY view, not just the first level of the tree views?
Can the view please remember the last choice, and stay that way?
Can there please be favorites, linked to places in the tree, in a "Favorites" dropdown right next to the "Views" dropdown in every view, and can it always remember the last choice?

And/or can we have saved window layouts (presets) that remember these choices.

datdude · « **Reply #54 on:** December 16, 2005, 09:17:48 pm »

Sorting of the tiles is really helpful.

Another possible idea to add that should be looked into:

Changing the functionality in the search box.

A) After drilling down through the tiles and fields under a certain search filter, if that filter is then removed, all files that still apply to the breadcrumbs, should show up. currently if the search filter is removed, the view is not updated to all possiblities in that current drilled down view.

B) The preset searches are o.k. but not what I normally use. A 'saved searches' at the top would be rad. It could be edited in exactly the same way the 'navigation' tool button is. As of right now it is difficult to type in specific search rules and why should we have to type in the same ones over and over?

datdude · « **Reply #55 on:** December 21, 2005, 12:45:51 am »

I do not like the latest build.

The previous library buttons, and the location of the sorting worked better. Now the sorting is nested which is harder to use, and you can't 'see' the buttons which sort of eliminates possiblity's when you aren't sure how you want to search.

I suggest a Windows XP taskbar (breadcrumbs) + quick launch (library buttons) + System Tray (sorting/options) approach to the GUI. Also please see my post above on search suggestions.

Thanks

park · « **Reply #56 on:** December 21, 2005, 07:56:05 am »

I think that the drop down list for the root filter is a good idea. It shows that no matter which one you click on it will go back to the top level. before I tended to gravitate towards them even when i was trying to filter through my selected tiles.

I agree that the sorting etc. should be in their own menu though.

Last thing I'd like to see is a "Filter all visible tiles by..." drop down menu.

JONCAT · « **Reply #57 on:** December 21, 2005, 08:07:42 am »

I agree that the nested buttons i.e. drop-down window are prblematic.

Seeing is knowing......with the buttons in view, the user experience is enhanced.

Also, I am not a big fan of slecting a drop down window and then clicking another selction. This is also a big objection I have to Theater View which I would use more but just stops you in your tracks because it's navigation is so counterintuitive.

...still waiting for the Album Thumbs to come back or Customizable Tiles. Pretty depressing to have lost the option to SCROLL through large beautiful, stimulating, cover art. It is a virtual Case Logic experience. This is a BIG draw for MC and more people need to comment on this; what was the rationale behind erasing the Album Thumb option in Files? ..does this mean that custom tile view is one the way!

Dr. C

JONCAT · « **Reply #58 on:** December 21, 2005, 08:12:02 am »

Stuck my foot in my mouth:

Okay I just noticed that Album Thumbs are back in this build....whew.

Dr. C

park · « **Reply #59 on:** December 21, 2005, 09:17:39 pm »

Oooh, 'tis a beautiful thing. Now I can have my tiles sorted by last played, but my album thumbnails or detailed list sorted by track number. I can have my cake and eat it! It's also nice being able to select an artist up in the tiles and see all the albums for that artist as album thumbnails.

Small tiles look great too. The big ones looked a bit vulgar on my screen and meant lots more scrolling.

I would still put the sorting submenu in it's own menu though. So that you always know that the far left menu is only for choosing your root selection. At the moment, you kind of think for a second that you can only change the sorting for the root.

Also, changing between album thumbnails/details/thumbnails still requires clicking somewhere in the files list first. This shouldnt be necessary in my opinion.

I'm a happy bunny with these changes

park · « **Reply #60 on:** December 21, 2005, 09:46:16 pm »

One more thing that would be great, would be if the files list at the bottom would remember its size per viewscheme. Generally speaking, for my image viewschemes I want to see more of the thumbnails down below, and for my video viewschemes I still need see quite large lists, but for audio that area only needs to be very small.

JONCAT · « **Reply #61 on:** December 22, 2005, 07:58:29 am »

Whoa I see what you mean Park.

So now if browsing Artists in Tiles you can see the album thumbs but only if you into Files and set the view that way. There should be a toggle to switch easily between the file list and the thumbs. This is a good option.

I agree about the remembering the size settings, and also propose a "Lite" screen view; like a fullscreen (F11) on a web browser. I just added Show Alphabet and rather like it, but I think it should be displayed on the same line as the bi-directional links; it could move over to the right and THEN be sent down underneath to a new line if the links stretch out too far.

Couple this with a new fullscreen mode that is prior to ther standard on e.g. Normal>Lite>Full Screen>Theatre View

or

Less complicated would be to add the splitter buttons to the Title Bar area so it can be hidden. Part of my reasoning for this is that I use big tiles on a big monitor and usually need a larger font; these add up to stealing space from file & album thumbnail viewing. And since we can't customize Tile spacing it would be nice to maximize the screen area. Either method would allow the user switch between a pure "search" experience and a "work" experience.

