by yarguy » Thu Jan 19, 2017 10:47 am
In the current alpha of MM5 (2058 is what I have), the display of Artists and Composers has large(ish) squares in various shades of blue with the first two letters of the artist/composer's name displayed in them and the full name (or most of it) in small type underneath (that's in the MonkeyGroove skin; the colours are different in other skins, as are the typefaces, but it is still the squares). I appreciate that the size and layout of these squares matches that of Albums, where the album cover is actually shown. But if all the squares are going to show is the initial letters of the name then it is a waste of space. The first two letters of a name are not usually helpful (I have 27 artists whose names start with Al, for example; they almost fill the screen). Is the plan to allow users to add some image (a picture of the composer/artist, perhaps)? The first item on the menu that appears after a right-click on one of the squares is "Find Image", but clicking on that does nothing; choosing Properties from this menu and then the Artwork tab, shows the covers of the various albums of the composer/artist but I don't want to mess with that. If there is not a plan to allow images here, could we then have a display that provides more useful information for the space? Perhaps there is a way to change this that I haven't found; if so, how?
And, just out of curiosity, is there some pattern to the shade/colour of these squares?
Update: Having just looked at the display for Genres, the approach used there (a 3 x 3 matrix (or fewer) display of albums covers from the genre) would work for both composers and artists. Is that the plan?
In the current alpha of MM5 (2058 is what I have), the display of Artists and Composers has large(ish) squares in various shades of blue with the first two letters of the artist/composer's name displayed in them and the full name (or most of it) in small type underneath (that's in the MonkeyGroove skin; the colours are different in other skins, as are the typefaces, but it is still the squares). I appreciate that the size and layout of these squares matches that of Albums, where the album cover is actually shown. But if all the squares are going to show is the initial letters of the name then it is a waste of space. The first two letters of a name are not usually helpful (I have 27 artists whose names start with Al, for example; they almost fill the screen). Is the plan to allow users to add some image (a picture of the composer/artist, perhaps)? The first item on the menu that appears after a right-click on one of the squares is "Find Image", but clicking on that does nothing; choosing Properties from this menu and then the Artwork tab, shows the covers of the various albums of the composer/artist but I don't want to mess with that. If there is not a plan to allow images here, could we then have a display that provides more useful information for the space? Perhaps there is a way to change this that I haven't found; if so, how?
And, just out of curiosity, is there some pattern to the shade/colour of these squares?
Update: Having just looked at the display for Genres, the approach used there (a 3 x 3 matrix (or fewer) display of albums covers from the genre) would work for both composers and artists. Is that the plan?