Author Topic: GUI changes for v3.0  (Read 1233027 times)

redwing

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When filtered with thumbnail browser, if you switch to another view in the main panel, all other items in the thumbnail browser disappear when they should stay. And "all items" at the top shows an incorrect count.
thats fixed for the next update

Thanks! That's fixed.
Remaining two issues:
- Switching to Tracks view doesn't change album count to track count.
- If "all items" at the top is not visible thumbnail browser flashes when switching to another view. If the top item is visible it's working fine.

psychoadept

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I know I'm being a broken record, but this kind of thing is why I think the playlist manager should just be its own panel, like all the others. As currently implemented, I would hate for it to lose those nodes, since you can't have it and them open any other way (okay, in tabs, but I'm not much of a tabs guy).  If it stands alone, it won't need the other nodes and can be used more flexibly according to the style of the user.  Am I really the only one who would prefer it that way?

I think that's a good idea. However, I'm just trying to understand. Why not use the navigation panel/ left sidebar? I'm confused.

To have more room for playlists?  I'm confused too.  :)  What else is the playlist manager for except to break playlists out of the navigator so they are easier to work with?  Am I missing a feature it has?  (Seriously!  I feel like I'm missing something.)

Edit: just to be clear, I mean a side panel like thumbnail browser or library explorer.
Last Edit: March 17, 2016, 05:06:38 AM by psychoadept
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redwing

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just regarding the tabs, i will look at doing something although at the moment i am not sure whether it should be a skin setting or user setting (which i want to avoid adding too many options and the layout may better suit if the active tab is not coloured differently)

In my opinion user setting would make things simpler, otherwise people will keep asking about what skin settings to adjust, not to mention un-editable bitmap skin issue.

topdeal

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Hi, I have installed the 3.0 tools on my old device, but I lost it and I don't know how to get it back to the main interface where the 3 columns with the genre, artist, and album on top, then in the table below are the songs , like I have ever had. Can someone tell me what to do?
Thanks,

Alumni

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What else is the playlist manager for except to break playlists out of the navigator so they are easier to work with?  Am I missing a feature it has?  (Seriously!  I feel like I'm missing something.)

I think the Playlist Manager could allow for both kinds of configurations;
- as an available element in the layout manager it opens up more flexibility and behaves like other panels.
- has the option of disabling all nodes except for playlists for those of us who want to use it alongside the left navigator or if using tabs for navigating these nodes instead.

PS: A cool feature only found in the Playlist Manager is the shortcut to quickly and easily create new playlist types and folders.
Last Edit: March 17, 2016, 07:39:27 AM by Alumni

redwing

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Could this be helpful to address the issue?

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330730%28VS.85%29.aspx#browser_emulation
thats a very good find and might yet come as useful but setting the Browser Emulation value for IE11 didnt make any difference for me

This is definitely an emulation issue if you're loading those sites and using F12 tool with IE. Looks like the plugin always uses IE 7 or 5 mode.

KissCool

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In the Playing Tracks element (docked in right sidebar), 5 dots appears on mouseover instead of 5 stars.
thats fixed for the next update
Fixed. Thanks.

@orbittwz
It's not my skin and dunno what you want exactly. Gonna be hard to help you!

psychoadept

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I think the Playlist Manager could allow for both kinds of configurations;
- as an available element in the layout manager it opens up more flexibility and behaves like other panels.
- has the option of disabling all nodes except for playlists for those of us who want to use it alongside the left navigator or if using tabs for navigating these nodes instead.

PS: A cool feature only found in the Playlist Manager is the shortcut to quickly and easily create new playlist types and folders.

Thanks for responding!  Okay, so how is it helpful for other nodes to be disabled when using the playlist manager?  You say "alongside the left navigator or if using tabs", but I'm not getting my brain around how it's of benefit for the playlist manager to close when you navigate to another node in those cases.  Especially since you can't use the playlist manager and the left navigator at the same time right now.  Doing anything in the navigator forces the playlist manager to close.  That's where I get disoriented, because the way I imagine using the playlist manager would be to just have it there while I browse my library and drop things into playlists as desired. So disabling other nodes doesn't seem to be of benefit.

In fact, what I would like to do is enable the playlist manager, and turn of the playlists section of the navigator since it becomes redundant at that point (it would be even more awesome if this happened automatically). The playlist manager would then stay open while navigating to any other nodes.

By the shortcut to create new playlists, do you mean the right click menu which is also in the navigator? [Edit: oops, I thought it was disabled because it was grey.  That's what I get for using a skin I'm not familiar with.]