Dr. C

JONCAT · « **Reply #62 on:** December 22, 2005, 08:00:50 am »

I found that my toolbar icons do work to shift between Album Thumb & File lists but only from the root view; once you have selected an Album Tile for instance you have to go back to switch.

De-selecting the album doesn't work either, you still have to refresh the view.

That's why these drop down windows are very useful - you can't just re-select the button. Same for "Play" under Tiles....can't this space be changed into something more useful....double-click for playback...why do we need a button...if someone can't figure that out or a highlight+play button...they shouldn't be using MC. Any ideas what could replace "Play" ?

Dr. C

park · « **Reply #63 on:** December 22, 2005, 08:33:24 am »

If you click down in the list to select that part of the window then you should be able to change between album thumbnails/details etc. It should matter which level you are in with the tiles, or which tiles are selected.

We still need the "play" link at the moment otherwise if you select multiple tiles there would be no way to obviously play them all. I'm still hoping for "Enter selected" and "play selected" buttons up in the new bar.

Anyway, I would like to add that little tick boxes, so that we can use "Tagging mode" in the tiles view too, would be just lovely, if you guys could get round to it.

marko · « **Reply #64 on:** January 19, 2006, 04:41:51 am »

I guess, once you get down to a certain level, there's no way to accomodate everyone's wishes, and a decision has to be made.

I for one, am thoroughly enjoying this new structure.
I like having the audio, image and video nodes on the root like that. I lost count of the number of times I felt that "media library" was redundant in the past. I have those three nodes filtered just the way I want them, and it's where I go when I want to play something.
Beneath those, I have added, amongst other things, a fourth viewscheme group called "Workshop". Really, it's just a clone of the old Media Library, with the same hierarchy. In there, I have very different viewschemes and filters, and I can be sure that their root really is All Media. That's where I go when I need to work on the library.
see: adding a viewscheme to the tree root. ("non-library" means areas such as the start node, or "Playing Now")

The "media mode" buttons in the top right have changed slightly. Think of them as just shortcuts to their respective nodes on the tree root. It means they no longer cause media type filtering when viewing folders internally via drives and devices. I can live with that though, it's not that big a deal when compared with the pros of this new system.

ctrl+f has gone all controversial due to these changes.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=31358.0

datdude · « **Reply #65 on:** February 19, 2006, 03:37:16 pm »

Could you guys add a right click option on the view scheme items in the library drop down menu at the left.

I have several view schemes that bring up random albums, artist, and years. It would be nice without having to actually 'view' these schemes in the library, if I could right click on them and simply click play. That way I won't know what is actually playing until it does which makes it a little more FUN!

PollyQ · « **Reply #66 on:** February 20, 2006, 03:53:50 pm »

Why not just use a Smartlist?

JONCAT · « **Reply #67 on:** February 20, 2006, 04:30:59 pm »

How about the bottom display text displays a field of our choice. Countless times I have no idea what is selected because of similar or truncated album titles on Tiles. I could realy care less that an album has files (well most of the time), it could at least state this after ID'ing what is highlighted.

Dr. C

datdude · « **Reply #68 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:17:23 pm »

Quote from: PollyQ on February 20, 2006, 03:53:50 pm

Why not just use a Smartlist?

It is a smartlist, I just included it in a view scheme so that I can keep the tree view minimized.

park · « **Reply #69 on:** February 20, 2006, 08:36:28 pm »

Suggestion:

How about selected tiles autoscroll through their different cover art automatically without the cursor being over them, so that you can only see easily what is selected?

datdude · « **Reply #70 on:** February 20, 2006, 10:13:23 pm »

That would be psychotic looking.

Matt · « **Reply #71 on:** February 20, 2006, 10:22:41 pm »

Quote from: datdude on February 19, 2006, 03:37:16 pm

Could you guys add a right click option on the view scheme items in the library drop down menu at the left.

I have several view schemes that bring up random albums, artist, and years. It would be nice without having to actually 'view' these schemes in the library, if I could right click on them and simply click play. That way I won't know what is actually playing until it does which makes it a little more FUN!

In the tree, right-click > Play doesn't switch views.

datdude · « **Reply #72 on:** February 20, 2006, 11:56:42 pm »

Gotcha, that is actually nice cuz I seem to remember that it wasn't always that way.

However it would be nice to add that same feature to the library view drop down menu.

datdude · « **Reply #73 on:** March 05, 2006, 01:51:18 pm »

The files at bottom section with seperator bar should have 1 arrow pointing up and one down when it is in the middle and be able to be maximized all the way to the top.

I am also noticing that when highlighting a few tiles and then resorting, the highlighted tiles are not the same because the tiles moved but the highlites did not.

datdude · « **Reply #74 on:** March 21, 2006, 10:10:28 pm »

The quick play toolbar option functionality should be added to each tile.

