Horizontal Navigator (from iTunes 12)

[redwing]

1.
clicking the Playlist toolbar button will need to display the panel to show the list of playlists - so it may actually result in the navigation panel being shown more often if you use those items regularly.

Either the entire sidebar or pop-up list will do for navigation.

2.
It introduces a sense of "modality" which seems counter-productive. For example, if you have your music library displayed and want to do something else you have to click a toolbar button to switch to what would effectively be "Playlist mode" or "Filter mode" or "Explorer mode" or "Device mode" etc. in order to then select which one you want to work with. With the current navigation panel everything is one place and it's easy to switch between them with one click.

That has nothing to do with Music library. Simply you need to click on playlists, devices button, etc. Filters can be clickable sub-nodes of Music library like the mockup.

4.
Also, I know it's not the point of your request, but I'd recommend against having the search box left of the tabs. IE 11 does that and I keep clicking on it thinking it's the first tab I've opened! Or maybe I'm just an idiot.  

That's what's already implemented. I guess you never tried tabs bar in caption bar mode.

[redwing]

and everyone(?) will be happy

not me! i am only willing to do this if i can see a strong benefit that justifies spending time to implement.
I am not opposed at all at looking at good ideas and using them if i think its really useful like the "expanded panel" for example.
For this at the moment i am not really seeing a lot of benefit and just downsides eg. more configuration options, more complexity in the musicbee code etc. I will spend more time thinking about it but at the moment i am inclined not to do anything with this.

Fine. I can wait until more people see and appreciate the benefits of the proposed layout.

BTW, the key idea is not entirely new. This is how I use Chrome with bookmarks toolbar only with icons:



Once you try this, you will see why this is better than auto-hiding (if such option is available) or constantly showing bookmarks sidebar.

[Alumni]

I created this mockup to show how the new interface could look. What do you think? (click for full-size image)

[Zak]

4.
Also, I know it's not the point of your request, but I'd recommend against having the search box left of the tabs. IE 11 does that and I keep clicking on it thinking it's the first tab I've opened! Or maybe I'm just an idiot. 

That's what's already implemented. I guess you never tried tabs bar in caption bar mode.

So it is! I don't use that view because it forces the MusicBee menus under the one button which means more clicking (and it isn't possible to select tabs with the cursor at the very top of the screen).

It seems arbitrary for the search box to be on the left for that view and on the right for others, but I use the Dark skin so at least the search box is a different colour which makes it easy to distinguish.

BTW, the key idea is not entirely new. This is how I use Chrome with bookmarks toolbar only with icons:



Once you try this, you will see why this is better than auto-hiding (if such option is available) or constantly showing bookmarks sidebar.

Obviously there are millions of applications that have toolbar buttons, but that's not the same thing - they're only acting as substitutes for a single menu item (or web site in the Chrome example). Buttons would work in MusicBee for some things currently in the left panel (like switching between the library and a radio station - hinted at in point #3 in my previous post), but the left hand panel is more than just a substitute for a menu. In your suggested layout, how would you browse to a folder in the Computer node and drag tracks to a playlist? Or drag a playlist to an external device? These are common activities which don't seem to have intuitive equivalents if the nodes were replaced with toolbar buttons.

I created this mockup to show how the new interface could look. What do you think? (click for full-size image)

This looks nice and would work fine if all you're doing is selecting one playlist to listen to at a time from a limited number of playlists. However, it doesn't scale well, either in functionality or number. If someone has dozens of playlists grouped in folders, selecting them from a drop-down menu quickly becomes inefficient. Also, additional functions like renaming, editing, shuffling etc. (all the stuff currently in the playlist context menu) would require displaying the menu first to find the playlist you want, then right-clicking that playlist menu item to display the context menu. It's not unprecedented for a menu item to have its own context menu (I see Firefox does that with its bookmarks menu) but it's not ideal.

[redwing]

In your suggested layout, how would you browse to a folder in the Computer node and drag tracks to a playlist? Or drag a playlist to an external device? These are common activities which don't seem to have intuitive equivalents if the nodes were replaced with toolbar buttons.

Of course, sidebar needs to be visible for those tasks. Like iTunes, starting dragging could immediate pop out left sidebar.

[vpsaxman]

I will spend more time thinking about it but at the moment i am inclined not to do anything with this.

Setting aside the sidebar for a moment, what about an iTunes style tabs/filter bar?

I made a topic about it here, but redwing also included it in his concept above.
http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=14250.0

I love this idea of yours. They would be a big improvement over the current way tabs are implemented but could keep essentially the same functionality.