Thank you for being patient with me. I'm not used to feeling like I don't get something that everybody else seems to think is obvious. :)
Last Edit: March 18, 2016, 04:08:53 AM by psychoadept
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sleepless

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I'm glad you cleared that up. I think I understand where you're coming from now. You simply prefer to do all your file transferring within the PM sidebar.  I've always just used the navigation panel for this (using auto-hide feature). So because the navigation panel is always available I didn't see the need for those nodes in th PM sidebar. Rather, I like the PM sidebar for the extra space it provides and see it as a sort of thumbnail browser specifically for creating and navigating playlists. I appreciate the suggestions from you both. It seems perhaps 2 camps are beginning to emerge for a number of issues, as many of us are transitioning to a tab oriented system. It'd be nice to have a bit more flexibility in this area for those of us who use it differently.

Alumni

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Okay, so how is it helpful for other nodes to be disabled when using the playlist manager?  You say "alongside the left navigator or if using tabs", but I'm not getting my brain around how it's of benefit for the playlist manager to close when you navigate to another node in those cases.  Especially since you can't use the playlist manager and the left navigator at the same time right now.

It's possible to dock the left navigator and playlist manager side by side, which might be useful in certain situations (for example if you have lots of playlists). Ideally the playlist manager would need an auto-hide on/off toggle. The problem as I see it is duplication of nodes such as the music library. If you choose to use tabs for navigating (assuming all nodes are pinned to their own tab), the playlist manager becomes useful for the purpose of viewing and creating playlists, but again you have a repetition of nodes that are found elsewhere. In addition, a limitation of the playlist manager is that no filters can be applied to it, so its own library node is no replacement for the left navigator's library node.


psychoadept

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It's possible to dock the left navigator and playlist manager side by side, which might be useful in certain situations (for example if you have lots of playlists). Ideally the playlist manager would need an auto-hide on/off toggle. The problem as I see it is duplication of nodes such as the music library. If you choose to use tabs for navigating (assuming all nodes are pinned to their own tab), the playlist manager becomes useful for the purpose of viewing and creating playlists, but again you have a repetition of nodes that are found elsewhere. In addition, a limitation of the playlist manager is that no filters can be applied to it, so its own library node is no replacement for the left navigator's library node.

I'm glad you cleared that up. I think I understand where you're coming from now. You simply prefer to do all your file transferring within the PM sidebar.  I've always just used the navigation panel for this (using auto-hide feature). So because the navigation panel is always available I didn't see the need for those nodes in th PM sidebar. Rather, I like the PM sidebar for the extra space it provides and see it as a sort of thumbnail browser specifically for creating and navigating playlists. I appreciate the suggestions from you both. It seems perhaps 2 camps are beginning to emerge for a number of issues, as many of us are transitioning to a tab oriented system. It'd be nice to have a bit more flexibility in this area for those of us who use it differently.

I think we're all basically on the same page here. 

Giving the playlist manager its own layout panel (without the duplicated nodes) would solve most of the issues in your comment, alumni.  Reduce duplication, give full access to filters while using it, etc.  If you wanted the auto hide functionality, you could stack the playlist manager on top of the navigator in the left panel (like you can do now with thumbnail browser).  You'd just have to switch them occasionally for navigation.

And you could use it exactly as you described, sleepless.  The extra nodes would be out of your way, too.
Last Edit: March 17, 2016, 09:33:58 PM by psychoadept
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Steven

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i have mostly done the tab enhancements. For the reason of keeping the number of options to a minimum, I am planning to allow two styles (not sure of the names just yet):
- Icon; Text left aligned; Mixed Case; fixed width ie. the current style, except icons will always display
- No icon; Text centered; UPPER case; width sized to the text ie. an equal spacing between each text ie. the style proposed by endeavour1934
- in either case the pinned tabs will always show an icon or icon and text as configured ie. unchanged from now
- also i have added a font override for the text

However, there is one issue and that is when the tabs bar is docked in the caption bar. For skins that dont have the tabs blending in with the caption bar colours, the 2nd (new) layout doesnt work well. So what i am planning for this is a skin override, just a simple True/False flag that when set to True, will allow MusicBee to support the 2nd layout in the caption bar




Last Edit: March 17, 2016, 09:11:37 PM by Steven

KissCool

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- No icon; Text centered; UPPER case; width sized to the text ie. an equal spacing between each text ie. the style proposed by endeavour1934

Great! Thanks.

sleepless

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I appreciate the centering and caps. Although I really wish we could have option the centering with the icons. Currently I use the "TabsBar.InactiveTabIconMask" so the icon is only displayed in the active tab. With the new settings I could now center the tabs but would lose the active icon. :(





I'll live though, thanks.

Steven

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http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_0/MusicBee3_Patched.zip

unzip into the musicbee application folder and run MusicBee3.exe
- fixes and changes for the items stated as fixed above
- note that for the new centered tabs, they wont activate when docked in the caption bar unless the skin supports that. Currently only the default musicbee skin supports that
- keep a copy of your current MusicBee3.exe as this has barely been tested but i wanted to provide now it for feedback