In that the view menu should have all possibilities available to naviagte to without having to select another tile first.

park · « **Reply #75 on:** March 21, 2006, 11:37:49 pm »

Love the thumbnail/spacing sliders. Really good for the image part of the library.

The "Top" "Bottom" options drop downs have made a huuuge step towards making the interface quickly switchable/navigatable too.

Next we need the "Sorting" presets in the "Customize current view" to directly correspond to the sorting presets that are listed on the "Top"/"Bottom" menus, so that we can customize what "Date", "Last Played" etc. really mean for us.
(ie. Now "Date" = "Date z-a" but I want to make it so that it sorts "Date z-a: Artist: Disc Number: Track number" If I set this up in Customize current view and save it as "Date", then the "Top" "Bottom" menus should reflect the changes I made to that preset.)

I also agree with datdude that per field remembering of sorting was really useful. I hope enough people chip in and agree to bring that back.

park · « **Reply #76 on:** March 22, 2006, 07:51:26 pm »

Options bar down at the bottom is even better than yesterdays "Top"/"Bottom" options. This is great stuff.

Still hope that you can tie the sorting presets on the options menu to the ones that you can save insdie "customize current view"

Also, though I want my album thumbnails sorted by date, I want the files inside the album to be sorted by track number. Same with "Last played" etc. I realise that it breaks the Sorting logic a bit (ie. files sorted by last played will always break the "track number" sorting), but it makes sense if you think of "Album Thumbnails" sorting as being different to "Files" sorting.

datdude · « **Reply #77 on:** March 22, 2006, 08:38:22 pm »

The new files at bottom menu take up unnecessary space especially on a laptop.

Maybe it could be a right click menu?

park · « **Reply #78 on:** March 22, 2006, 09:15:35 pm »

I think that they (the Files info & Options menu) make everything easier to understand. They definitely shouldnt be hidden in a right click menu.

I would also suggest that the whole of the bottom half be a shade lighter or darker than the top to help visually seperate them out more.

datdude · « **Reply #79 on:** March 22, 2006, 09:39:12 pm »

What would be sweet is if the files at bottom were transparent.

And I think with the new menu bar at the bottom, MC is creeping ever so slowly into my acutal media browsing space

Pretty soon I'll have all the features in the world but nothing to use them on!

I'm kidding of course but I think JRiver knows the right mix.

dcwebman · « **Reply #80 on:** March 23, 2006, 11:54:05 am »

Quote from: datdude on March 22, 2006, 08:38:22 pm

The new files at bottom menu take up unnecessary space especially on a laptop.

I agree. I really dislike this huge bottom menu bar. I thought the Top/Bottom was intuitive and didn't waste any more screen space. I see that if I select Alphabet to be displayed on the top, that's when the large menu bar at the bottom appears. Problem is there is no way to get an alphabet at the bottom for the second row, that I can see at least, and I wouldn't want one there anyway.

Matt · « **Reply #81 on:** March 23, 2006, 12:31:58 pm »

Quote from: dcwebman on March 23, 2006, 11:54:05 am

I see that if I select Alphabet to be displayed on the top, that's when the large menu bar at the bottom appears.

The dead space on the bottom bar when the alphabet is shown is a bug. It'll be fixed next build.

Alex B · « **Reply #82 on:** March 23, 2006, 02:11:42 pm »

Even the smaller dead space in the center when top alphabet is not used is completely wasted space. The previous reincarnation with the thin splitter was much better. In my opinion precious space should not be wasted like that.

Also toggling between the hidden and visible bottom part is more difficult now. Previously the splitter could do that quickly.

park · « **Reply #83 on:** March 23, 2006, 09:56:04 pm »

Now that we can drill down through the tiles just by double clicking (very nice btw), I kind of want the order of the library groupings to be different to that of the panes. I know that I could make a new viewscheme, but in the end it would still be the same fields... so, wouldnt it be cool if we could change the order of the fields for panes view/tiles view in "edit viewscheme"

marko · « **Reply #84 on:** March 24, 2006, 03:30:14 am »

I'm really enjoying the new library browser. I never really used the browser that much in v11.0 for some reason.

I've been using it without the tree and this really adds to the experience of browsing my media, less distraction I guess.

Anyway, using the browser like this develops a workflow, so, when wanting to get somewhere else, from audio to pictures, for example, I go straight to the 1st breadcrumb, hover, and pick images. Great stuff....

But if I want to go to playing now, or playlists, I instinctively go to the first breadcrumb, and when the menu pops down, it's like running into a brick wall.

Would it be possible to add all root nodes to this drop-menu?
I'm thinking that if we clicked on a non-browser node, like playlists, it would cause the tree to unhide.
I would find this extremely useful, I'm not sure about anyone else?

-marko.

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Author Topic: Merged Media Library and Library Browser PART II (Read 16403 times)

JONCAT

JONCAT

JONCAT

JONCAT

JONCAT