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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0003011MMW v4Properties/Auto-Toolspublic2007-08-27 01:41
Reporterjiri Assigned To 
PriorityimmediateSeverityminorReproducibilityalways
Status closedResolutionfixed 
Product Version3.0 
Fixed in Version3.0 
Summary0003011: Improvements in Properties dialog layout
DescriptionFor 3.0 we have made some improvements in Properties dialog. However, I feel that some changes aren't that good, or are at least incomplete:
1. Original Year field shouldn't be on the first page. I understand that it fits there visually pretty well, but since this field won't be used by most users at all and by some users only for some tracks, I think it should be moved back to Details tab. Or was it meant to be useful for Classical music for storing the year of composiion (vs. year of recording in the Date field)?
2. We have Conductor field visible when Genre=Classical on the Basic sheet. It's probably a good approach, but user can't view/edit this field at all when Genre<>Clasical! I think that in such a case we should show it in Details sheet(?)
3. Btw, there is a bug in Group Properties dialog: Classical genre written in Genre doesn't switch to Conductor, ... fields. Also, there's a checkbox above Artist that doesn't seem to be associated with anything.
4. Another bug: A value entered in Disc# or Track# manually (i.e. without using arrows) doesn't tick the check box.
5. This is possibly for a longer discussion in a separate issue, but I'd like to raise it here: Involved people is quite an outdated field - at least in its current state - as a single text field. I wonder whether we shouldn't include a support for a Table, where user could edit a list of Role - Person fields (e.g. 'Guitar' - 'His Name').
TagsNo tags attached.
Fixed in build1065

Relationships

related to 0001545 resolvedpetr Basic Support for Classical Music 
related to 0003258 closedpetr Support Grouping field for classical music. 
related to 0009497 newrusty Improve Properties dialog layout for 4.1 

Activities

jiri

2007-04-19 11:32

administrator   ~0009052

Assigning to Rusty to review the proposals.

jiri

2007-06-25 21:11

administrator   ~0009574

6. As reported e.g. in http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=93996#93996 , it would probably make sense to use the original idea of 0001545 point 7, i.e. a single page for classical/non-classical tracks properties and particularly have both 'Album Artist' and 'Orchestra' strings presents, so that's clear, that this is actually a single field.

jiri

2007-08-15 10:21

administrator   ~0010133

7. One more bug: Genre reacts only when it's =Classical, it doesn't recognize e.g. 'Classical;Piano'. That said, I'd probably rather prefer to remove this way of distinguishing classical and pop music.

jiri

2007-08-15 10:21

administrator   ~0010134

Raising to Immediate since this should be decided asap.

rusty

2007-08-15 22:05

administrator   ~0010142

1. Orig year was place on the main page primarily for classical music
2. OK, assuming we keep Genre-based switch for the classical layout, conductor could be placed on the second page for non-classical music
3. bug-ok
4. bug-ok
5. I completely agree re. use of a table, but I think that this applies to more than just this field (e.g. could apply to multiple-definition fields). i.e. this is a 3.1 discussion.
6. I think that the main issues that arose were:
a) confusion about the fact that Album Artist switches to Orchestra
b) inability to use the classical form when variants of classical are used (e.g. Classical - barque OR Classical;baroque).

I would suggest that both of these could be easily implemented and would resolve the most significant issues. i.e.
a) Change the text on the classical form to Album Artist/Orchestra
b) Have the form change when genre contains 'classical'

c)If you disagree, the original proposal was:

File path: _______________________
Filename: _______________________

Track Title: _______________________
Genre: ___________ Rating: _________

Artist: ____________________________
Album Artist/Orchestra: ____________
Composer: __________________________
Conductor: _________________________
Album: _____________________________
Disc#: ___________ Track#: _________
Date: ___________
Comments:

HOWEVER, I'm not that keen on the proposal as it would mean that the average user who isn't interested in classical music would have to continually tab through fields. A potential alternative:

File Path _____________________________________ [browse]
File Name _____________________________________ [auto-organize]

Title _____________________________________
Genres(s) ________________ Rating _____________

Artist(s) _____________________________________ [auto-tag from filename]
Album Artist ________________ Date ______________ [auto-tag from web]
Album ________________ Disc# ___ Track# ___ [buy]

Grouping _____________________________________
Composer(s) ________________ Orig Year __________
Conductor(s) _____________________________________

Comments:

7. If we can't well-implement the switch to the classical form automatically, we could also do as another user suggested; have a manual switch. I'm not that keen on that idea though.

An alternative approach is to add another tab for classical music that would just repeat what is in the basic tab, but would provide users with a more optimized form for classical music. This could also be fairly confusing though... in which case, we're left with 6c).

rusty

2007-08-16 03:11

administrator   ~0010145

Last edited: 2007-08-16 05:29

Jiri's comment re. 6c)
-Artists(s) line wouldn't better be right above Title line, so that we group the most important properties?
-If so, then maybe Album Artist line could be switched with Album line.

