Thanks for clarification!

Yep the MM 2.1 RC 1 & 2 are still beta's, but are very close to the final release which would be MM 2.1. According to the beta forum 2.1 is around the corner.
With next full release I meant 2.1 not 3.0, I hope this clarifies.

The next full release should be posted on the main MM website. They'll probably post a notice in the forums as well.

Thanks Low - and please excuse the possible redundancy of my requests: I simply don't have time to search the wishlist oder the beta-forum to see what's in the works or what is not.

@ 3: Actually I tried all the different ways of editing before ripping, including freeDB (which I don't like, I discover many typing errors in their data and I prefer my db in lowcaps which means editing after connecting to freeDB...) - and nothing seems as fast to me as the direct input of the CD data in the ripping dialog - it's just some mouseclicks you might say, but still: that's what user ergonomics is about, isn't it?

But of course, it's not a bug or something utterly grave. It's just less comfortable as, say, MusicMatch. Or maybe I'm a little picky about this...

Erm, you say something about the betas: what do you count as a beta? In the beta forum there is 2.1 RC-2 - which is not a complete beta, is it? Or is it as good as a MM 2.1 actual release? So what do you mean with full version? MM 3.0? That would take some time waiting, wouldn't it? I mean I'm willing enough to try MM 2.1 but always thought 2.1 RC-2 is somewhat below that... Maybe I'm wrong?

Cheers, zyb

Number 1
There are better views planned in MM and a discussion has been going on about this on the forums. What will finally be implemented I don't know. For me an extra toolbar in MM with all the player functions would be fine for when the player itself is closed. Kinda like what happens when WinAmp is used as player, but some things could be added. This way I neither have to use the player nor the Now Playing popup window if I feel like that. But a song time scroll would be essential to that.

Number 2
I agree that would be nice.

Number 3
You can use freeDB to get track information before ripping. You can edit these tags too. I normally go through the My Computer node to find the CDrom drive and edit the tags there before ripping.
You can rip to any folder you wish to on your PC. You can also specify the naming of the tracks and if you want the tracks to be ripped to a artist (or other tags) subfolder. I don't have MM here now so it is hard to explain, just spend a minute looking at the ripping dialog.
Some of the beta's have addressed problems with writing info to tags before ripping, you can check out the beta forum, or wait for the next full release.

Number 4
The explorer tree is on the to-do list and one of the planned improvements is user customization. I hope that will allow you to minimize the nodes shown.

Heyho!

First of all I have to express my thanks and my respect for the makers of the MediaMonkey - I used the MusicMatch Jukebox for the longest time but was quite annoyed with its bubblegum look, lacking .ogg support, uncomfortable library view, and many more little things.

MediaMonkey was written about favourably in _the_ German computer-magazin (c't), so I checked it out an found it much to my liking - but of course everyone who loves his/her music archive has a wishlist, so here is mine with all respect:

(WinXP)

1) Why is the player fixed in the tree window? I find that a little uncomfortable because I cannot change the width of the tree window and it results in a waste of horizontal space. (Of course I can hide the player and use the Now Playing control, but that lacks most of the useful features like remaining time, a song-scrollbar, repeat function, etc.) I'd far rather have the player integrated in the Now Playing window, which I have opened all the time, anyway. Is it possible to make this choice optional? Would be appreciated.

2) Even if 1) isn't possible, it still would be very great to have a display in the Now Playing window, which shows the playing time and/or remaining time of a song (could be provided in the status bar, too); and to include "repeat list" in the Edit menu (I know that function is "continuous" in the Play menu of the main window - but why there and not in the Edit menu, eludes me). Best of all would be a song-scrollbar in the Now Playing controls.

3) I find the CDripping more tedious than e.g. in the mentioned MusicMatch Jukebox, because from ripping to integrating a track into the library it takes many more steps: a) specification of a path, b) ripping, c) the files appear in the Unknown folder, d) specification of artist and album name for all tracks, e) tagging the track names in. Even the automated tagging options need constant mouse/keyboard shifting for inserting track name, autotagging from filename, clicking "update & next song". It would be much easier if I had the option to specify artist, album name and track names _before the actual ripping_ - along with the choice how to put together the filenames and where to put them.

4) The tree window has far too many folders for someone like me - even though I appreciate _having_ all these many options to sort my archive, I only use very few of them, most of the times. So it would be very nice to have the tree fully customizable, to hide features not needed. Also I'd like MediaMonkey to remember in which viewing mode (at what place in my archive) I exited the program and to restore it on program startup.

So much for now, I used MM for only a few days now, so there might be more comments to come - hope they are appreciated.

Cheers, zyb