Show Artist Art?

[the nightfly]

This may be the most basic wishlist request ever, or else the most impossible. (It's even possible this is already implemented somehow but, if so, I haven't found it yet.)

MM has, of course, the "Show Album Art" mode. However, that shows every album an artist has made as separate tiles. If you've got lots and lots of albums by the same artist, it slows down the scrolling considerably. In other programs (iTunes and MediaJukebox are the first that come to mind), there is also a graphic display of artists (almost a "Show Artist" mode), where each artist is represented by one tile, the program choosing the album cover for that tile from the art from one of that artist's albums. Clicking through on the tile opens up a "Show Album Art"-type display for that artist's albums, and clicking on any of them opens the track list for that album.

Obviously, it's the same functionality as the file tree on the left if MM's window. But, to be honest, I think it's a lot more "user-friendly" to be able to scroll through a set of graphic tiles instead of a tree of nodes of miniscule text. Certainly, it's one reason why, when I use either of the programs noted above, I feel so much more "at home" than with the scroll-through-the-text-tree interface in MM, even though the latter program's functionality otherwise puts those two to shame.

I really thing this is the one thing that keeps MM from being the ultimate media player, at least from my point of view. Any chance of adding it in a future version?

[Lowlander]

I like that idea as long as it's optional. Doesn't Windows Media Player stack the Album Art's on top of each other when viewing by Artist?

[rovingcowboy]

i don't use the album art view but it sounds like you just want to make the artist node show up that way.

the artist node shows the albums though but only after it shows the name of the artist. in using images that would add more images for monkey to store in ram when you are using that view? wouldn't more stuff in ram cause more of a slow down in the overall workings of mediamonkey? not every one has huge gb's of ram. some of the old xp computers only have less then one gb of ram.

[Eyal]

I like the idea too. However, instead of representing the artist by one of its Album art, it should be first by the Artist art, if present as a picture file or embedded in the tag as Artist picture.

This idea can lead to a real great interface, by giving us the choice to choose different sorting orders an see all related artists and albums.
Eg. Genre -> Artists -> Albums. Here Artists will be visually listed as described above.

Eyal

[the nightfly]

i don't use the album art view but it sounds like you just want to make the artist node show up that way.

Well, I was originally thinking of having it in the main panel, but I see the latest version of Helium does it the way you mention -- basically, turns the Music Explorer tree into a tiled artist view.

[the nightfly]

I just had a further look at MediaJukebox's way of doing this...not only do they have a full pane of artist tiles, but, if you hover the mouse over a given artist, the tile turns into a slideshow of the artist's album covers...and running without strain on a not-that-new PC. Very nice.

Personally, I'd recommend those working on the next MM take a good long look at MediaJukebox -- I find its interface head and shoulders above everything else out there on the market. Too bad it's flawed in other respects...

[Lowlander]

If you hover the mouse over a given artist, the tile turns into a slideshow of the artist's album covers...and running without strain on a not-that-new PC.

Sounds nice, do you know of an online demo of this feature?

[the nightfly]

Well, since MediaJukebox is a free download, it's relatively simple to try it out on your own system.

[Lowlander]

Yeah, but I'm not gonna install another media application (especially after seeing so many users disliking it). My media and PC are too precious for that. That's why I was hoping you new of a demo (video/flash) to see it in action as it sounds great.

[Lowlander]

http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=9150