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[morten vorgod]

Hi

A bit of help needed

Yesterday I saved a view using
- > Customize view
- - > Saved views
- - - > Save this view

Now I would like to load the saved view! How do i do that?

- - - > Load this view
only allows 'load' of predefined views, there are no possibilities for 'browse for saved views'

-

How do i get Media Center to start up in Audio - Artist/Album ?

I got this setup
- > Tools
- - > Options
- - - > Startup
- - - - > Startup interface location Audio

This setup result in Media Center starting up in 'Recently Ripped' each time - why not in Artist/album ??

Regards

[marko]

1. This recent thread concluded that while the "save view" is useful, you need to keep the default "Save In..." location in order to see your saved view in the list of "Add View" presets.

Also take note of the 'matching media types' comments.

2. By default, when you select "Audio" in the tree, the audio branch auto expands and the last used view is automatically selected for you. If that last used view were 'Recently Ripped' (which I'm assuming is a view you've added, as the playlist bearing the same name is removed on exit), then that will be the view MC will open at. Try selecting the "Artist/Album" view, then close/re-open MC....
Which view does it open at?

-marko.

[morten vorgod]

thanks

reg

1) I had not seen this post - exactly the same problem descriped there!
2) you are right - I just have to exit from the view, where i want to start

[MusicHawk]

Same confusion here. My workaround, as suggested, is to resave my custom view to the default location.

Of course, the ability to save to a custom location needs to be matched with the ability to load from that same location, otherwise it's a frustrating dead-end.

It's way better than when views were in Windows registry, but still... I don't want my essential files stored in MC's default location buried deep in Windows. I keep everything -- library, field definitions, view definitions, cover art, music files -- on a separate drive, making it very easy to backup, to copy it all to another drive or machine  -- lots of reasons.

[MusicHawk]

'Recently Ripped'... the playlist bearing the same name is removed on exit

This is an unfortunate change from MC12. There are times when I rip some stuff, but don't finish reviewing/tagging, but need to close MC (reboot MC, reboot the PC, whatever). In MC12 Recently Ripped was untouched by this, unless I emptied it. But in MC13, sometimes ZAP, it's gone -- or was in .115, but maybe not in .119. Was this a bug, or an intentional behavior change?

Another unfortunate change: In MC12 I could easily customize Recently Ripped/Imported so it had the fields I typically update right after ripping. But that's not practical in MC13, possibly because the layout is zapped and recreated on MC's whim, not my action, and definitely because I can't load a saved view layout into Recently Ripped. This is a HUGE LOSS in productivity. The horrible MC13 workaround in Recently Ripped/Imported is to switch the Tag dialog to show all fields (rather than fields in the custom view, which worked perfectly in MC12), then scroll the huge list to find the few fields I really need to update. OR, I have to open a new pane, find the album title just ripped, and do my tagging there, which means Recently Ripped/Imported, being of fixed design with fields that aren't what I need to tag, has virtually no value.

Compounding the pain is that a view I carefully build in the Audio tree apparently can't be loaded as the Recently Ripped/Imported view. The pseudo-playlists purport to allow a saved view to be loaded, but the option only displays layouts saved from the same playlist, not any other view designs already saved. (I'm using MC's default Saved Views location to avoid losing things, though that cries out for user path control.)

UPDATE: Even though they are saved in the SAME FOLDER Saved Views and with the same file name extension .jvi, it seems that MC13 won't allow a saved view design to be applied to a playlist, including Recently Ripped but also including playlists I create. Playlists offer the same view design customization, but the Load... option doesn't display any of the saved views, only saved playlist designs. And just as with loading a view design, loading a playlist view design doesn't provide a Browse mode to find any in other locations.

HOWEVER, if I save a design in Recently Ripped, I can see and Load it in a view, but not vice versa.

Hoping to at least workaround this, I tried changing the name of a .jvi I saved from Recently Ripped, and the load mode did recognize the name change. I explored the .jvi XML hoping to find how MC13 distinguishes between a saved view and saved playlist, but only noticed that value Item Name="Media Types" is 1 for a saved Recently Ripped and 7 for a saved view, but changing it didn't change MC's behavior.

So, I copied the design of a view in the Audio tree to the name I'd saved from Recently Ripped. I could see the new name in RR's "Load...", but upon loading it was the original Recently Ripped design -- even though the original saved design .jvi was deleted. So I assume RR wasn't finding or truly loading my changed .jvi, no error message. But it knew the current file because it read the name I changed in the XML, so why not load the design? Puzzling....

So, I suspect (but haven't investigated) that MC is still storing crucial information in Windows Registry or some other area that doesn't notice what I do manually. My guess is MC saves a separate list of designs for views and playlists, and for "Load..." displays this list, at least for playlists, rather than dynamically listing what is in the Saved Views folder. This seems to further mess up the ability to backup view designs, share them among MC instances, etc.

AND... I don't find a way to force a view design to apply to all child views, though that seems so basic that I must be overlooking a changed option.


So, my wish list for MC13 is to revert to MC12 in these ways:

1. Retain Recently Ripped/Imported  content until the user Removes it, or at least allow this as an option. (I appreciate it's now called Remove, except it still is done via the "Delete" key, which is scary to press.)

2. Allow all Playlist view designs (including Playlists overall, and built-ins such as Recently Ripped/Imported) to be customized by loading any saved view. Put another way, make view designs universal in where they can be saved and used.

3. Retain Recently Ripped and Recently Imported customized layouts, whether empty or not, between MC sessions.

4. Allow view design to be easily forced down to child views.

5. Allow all view/playlist design to be saved AND loaded from a user-specified location.

6. Allow direct management of saved view designs. I already have a bunch of views saved, so I need to navigate to the buried location to review and delete the old versions. To help, I've learned to not just name the saved view, but add a detailed description, especially when I'm trying to resave an existing view after tweaking the design. At a minimum the description gets the date-time such as 20090209-1018 so I can tell which is the latest version. This is necessary because by default MC saves the same view name again and again without overwriting, even if that's what is desired. MC actually adds (1), (2), etc to identical .jvi view design file names but given the obscure location and length of the path this is difficult to notice. So the way to truly overwrite is to edit the .jvi file name before MC saves, removing the (1).

[dcwebman]

1. This recent thread concluded that while the "save view" is useful, you need to keep the default "Save In..." location in order to see your saved view in the list of "Add View" presets.

I agree this is very inconvenient. My default path is the long path under C:\Documents and Settings\. It's tough when trying to get a backup scheme to keep finding all the different locations that need to be backed up for MC.