Rusty's answer:
-I wouldn't want to place Artist right above title, but I think it could be right below.
-If so we could switch Album with Artist, but I'm not sure about that. Here are some other options (note that of all of them, I prefer 6c as it allows comptemporary music to be tagged without tabbing all over the place AND it groups the Artist/Album attributes close to the Grouping/Composer/Conductor attributes, which makes sense for classical music:

6d)
File Path _____________________________________ [browse]
File Name _____________________________________ [auto-organize]

Title _____________________________________
Artist(s) _____________________________________ [auto-tag from filename]
Album Artist ________________ Date ______________ [auto-tag from web]
Album ________________ Disc# ___ Track# ___ [buy]
Genres(s) ________________ Rating _____________

Grouping _____________________________________
Composer(s) ________________ Orig Year __________
Conductor(s) _____________________________________

Comments:

6e)
File Path _____________________________________ [browse]
File Name _____________________________________ [auto-organize]

Title _____________________________________
Artist(s) _____________________________________ [auto-tag from filename]
Album ________________ Disc# ___ Track# ___ [auto-tag from web]
Album Artist ________________ Date ______________ [buy]
Genres(s) ________________ Rating _____________

Grouping _____________________________________
Composer(s) ________________ Orig Year __________
Conductor(s) _____________________________________

Comments:

6f)
File Path _____________________________________ [browse]
File Name _____________________________________ [auto-organize]

Title _____________________________________
Artist(s) _____________________________________ [auto-tag from filename]
Album Artist ________________ Date ______________ [auto-tag from web]
Album ________________ Disc# ___ Track# ___ [buy]

Grouping _____________________________________
Composer(s) ________________ Orig Year __________
Conductor(s) _____________________________________
Genres(s) ________________ Rating _____________

Comments:

rusty

2007-08-16 15:20

administrator   ~0010148

Last edited: 2007-08-16 15:35

As discussed over IM, here's what we've agreed to:

File Path __________________________________________________ [browse]
File Name __________________________________________________ [auto-organize]

Title __________________________________________________ [auto-tag from filename]
Artist(s) __________________________________________________
Genres(s) _____________________________ Rating _____________

Album _____________________________ Disc# ___ Track# ___ [auto-tag from web]
Album Artist _____________________________ Date _______________ [buy]

Grouping __________________________________________________
Composer(s) _____________________________ Orig Year __________
Conductor(s) __________________________________________________

Comments


rusty

2007-08-16 18:54

administrator   ~0010152

Note: I suggest that this bug can be resolved without implementing 'Grouping'. 'Grouping' can be tracked separately in 3258.

petr

2007-08-17 23:12

developer   ~0010190

Done. Will be in 1061.

rusty

2007-08-19 14:42

administrator   ~0010191

Tested 1061. It looks good just a couple of minor tweaks:

1) Genre box should be wider to accomodate multiple Genres. This can be done by making the ratings box narrower and by increasing the width of the Genres box.

2) it would be nice if Disc# and Track# could be squished a bit more to the right.

petr

2007-08-19 20:36

developer   ~0010195

Done. Will be in 1062.

rusty

2007-08-20 13:58

administrator   ~0010198

Note: The final changes agreed to are:

Right and left align Text fields for:
Rating
Disc#, Track Number
Date
Orig Date

Right and left align the text boxes for Genre, Album, Album Artist, Composer.

Make the dialog a bit wider to accomodate this.

Also, the Original Year field should be changed to Original Date.

jiri

2007-08-20 14:55

administrator   ~0010205

Reopenning to make sure it's all implemented. Also, other tabs should be modified so that they don't look weird because of the new (larger) size of the dialog. I.e. controls should be better aligned, centered, etc.

Btw, Info tab should be slightly modified:
1. Fields Seekable, Copyrighted and Original should be removed, they aren't really much used, they are filled only from mp3 header and thus don't make much sense in MM.
2. Album leveling should be added to Track Leveling field.
3. Stereo should be renamed to Channels and show properly Mono and Stereo strings (also other for multichannel streams).
4. After these changes we could probably get rid of Info tab and move its content to Details tab?

petr

2007-08-20 18:26

developer   ~0010213

Done. Change from Original Year to Original Date will be tracked in issue 3411.

rusty

2007-08-23 14:19

administrator   ~0010267

Looks really good. Re-opening for a couple of minor tweaks:

On the basic panel:
-for Rating, Disc#, Track#, Date, Original date: remove the ':' to make it look a little cleaner (e.g. 'Rating:' --> 'Rating'

On the details panel:
-Move 'leveling' to the left column under 'Channels', and Move 'Play Counter' and 'Last Played' to the bottom of the right column, under 'VBR'. That way the columns are more even
-Move the section of read-only fields slightly lower

petr

2007-08-23 14:42

developer   ~0010270

Done. Will be in 1063.

rusty

2007-08-24 18:06

administrator   ~0010306

Re. the layout on the details panel, I wasn't very clear. My intent was that the number of rows should be evened out between the two columns. e.g. the following layout would work:
Length ______________ File Size ___________
Bitrate _____________ VBR _____________
Frequency: __________ Channels ___________
Play Counter: _______ Volume Leveling: ________
Last Played: ________

Note: the column widths should also be even if possible (Currently the right column is much wider).

petr

2007-08-24 18:23

developer   ~0010308

Done. Will be in 1064.

rusty

2007-08-26 01:47

administrator   ~0010339

Verified 1064.

jiri

2007-08-26 11:35

administrator   ~0010348

Some controls are +/- 1 pixel, some other alignments are needed for new size of the dialog.

jiri

2007-08-26 11:35

administrator   ~0010349

Fixed in build 1065.

rusty

2007-08-27 01:41

administrator   ~0010364

Verified 1065.