(Not to be interpreted, by the way, as a criticism of DJSigma for not being a paid users, because I don't know whether they are or not. My point is a general one.)

DJSigma wrote:Being able to play music with MM is desirable, so make that Gold only too.

The point was, you need to find the right balance of free features and features that are locked away behind the pay wall. Not being able to manage collections (i.e. your own library of music) without paying is just a cheap way of trying to get people to pay and it's likely to put people off the software.

It makes absolutely no difference to me if you ignore customer feedback.

You could argue that people like me, who have paid for the software, are the customers to whom MM need to be listening most of all. In fact, you could argue that people who haven't paid for the software aren't really customers at all.

And people like me, who have paid for the software, might well want to say that the free version should be clearly differentiated from the version we've paid for. Otherwise, what do we gain from paying for it?

So how might you differentiate?

Well, maybe you offer the full version but only for a limited time period before you have to buy it. But we're talking about music collections and people putting a lot of time in building and maintaining collections, so that's not really a good option in this particular case. Potential customers would think: I'm not putting a lot of time into this because if I decide not to buy it then all that time will have been wasted.

Or maybe you limit the functionality of the software. This immediately looks better because people can use it to a certain extent but then have to pay for more functionality. Potential customers might think: "well, I don't mind experimenting with this because even if I don't end up wanting to buy the software I haven't wasted all my time".

Seems to me that having some limitations on free users' ability to manage their collections is absolutely a fair enough way of differentiating free from paid-for music-management software.

I like the idea of the classical music subcollection for the reasons pointed out above. What I'd prefer changed, however, is mm's method for selecting which tracks are put into it. Obviously there are many sub-genres within classical, like opera, baroque, romantic, choral, etc., etc., and it is unfortunate the mm is only able to select tracks tagged as classical. Perhaps rather than selecting tracks this way it could be possible to have a tick box in the preferences information of each track, asking whether or not you'd like the track to be in the classical subcollection, or more generally, a drop down box of current subcollections that you'd like your track to be put into, perhaps? Thanks!

Being able to play music with MM is desirable, so make that Gold only too.

The point was, you need to find the right balance of free features and features that are locked away behind the pay wall. Not being able to manage collections (i.e. your own library of music) without paying is just a cheap way of trying to get people to pay and it's likely to put people off the software.

It makes absolutely no difference to me if you ignore customer feedback.

DJSigma wrote: Putting some of the customisation options for your library behind the pay wall only makes the situation worse too, as mentioned here: -

leoben wrote:So in MM4, if you don't want to see all the sub nodes; want to configure your Collection configuration; the advertised solution: Buy Gold.

A problem for cheapskates only. The Gold only features have to actually be desirable (as in this case).

wave wrote:Do you think the average user will ever change it, even if they don't like it? It's way too complicated for non-technical users.

If I wasn't the sort of person that tinkers around with software for a week or two before deciding whether I like it or not, I'd have binned MediaMonkey straight away. There are tons of options for "power users" and that's great - I love that about the software - but it's hardly the most intuitive piece of software to use (and the overall UI isn't very nice either IMO, but that's another story).

People aren't really saying this for their own good either cos people that have stuck with MM (i.e. many of the people that post here) already know what you can do with it. It's feedback that, if I had created this software, I would use to make it more user friendly. It doesn't mean that any features need to be removed, but my goal would be trying to get as many people using the software as possible cos that's more people paying for licenses, and that means making it as user friendly as I can from the moment you install it. Putting some of the customisation options for your library behind the pay wall only makes the situation worse too, as mentioned here: -

leoben wrote:So in MM4, if you don't want to see all the sub nodes; want to configure your Collection configuration; the advertised solution: Buy Gold.

I have to agree with TZ02, with the added note that once I learned of the new "feature" and revised my settings, I found that all the customization I'd already done to the display was lost, and I had to repeat it. I guess that's better than finding that MM had in fact lost several dozen albums -- including a few that actually aren't classical music -- but it's still a great big pain in the user experience.

I got caught by this one too. A couple hundred of my music tracks hit the "bit bucket" and were MIA for a couple of weeks because the genre was Classical. I use the music collection instead of Entire Library because it contains so many nodes that are completely meaningless to me. I did a bit of scripting to hide those nodes, but for some reason, they won't hide in Entire Library; but will hide in the other Collections.

