Give your users more control

Report bugs & feature requests for MediaMonkey for Android and learn about the newest beta build.

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Phil_B
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri May 17, 2019 5:46 am

Give your users more control

Post by Phil_B »

The way I can view my audio files is defined by the programmer, but that is rarely the way I want to view it. Why not let me define my own views?

I listen to a lot of classical music but have several other genres too. I'd like to select from my genres and have classical behave differently to jazz for example. Classical I'd like displayed like this:

Composer (sorted alphabetically) taking me through to...
Sub-genre or Grouping, which is in extended tags definitions (eg Operas, Symphonies, Solo etc.) taking me to...
Albums (sorted alphabetically and then by Year because some artists record a piece more than once, and also displaying Artist and Conductor which is in the extended tag definitions) taking me to...
Tracks (sorted by Track Number)

Whereas jazz would be displayed like this:

Artist (sorted alphabetically) taking me to... Album (sorted by year) taking me to...
Tracks (sorted by track number)

Other people probably want different things, so why not give us users the ability to decide how WE want to traverse our audio?

I want the ability to define Views with these options:

Filters (ie show me files with tags containing specific content like you do currently with Genre or Artist for example, but allow me to do that with any tag).
Information displayed (which tags I want shown in a View)
Sort order (which tags I want to sort by)
The View that a selection then takes me to.

If you did that you would be absolutely the BEST mp3 player out there. I have researched this for years and there are MANY potential users out there looking for something that this approach would solve. Give it to us and you could seriously clean up in this market.
Lowlander
Posts: 56465
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: Give your users more control

Post by Lowlander »

If you're referring to the Filelisting this is set per Collection. So if you create different Collections for Jazz and Classical Music you can set what each should be showing.
Phil_B
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri May 17, 2019 5:46 am

Re: Give your users more control

Post by Phil_B »

Thanks. That sounds promising.
where do I find those settings? I can't see them in Options.
Lowlander
Posts: 56465
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
Location: MediaMonkey 5

Re: Give your users more control

Post by Lowlander »

Sorry, that would be for MMW, not MMA. For MMA there currently is no customization available.
TroubleClef
Posts: 230
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2016 11:59 pm

Re: Give your users more control

Post by TroubleClef »

This being a feature request forum, I have to second this request for more control. There are also other recent threads on the same topic.

In my opinion the inflexibility of MMA to allow filtering only by artist and genre, and sorting only by alphabetical are major limitations in usability.
MMW Gold Lifetime user

MMA beta tester
oblivioncth
Posts: 64
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:50 pm

Re: Give your users more control

Post by oblivioncth »

I agree this should be possible, espcially given how long MMA has existed without any sorting whatsoever at this point. So, its good you made this post so there is a record of this feature being requested; however, unfortunately you will most likely need to wait until MMW 5 exists beta and then MMA 2.0 enters public beta after that.

I've responded to a bunch of posts this way but its accurate. Right now the team seems to be focused only on fixing major/moderate bugs for MMA and otherwise is primarily working on MMW 5.0.

MMA 2.0 is the release that is more focused on featutes and polish.

To be honest, just so the expectations are clear and transparent between the devs and users, I feel there should be a pin in this sub-forum that states people should still feel free to post feature requests, but note that they're unlikely to see any major changes until 2.0 drops. It would save a lot of redundant explenations.
Phil_B
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri May 17, 2019 5:46 am

Re: Give your users more control

Post by Phil_B »

Do you know if there is any time line for that release, even if only roughly?
oblivioncth
Posts: 64
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:50 pm

Re: Give your users more control

Post by oblivioncth »

Nothing I've seen or be told. Seems very much like a "when it's ready" kind of thing, which I can totally understand, but it does feel a bit shitty when your on the consumer side of that wait.

From the sounds of it MMA 2.0 has had a fair amount of work completed but still is very much not ready for a public beta. I think the best way to get a sense of time for this is to keep an eye on MM Desktop 5.0 as development will shift more towards MMA once its formally released. Only issue is there isn't really a schedule tor that either... It's been in beta since 2016 so I can only assume it can't have too much longer to go, but it's hard to really say and we don't really know what level of completness their shooting for to call the release stable.
Peke
Posts: 17446
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 7:21 pm
Location: Earth
Contact:

Re: Give your users more control

Post by Peke »

oblivioncth wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 12:40 am Nothing I've seen or be told. Seems very much like a "when it's ready" kind of thing, which I can totally understand, but it does feel a bit shitty when your on the consumer side of that wait.

