Have a look in the Artwork Forum at the
MediaMonkey Screenshots thread. I think you'll see some examples of where people like to have the album art panel and why.
I think one of the reasons people move it away from the tree is exactly what you mention: that they want as long a tree panel as possible a lot of the time.
Once you start to install scripts that involve another panel, you'll see that you can put two or more panels/panels in the same 'area' of MediaMonkey and you'll eventually settle on a place for the album art panel - maybe above MonkeyRok and/or Lyrics viewer on the right? or alongside your horizontal now playing panel under the main tracks list? anywhere you like.
Most skins will let you move the actual player itself too, so there's quite a lot of flexibility. It might help alleviate your problem.
If you keep the album art's titlebar visible (via right-click) you can obviously close it quickly with the close button in the titlebar. But yes, the Ctrl+Alt hotkeys are well worth getting familiar with. Not least, to get your album art panel back again!
Notice the Ctrl+Alt hokeys in the View Menu. They are your friends. MonkeyRok and Lyrics Viewer and more all use them too to open and close their panels. I particularly like Ctrl+Alt+T. Give it a try. It quickly hides your tree (and the album art if it's in the same 'area' as the tree) so you can see more columns in the main track panel.
Back on topic, I'm not going to vote for the "auto-hide when you hover over the tree" idea being the solution either. Try moving it, as I say. Check out the screenshots.
Have a look in the Artwork Forum at the [url=http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4723]MediaMonkey Screenshots thread[/url]. I think you'll see some examples of where people like to have the album art panel and why.
I think one of the reasons people move it away from the tree is exactly what you mention: that they want as long a tree panel as possible a lot of the time.
Once you start to install scripts that involve another panel, you'll see that you can put two or more panels/panels in the same 'area' of MediaMonkey and you'll eventually settle on a place for the album art panel - maybe above MonkeyRok and/or Lyrics viewer on the right? or alongside your horizontal now playing panel under the main tracks list? anywhere you like.
Most skins will let you move the actual player itself too, so there's quite a lot of flexibility. It might help alleviate your problem.
If you keep the album art's titlebar visible (via right-click) you can obviously close it quickly with the close button in the titlebar. But yes, the Ctrl+Alt hotkeys are well worth getting familiar with. Not least, to get your album art panel back again!
Notice the Ctrl+Alt hokeys in the View Menu. They are your friends. MonkeyRok and Lyrics Viewer and more all use them too to open and close their panels. I particularly like Ctrl+Alt+T. Give it a try. It quickly hides your tree (and the album art if it's in the same 'area' as the tree) so you can see more columns in the main track panel.
Back on topic, I'm not going to vote for the "auto-hide when you hover over the tree" idea being the solution either. Try moving it, as I say. Check out the screenshots.