The implementation chosen for MM4 reminds me of the way Microsoft does things. MS software presumes it knows what users want and how they use the software. Most of the time and for most people, MS gets is right, but for those who want something different; well, they are pretty much hooped. Usually there is no easy or cheap fix if there is one at all. And MS doesn't seem to care enough to change anything.

So in MM4, if you don't want to see all the sub nodes; want to configure your Collection configuration; the advertised solution: Buy Gold.

On first blush, it appears that the MM strategy is one to get folks to pony up bucks for Gold. Now, I don't have a problem with a gold license to create/edit new collections. I do find it disappointing that MM4 does not provide a way to hide superfluous nodes in Entire Library and for default collections for the free version users. Seems like they are deliberately trying to antagonize their customer base. To what action is unclear

I suppose it is only fair to give the MM guys the benefit of the doubt for now. Perhaps the shortcomings were things that got left out in the push to get MM4 out the door. That being the case, hopefully they will address these shortcomings in 4.1. We can always hope.

Well, enough ranting for now. Off to do a bit more scripting to hide excess nodes and to warn & fix tracks not assigned to the Music node. I am not holding my breath that these issues are going to be fixed any time soon; so I will script some work-arounds to minimize the problems.

Hello Everyone, here's my point of view when it comes to the "Why complain? You can change the configuration if you don't like the new setting..." responses.

I installed MM4 a few days back and everything went smooth, UI looked as confusing as before but well, I have chosen to purchase MM3 with that UI so it's no worse. The few features I use the most are where they have been before so no real reason to complain.

It just happend that I added a few new albums to my folder structure that day followed by a rescan of the folder with MM4.
Well, my albums didn't show up in the tree as they used to do? Let's try again, and again..
Maybe I need to restart? Did that with no effect. Is this a bug? Try'd to rename the folder, etc, again no difference.
Went to the forum and after some reading noticed the new Collection feature and right, there are a few new nodes in the Tree view which I didn't spot yet. And yes, there is a "Classic" node, which did contain the new albums.
Well, I don't want that split, so how do I change it back? Right click on the Collection to see if I can delete won't work unless I buy Gold edition? Is this a way to force people to buy the product? Changing configurations without telling/asking and then ask for money to set it back? That was the moment when I got really angry about the time wasted and what seemed to be a new way to make money out ot people.

Went back to the forum and finally stumbled over the tools/options/Media Tree setting and yes, now I can see all my mp3's in one tree again.

Don't get me wrong, I use MM because it's the only tool I know off that can handle my 30.000+ files in an acceptable manner and that's why I spend money on it and likely will buy the upgrade (once the email offer comes through) but because the UI is so busy it's been very difficult for me to even see that something needs to be done. 2 new nodes in the 30+ node tree view...
It's good that one can change a setting but to be able to do so I need to know that this setting exists in the first place.
So all in all I got pretty annoyed, so annoyed that I was close to look for alternatives.
MM may lose a quite few users because that don't want to check forums or dig through hundreds of options until they find what they need...

Well, once I found the solution here I decided to "waste" even more time to write this post

I guess the product has been designed with power users in mind which I am surely not. If this app would have an additional UI digestable for the average user it could be way more succesful and even I may start using some of the "advanced" features such as syncing to my iPhone or ripping CDs...

TZ02

There's a downside to the Entire Library view in the free version - you can't hide all the subnodes that are irrelevant. (This is a little annoying for the Music node, and moreso for the Entire Library view). IN MM3, the free version can still hide subnodes of the tree, but in 4, this doesn't seem possible. So if you want to see only "Artist/Album Artist", Genre, and Album, there's a lot of other clutter.

It would be nice to see some simplification options come back in the free version, since that's not really an advanced feature.

I also don't like the classical node but it's okay because you can easily change it.

To add on to Lowlander's post: If you want to remove a track from being classified as "Classical", go into the file properties for the track in MM (right-click > Properties). Under the "File name" field you will see a field called "Type". Change it to "Music" and it will show under your music node instead of classical.

It's only done on upgrade to MediaMonkey and when files are scanned in first and it follows these rules: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... al#p299374

I like the Classical Node, and I think it's the right decision to make it visible by default. If it was hidden by default, who'd ever even know it was available.

Good decision, and congratulations on yuet another stunningly awesome release of the best Music app EVER!!!

A question about the node though?

How does MM distinguish what is actually Classical? Does it use the Genre to decide? How do I configure a track so that it does or does not appear in the Classical mode?

Thanks!

You only need to enable the Entire Library node, that's a single click. I don't think that's too difficult.