MediaMonkey forum

Is it possible to add a new "type" to my MM interface. For example, in addition to Music, Classical Music, TV, and Podcasts, I'd like Spoken Word, Seminars, and Comedy.

I know how to create a new node that can be defined by a type, but it seems that types themselves are static and hardwired in the code. Can someone confirm or lend a hand? Thanks!

I'm pretty sure that it's not possible to do so at this time.

Although there has been talk about expanding on the collections part of the software in the near future. Whether this will include the possibility of custom types i'm not sure.

No, that is not possible.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... _Rules/4.0

I would also like to see a Type specially for Home Movies - somewhere to keep separately the videos I shoot on my iPhone etc. Seems wrong having them mixed in with proper films etc. Cheers MM for the best Media Player of 'em all.

You can add your own genere's by just typing it in the text area on the song/ movies properties panel then you can use that just like any other genere.

Custom Types are not needed to separate content into Collections as you can use any number of criteria like Genre or Path/Filename to separate content into Collections. I have Movies (actual movies), TV episodes and home movies all in separate Collections. For me Path/Filename is the criteria I use.

Developer team:

I love this program... I bought a Gold license a long time ago. And thinking about it, I realize why you don't see a need to add custom types, another customizable field, but like the others, I would like to add another layer to my organization.

Example: Holiday/Christmas music is "Music" - I have it come up, however, in mid-Summer when listening with Auto-DJ to "Music". It would be nice to have the ability to categorize as "Holiday" or "Christmas" so that not only is it NOT played in Summer, but I can also have it play THOSE items when that season comes around.

The only "alternative" is to either create a playlist of all the rest of my music, or remove the holiday music from the database (and then re-add it for the holiday, and either remove the rest of the music or, as said earlier, create a playlist of the holiday music.)

I also have a few albums that I only listen to under certain circumstances that I wouldn't want playing normally - such as my Dr. Demento albums - and would like to mark these as "Comedy" or "Parody"

It's nice to be able to create genres, but as you can't auto-DJ by genre (something else to think about) or choose multiple items from which auto-DJ pulls the music from, then more ways to organize the music would be preferable and desired.

Can you see it from that viewpoint, too?

- Jeff

Jeff,
As the original poster in this topic, I agree that the ability to add new “types” would be welcome. Until that becomes a reality, however, I think there is a suggestion that can help you achieve your goal.

Go to Options/Library/Media Tree, scroll to the very bottom of the Collections list and click on “Add New Collection.” You can then use the criteria tab to define a new collection by genre (or anything else, just like an AutoPlaylist). For example, you could tag your comedy tracks with a genre of “Comedy.” Then define a new collection called Comedy which is defined as all tracks with the genre of comedy, Then, and this is important, edit your Music collection (same screen as before or you can right click and choose Options/Edit Collection) to NOT include the genre of Comedy.

Once you’ve done this extensively, you can have multiple collections that contain different types of content without actually NEEDING to have custom Types. Don’t get me wrong, I still want custom types, but this solution does the trick for the most part…it’s just a bit untidy.

I hope this help!
Matt

You can simply configure the Music Collection with an additional criteria Genre is not Christmas when it isn't the season for it. After all you'd still have to change criteria if custom Types exist (add Type = Christmas to the Music Collection when it is the season for it).

The only thing that can't be done without custom Types is Playback Rules for custom Types. Anything to do with Collections can be done without custom Types as custom Types would be criteria based something Collections already can do.

I really do not see an issue of using new Media Tree to filter Occasion: Holiday Music

While Christmas music is in the end... music, spoken word and whatnot is most certainly not music. Even Discogs has items listed as "non-music."

I too would like to see non-music and/or spoken word added as a type.

olivechicago wrote:
I too would like to see non-music and/or spoken word added as a type.

Why?

The "Type" field itself is really not useful for how you browse the library. What is useful for browsing are "Collections". You can create your own collections based on any criteria, including custom fields and genre. So for non-music and/or spoken word tracks, I would assume that you already have these tracks differentiated from the rest of your "regular music" somehow, whether that be with the use of a custom field or with a specific genre, eg. "Spoken Word", "Stand up comedy", etc.

So just create a new collection with Genre is "Spoken Word"; "Stand up comedy"; etc.

and edit your current music collection so that Genre "is not" "Spoken Word"; "Stand up comedy"; etc.

If type is not useful why have it at all? At least don't expose it to the user. If it is useful then why not let it be expanded by user? For example there is Video and TV. Why have TV? Isn't it just of type video? The users could just create a collection .. yes?

It provides a basic sub-categorization of files which is especially useful to users of the free version (they can't create/modify Collections). For those with Gold features they can create Collections based on nearly any field in MediaMonkey. Custom Type definition would work the same way.

I personally use a mix. Some Collections use Type as criteria whereas others use other criteria.

dtsig wrote:If type is not useful why have it at all?

In the context of MediaMonkey the only thing that Type is really useful for is changing your "Playback" and "Double-click action" options. (So that, for example, you can queue up files for playback differently based on your preferences. Like you would probably want to double click a movie and just play that movie, not add an entire list of them to now playing). In terms of distinguishing certain files from one another, it's no more useful than any other field.