MM5 has nice new facilities, but disappointing losses
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:00 am
I like a lot about MM5, like the new fresh look, the Browser View with info from Wikipedia, & the Pinned facility. I don't understand it yet, but presumably the new technology that you are developing with, ensures an extended lifespan for MM. The simplification regarding View modes is probably good for new users.
But I am disappointed about some apparent losses.
1. The cover-art-focused views, ie nodes other than "All Tracks", look good, but the loss of what was called the "Column Browser" in MM4 is very disappointing
* that facility is now called List Filter in MM5, and is only available in restricted circumstances: ie when viewing tracks, either in the All Track sub-node, or you have drilled down into a specific album by double clicking
* ie. it is not available when in any of the other viewing sub-nodes, above track level, such as the Album node, or Album Artist, etc
* neither is it available you when have selected a group of albums or tracks
* neither is it available for search track results (ie. you get offered Simplified List or List View only )
* in MM4 you could select a group of albums|tracks, or create your own collection using some custom criteria set ... and then view with the column browser, which allowed on-the-fly filtering by whichever columns you had added to the column browser ... this genre, and|or that year, or by whatever is is Custom field 1, etc etc ... there is an illustration at the bottom of this post
This is my primary viewing mode when using MM ... and its loss is a great negative IMO
2. The Art&Details panel has also been depreciated ... ie. it is no longer available at the album level
* in MM4, in Show Art view mode (ie. viewing whole albums) .. the O&D panel reflects my selection, it does this even if I have a custom A&D layout including some track level columns, so presumably it just takes those from the 1st track ... this is useful for an album-focused person, in my case the Added column, Genre, Date, and various other columns are constant for the album anyway. ... also included in the illustration at the bottom of this post
* in MM5 the O&D panel is only updated if I click on a track, ie. not an album ... can you change this please? ... or at the very least allow me to configure which columns are displayed when I click on an album, at the moment I only see a display with track names, track numbers & durations
* there is a bug in the MM5 O&D panel .. in Advanced layout, the album art is overlaid with a translucent panel of white haze
* I strong disagree with discussion here stating that a A&D panel with a custom layout is of little use ... that loss of that would really kill MM for me, unless you started offering a tooltip popup, with a custom layout
http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view. ... 406#c46326
3. Loss of ShowArtWithDetails
* MM4 had facility for a displayshowing a level of detail alongside an decent sized display of album art .... ie. a list rather than a matrix, so that columns such as AlbumArtists, year, Genre, data last played, etc, could be displayed alongside the album art .... this was my second most heavily used view in MM
* it is gone in MM5 ... we get just a matrix ... we have to click on each individual album art square to see any details, and even then it is just a track list
* or we can use AllTracks, where we can include the art column, but it microscopic and therefore worthless, and displayed once per track, rather than consolidating the album to just the first n rows (as defined by Tools|Options|Library|Appearance), so that the art could be once only, and therefore of a meaningful size
4. The search facility
* the advanced query answer panel is stuck in Simplfied List view mode .. you need to add List View at the least, as the Simplified List may not include the column I am interested in
* the UI here is not fully clear (ie. "[Click here to add criteria]" is there twice, with two separate functions (ie. inclusion criteria and sort criteria)
* UI could be improved, eg. offer drag and drop for sort criteria lines, allowing alteration of ranking ... and drag a column heading into the Sort Criteria hot spot
* it would nice if, in the simple single string facility, I could affect the which columns were to be searched without having to go to Tools|Options|Library|Search to make a persistent change ... ie. allow a temp change, which affects the current search only
* advanced query facility is seems to be hidden behind a double click on the magnify glass icon?
5. Selected items ... ie. I select a couple of albums using the tick box in the top right border of the art:
* the browsing UI doesn't seem to know what to do with these, which is a waste
* it would great if there was a way to throw them into a (selected) AllTracks view ... ie. available for SimpleList|ListView|ListFiltler
But I am disappointed about some apparent losses.
1. The cover-art-focused views, ie nodes other than "All Tracks", look good, but the loss of what was called the "Column Browser" in MM4 is very disappointing
* that facility is now called List Filter in MM5, and is only available in restricted circumstances: ie when viewing tracks, either in the All Track sub-node, or you have drilled down into a specific album by double clicking
* ie. it is not available when in any of the other viewing sub-nodes, above track level, such as the Album node, or Album Artist, etc
* neither is it available you when have selected a group of albums or tracks
* neither is it available for search track results (ie. you get offered Simplified List or List View only )
* in MM4 you could select a group of albums|tracks, or create your own collection using some custom criteria set ... and then view with the column browser, which allowed on-the-fly filtering by whichever columns you had added to the column browser ... this genre, and|or that year, or by whatever is is Custom field 1, etc etc ... there is an illustration at the bottom of this post
This is my primary viewing mode when using MM ... and its loss is a great negative IMO
2. The Art&Details panel has also been depreciated ... ie. it is no longer available at the album level
* in MM4, in Show Art view mode (ie. viewing whole albums) .. the O&D panel reflects my selection, it does this even if I have a custom A&D layout including some track level columns, so presumably it just takes those from the 1st track ... this is useful for an album-focused person, in my case the Added column, Genre, Date, and various other columns are constant for the album anyway. ... also included in the illustration at the bottom of this post
* in MM5 the O&D panel is only updated if I click on a track, ie. not an album ... can you change this please? ... or at the very least allow me to configure which columns are displayed when I click on an album, at the moment I only see a display with track names, track numbers & durations
* there is a bug in the MM5 O&D panel .. in Advanced layout, the album art is overlaid with a translucent panel of white haze
* I strong disagree with discussion here stating that a A&D panel with a custom layout is of little use ... that loss of that would really kill MM for me, unless you started offering a tooltip popup, with a custom layout
http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view. ... 406#c46326
3. Loss of ShowArtWithDetails
* MM4 had facility for a displayshowing a level of detail alongside an decent sized display of album art .... ie. a list rather than a matrix, so that columns such as AlbumArtists, year, Genre, data last played, etc, could be displayed alongside the album art .... this was my second most heavily used view in MM
* it is gone in MM5 ... we get just a matrix ... we have to click on each individual album art square to see any details, and even then it is just a track list
* or we can use AllTracks, where we can include the art column, but it microscopic and therefore worthless, and displayed once per track, rather than consolidating the album to just the first n rows (as defined by Tools|Options|Library|Appearance), so that the art could be once only, and therefore of a meaningful size
4. The search facility
* the advanced query answer panel is stuck in Simplfied List view mode .. you need to add List View at the least, as the Simplified List may not include the column I am interested in
* the UI here is not fully clear (ie. "[Click here to add criteria]" is there twice, with two separate functions (ie. inclusion criteria and sort criteria)
* UI could be improved, eg. offer drag and drop for sort criteria lines, allowing alteration of ranking ... and drag a column heading into the Sort Criteria hot spot
* it would nice if, in the simple single string facility, I could affect the which columns were to be searched without having to go to Tools|Options|Library|Search to make a persistent change ... ie. allow a temp change, which affects the current search only
* advanced query facility is seems to be hidden behind a double click on the magnify glass icon?
5. Selected items ... ie. I select a couple of albums using the tick box in the top right border of the art:
* the browsing UI doesn't seem to know what to do with these, which is a waste
* it would great if there was a way to throw them into a (selected) AllTracks view ... ie. available for SimpleList|ListView|ListFiltler