Interface suggestion

[Codek]

I posted here before about support for album art, and there was an issue of where to display it. Well I thought of something while using MM today when I kept having to switch back and forth to the now playing node (forgot about the popup window at the time) here it is:



A third column consisting of

1) toggle Album art or information summary (gather/display basic info for current track from tag/library)

2) The Now playing playlist

3) the player moved from the left side

This design frees up vertical space for the tree view (I have a huge library and scroll often through artists), and allows adjustment of the horizontal space..without removing the player. It also has a better focus, base tree list and library on left, current node display in the middle, and current track information and controls on the right. And of course the third column should be able to be configured (hide sections, move sections up/down, maybe more?), and the whole column be turned off. Maybe eventually be able to drag sections back and forth from left to right column.

Please post your comments on this.

[Lowlander]

Well a long tree view is welcome, as a lot of scrolling can go into viewing it. I'm less happy with the third column. I would like to see as much horizontal space for the tracklistings as this window contains quit some fields.
I have before in other forum items opted for creating a row with the now playing window (and other windows as they are available). This row in my version would be only below (or above) the track listings, but could conceivably be customized to show for the whole width of the MM interface.
As for the player, I believe it's lost in the MM explorer style interface and as such I would opt for having the controls intergrated into a toolbar in MM. The player could remain an option to those who want it (I'd prefer to see the player being used as a small view for MM) and the toolbar could be turned on or off.

So the advice I would have is to make the locations of windows customizable (drag&drop or options menu) and have the possibility to open each window inside MM interface (also equalizer, ect as people might play with that while playing different songs) or as a new window (like current Now Playing).

The program makers could also check out other programs like Visual Studio.net and Adobe PhotoShop in how they handle additional windows, like docking, undocking, autohide, ect.

[jiri]

It will be possible to customize positions of sub-windows (at least tree, now playing and player) on the main window using drag&dock. So something like shown in the scheme above will be possible (as soon as album art support is implemented).

Jiri

[mitkase]

have noticed as my library grows the tree view becomes increasingly cumbersome... would suggest converting it to a tabbed view, ala opera 7 hotlist. icons/text at top allowing for canging between artist/album/etc views and eliminating the excessive scrolling.

[Jim]

I like the idea of making it similar to the Opera hotlist. Particularly for the ability to turn off certian nodes. I don't use the Artist, Album, etc. but I use other nodes extensivly. It would be nice to remove some of the clutter.

Jim

[Lowlander]

An update to the treelisting is planned, which would allow a user to customize it's view. What this exactly will look like I don't know, but I believe you would be able to hide nodes.