View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0005053 | MMW v4 | Main Panel/Toolbars/Menus | public | 2008-12-17 20:42 | 2009-02-19 23:17 |
| Reporter | Assigned To | ||||
| Priority | urgent | Severity | minor | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | closed | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 3.1 | ||||
| Fixed in Version | 3.1 | ||||
| Summary | 0005053: Album Art View: allow sorting by attributes that aren't album-specific | ||||
| Description | 1) Right clicking column headers in full album art view does not provide column selection pop up, and insteads sorts by the column that is right clicked. 2) I would like to add the track title to the album art view and that currently does not seem possible. 3) Additionally, the columns composer, conductor, year, count, and length do not seem to be displayed in album art view even though they are shown in the column headers. | ||||
| Additional Information | http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35085 | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Fixed in build | 1205 | ||||
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Perhaps it should be an option to show track title when only 1 track is displayed while in album art view. |
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I don't think that any changes should be made here. The Album Art view was designed with the intent that each Album image should represent an entire album (and not just those tracks that match a specific criteria), as much as possible. We felt that showing the Album Image without showing the associated tracks, should usually represent the full album, and that we should avoid having multiple instances of the album appear within the view (which would happen e.g. if the user could sort by a track-specific attribute such as Genre). That's why the view: -generally only shows whole album metadata (Album Name, Album Artist, Album Rating) -allows sorts by Album criteria (Album Name, Album Artist, Album Year, Album Rating (average), Album Playcount) It also offers sorting by two other criteria that don't quite mesh with the above design philosophy: composer & conductor, however, it is arguable that in many cases, these will also be consistent across an entire album. With the above in mind: 1) the regular context menu wouldn't make sense, since there are few album-specific fields 2) adding track title to the view turns it into AA+Details view, so why bother? Instead, we have Tooltips to show Track titles when the user hovers over an Album. 3) a) Year, count, rating, length, do not fit--that's why they are displayed using groups b) Composer and Conductor aren't displayed in the Album Metadata AND aren't displayed in groupings (Composer 'Roger Waters' is represented by grouping 'R'). I would suggest that Groupings should be added for Composer and Conductor--otherwise it doesn't make much sense to include column headers for these 2 fields). |
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I agree for the most part, however you must consider that album art view can and is used (and desired) for views which do NOT include whole albums, specific examples are playlists, ratings, now playing, etc, and custom user nodes such as magic nodes, play history, last.fm node, etc. Also consider the now playing node & window, where album art w/details is available, but not full album art. See below thread where I am trying to get folks feedback. http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35084 Here in many cases there are individual single tracks queued, album art with details really is not very useful (IMO) as the details cause the art to be displayed vertically, instead of horizontally across width of the screen as in the full album art view. These views are not album centric, and generally have their own arbitrary or random sort order, so displaying full album art sorted and divided up by letter is not really desired. Full album art displayed horizontally with the track name above or replacing the album name would be much more useful. so: 1) from a user presentation standpoint, normally if the columns are displayed then I would expect the data to be shown. I would expect that I could enable and disable displayed text by adding/removing said columns. This would be a new enhancement from the current behavior, ie I could remove all columns and only display art with no text at all, or I could pick and choose which text (by enabling the column) to display. For example, remove the rating and add genre to be displayed. 2) the main difference, or problem in my case, with album art with details is that it causes the tracks to flow line by line, instead of horizontally across the width of the screen. Also, the AA w/details and track details views share the same columns.. I can not remove columns from the AAwD and still maintain full details in the track view. (another possible feature enhancement) 3) as above in #1, if the columns are displayed, so should the text. If a user wants to sort by a particular field, then they would simply enable the column and sort by it, just as in the detail views. How these extra fields could/should be displayed with the album art could surely be up for debate. Simply stacking them underneath and letting the user decide what fields and what order (by column setup) to me is a better solution. Some may want no fields displayed, some may want full details. Let the user decide how much or little information is displayed. The main difference between full album art view and album art with details would be how the art is grouped and how the details are displayed, AAwDetails would show the details next to the art, where the full album art would show any selected details stacked vertically below the art. In summary, it must be understood that full album art is desired in a large number of different ways and scenarios. Limiting the design intent for only full albums only, hamstrings the usefulness of the feature. I rarely use either of the album art views primarily due to the above issues. Hopefully this is not viewed as a rant, I'm just trying to provide insight on how the album art views could be used, but currently arent. |
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I don't see it as a rant--I like the ideas, but it's really a new feature--something more akin to Apple's Coverflow view. We've begun experimenting with that, but I don't expect that we'll be able to fit it into MM 3.1 without adding to our schedule. In the meantime, I'm setting this bug as 'immediate' in order to resolve issue 3b which I'd noted above: 3b) Composer and Conductor aren't displayed in the Album Metadata AND aren't displayed in groupings (Composer 'Roger Waters' is represented by grouping 'R'). I would suggest that Groupings should be added for Composer and Conductor--otherwise it doesn't make much sense to include column headers for these 2 fields). |
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Groupings for composer/conductor has been added. Will be in 1205. |
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Marking as fixed, since the remaining issues raised by Teknojnky are being tracked in bug 0003636. |
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verified 1223 |
