UI configurability of new MM5 features is disappointing [#15684]
Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 1:52 am
I really like the artist and album browsing facilities which are new with MM5. These don't seem to have a consistent name, so I don't know how to refer to them; is Grid view from sub-nodes such as Artists, AlbumArtists or Albums, and is Browser view from top level nodes. It generally looks like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/flmjlwcpscwnr ... e.png?dl=0
and from there you can drill down into either an Artist: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhfswki8vf8z3 ... y.png?dl=0
Or an album: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2nxocqjzn6vx ... y.png?dl=0
It is disappointing that none of these three new displays have a configurable UI.
UI configurability has been migrated from MM4; ... eg. the data attributes which are displayed, and the layout, in the Art&Details panel. ... Also the columns that are displayed, the order in they are displayed, and row sorting, in the various List and Album&Track type views.
But zero configurability in these new MM5 display panels? .... grumble, disappointed, etc.
... nb. neither MM4 nor MM5 have enough data attributes at the album or artist level. ... The workaround, for album focused listeners, is to select all tracks in the album, and use the Properties inspector to "edit properties for multiple tracks" to create your own attreibutes for the group as a whole.
I would really like to be able to configure the UI of each of the three panel types illustrated at the top of the post ... see the orange boxes that I drew on each of the images above ... I would like to display "album" or "artist" level data attributes which are meaningful to me; ie. maybe one or more of the Custom fields, and|or the Comment, and|or date added or date last played, and|or play count, and|or any of the classification settings.
I see that you have hard coded a display of the Genre value(s) for the collections in some of these panels ... but what about the other data attributes? ... and why not carry forward the concept of configurability from MM4?
I realise that for an album, or for an artist, there is no set of group level data attributes in the MM db, but you could offer display settings such as *first, *last, *all, *mostFrequent, *median, *average, *smallest, *largest, derived from the group's tracks with nonNull attributes for associated display field. ... eg. for an album focused MM customer, who always queues whole albums, the *average of the album track's PlayCounter is a meaningful measure of Album Play Count, ... and the *median of LastPlayed is useful as Album Date Last Played ... the desired setting may differ from customer to customer, and from db field to field, which could be handled by MM4-style configurability.
... and before someone like Peke ( ) suggests that i could do this by hacking some CSS or javascript files, or something ... well I couldn't atm.... and this style of thing is generally only available to tiny subset of MM customers anyway.
Another example of a lack of UI configurability for new_to_MM5 features is the Artists row of thumbnails, shown on the top diagram linked to above ... some customers may prefer to see AlbumArtist here ... I know one of them
https://www.dropbox.com/s/flmjlwcpscwnr ... e.png?dl=0
and from there you can drill down into either an Artist: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhfswki8vf8z3 ... y.png?dl=0
Or an album: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2nxocqjzn6vx ... y.png?dl=0
It is disappointing that none of these three new displays have a configurable UI.
UI configurability has been migrated from MM4; ... eg. the data attributes which are displayed, and the layout, in the Art&Details panel. ... Also the columns that are displayed, the order in they are displayed, and row sorting, in the various List and Album&Track type views.
But zero configurability in these new MM5 display panels? .... grumble, disappointed, etc.
... nb. neither MM4 nor MM5 have enough data attributes at the album or artist level. ... The workaround, for album focused listeners, is to select all tracks in the album, and use the Properties inspector to "edit properties for multiple tracks" to create your own attreibutes for the group as a whole.
I would really like to be able to configure the UI of each of the three panel types illustrated at the top of the post ... see the orange boxes that I drew on each of the images above ... I would like to display "album" or "artist" level data attributes which are meaningful to me; ie. maybe one or more of the Custom fields, and|or the Comment, and|or date added or date last played, and|or play count, and|or any of the classification settings.
I see that you have hard coded a display of the Genre value(s) for the collections in some of these panels ... but what about the other data attributes? ... and why not carry forward the concept of configurability from MM4?
I realise that for an album, or for an artist, there is no set of group level data attributes in the MM db, but you could offer display settings such as *first, *last, *all, *mostFrequent, *median, *average, *smallest, *largest, derived from the group's tracks with nonNull attributes for associated display field. ... eg. for an album focused MM customer, who always queues whole albums, the *average of the album track's PlayCounter is a meaningful measure of Album Play Count, ... and the *median of LastPlayed is useful as Album Date Last Played ... the desired setting may differ from customer to customer, and from db field to field, which could be handled by MM4-style configurability.
... and before someone like Peke ( ) suggests that i could do this by hacking some CSS or javascript files, or something ... well I couldn't atm.... and this style of thing is generally only available to tiny subset of MM customers anyway.
Another example of a lack of UI configurability for new_to_MM5 features is the Artists row of thumbnails, shown on the top diagram linked to above ... some customers may prefer to see AlbumArtist here ... I know one of them