From the sounds of it MMA 2.0 has had a fair amount of work completed but still is very much not ready for a public beta. I think the best way to get a sense of time for this is to keep an eye on MM Desktop 5.0 as development will shift more towards MMA once its formally released. Only issue is there isn't really a schedule tor that either... It's been in beta since 2016 so I can only assume it can't have too much longer to go, but it's hard to really say and we don't really know what level of completeness their shooting for to call the release stable.
Hi,
MMA 2.0 is in development and I have tested MMA 2.0 UI on various platforms (eg Phones, Tablets, Android 6/7.1/8/9 Car HeadUnits) and it is different than current UI eg more customization (Layouts, colors,...). ATM it still uses same Sound engine as MMA 1.x and our own MMA tagging/scanning engine is in work so that it will be not dependable to GPM and its limitations and issues.

It is in developer Nightly Build state (eg pre Alpha).

Re MM5 public development stages:
Late 2015: Few script developers got rough test versions
2016: Limited forum Alpha release
2017: More Open Alpha stage
2018: Alpha Open with all GOLD feature Available to any MediaMonkey GOLD purchases 1.x-4.x and announcement that until MM5 License is sold users will have Gold for free
as of 2019 till time of this post: MM5 is in Beta Stage (eg most new features sets are locked for initial MM5 stable release) work is done on stability, speed, optimization and unification of UI, menus and features to be ready to go into Release Candidate state.

Please note that MM5 is 90% complete rewrite of MMW with burden of all the weight from existing features to be implemented and enhanced and maintaining MM4.x alongside.

Hope I have shred some light on the progress of MM5 and MMA 2.0
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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oblivioncth
Posts: 64
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:50 pm

Re: Give your users more control

Post by oblivioncth »

Peke wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 5:01 am Hi,
MMA 2.0 is in development and I have tested MMA 2.0 UI on various platforms (eg Phones, Tablets, Android 6/7.1/8/9 Car HeadUnits) and it is different than current UI eg more customization (Layouts, colors,...). ATM it still uses same Sound engine as MMA 1.x and our own MMA tagging/scanning engine is in work so that it will be not dependable to GPM and its limitations and issues.

It is in developer Nightly Build state (eg pre Alpha).

Re MM5 public development stages:
Late 2015: Few script developers got rough test versions
2016: Limited forum Alpha release
2017: More Open Alpha stage
2018: Alpha Open with all GOLD feature Available to any MediaMonkey GOLD purchases 1.x-4.x and announcement that until MM5 License is sold users will have Gold for free
as of 2019 till time of this post: MM5 is in Beta Stage (eg most new features sets are locked for initial MM5 stable release) work is done on stability, speed, optimization and unification of UI, menus and features to be ready to go into Release Candidate state.

Please note that MM5 is 90% complete rewrite of MMW with burden of all the weight from existing features to be implemented and enhanced and maintaining MM4.x alongside.

Hope I have shred some light on the progress of MM5 and MMA 2.0
As a fellow developer I completely understand how intensive of a process this can be, especially if some people are only working on this project part time, and if you keep in mind the fact that the standard versions of MMW and MMA are both free. To be honest, I'm glad to hear it is largely a rewrite as while those can take forever, they often end up quite good since a team is forced to become completely reacquainted with nearly every part of the application and re-implement those parts with a more up-to-date and more "consumer desire aware" mindset.

For me personally at least, the reason I'm very excited for MMA 2.0 is that in the past year or two I've brought a lot of things related to my listening experience up-to-date or up to higher standards (i.e. newer car with newer head unit, Android Auto, aftermarket sound system installed in the car, etc.) to where now MMA feels like the component in that group that is starting to feel the oldest/in need of an update since I've improved a lot of other things already.

Regardless, I appreciate you giving a bit of insight into how MMW has been coming along and am very much looking forward to the day I can use MMW 5 (haven't actually even seen this yet, let alone used it) and MMA 2 on a regular basis.
Phil_B
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri May 17, 2019 5:46 am

Re: Give your users more control

Post by Phil_B »

If I can be of any assistance in the creation of the new version I would be very happy to give my input. I am an IT business analyst by profession and have experience in gathering and documenting user requirements and working with developers to meet them.
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