Playlists menu location & album display issue

[H-Cue]

Hey guys,

I just downloaded MB for the first time and I am loving it. However, even after tweaking as much as I could with it, I still have two issues with the layout. My design choice is almost identical to this one: http://imgur.com/JPxozH5. My current layout is looking like this: http://imgur.com/umULdsu.

The first problem I have is the physical location of the playlists. I would like to know if I can have the playlists in any place other than the left panel. Ideally, I would like to remove the left panel altogether, just like in the example. However I would like to have my playlists visible somewhere else in the main screen, just the playlists. Is there any way I can achieve this? It seems to be possible to have the playlists as a tab, right? Could this be a floating tab by any chance? In truth, I'd like to have it on the right panel either above or under the artwork.

My second issue is with the display of the albums in the center panel. In the example I showed, the name of the artist comes above the artwork and in bigger letters. Plus there is a thin line just underneath the name of the artist and above the artwork. How can I achieve that? Is this some sort of mod?

I'd really appreciate some guidance on this, I am getting rather frustrated for usually I am quite tech savvy.

Thank you for the help

[psychoadept]

First, I suggest you try MB 3.0 from here: http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=15050.msg101420;topicseen#msg101420

It has a Playlist Manager view which might do what you want.

For the layout issue, it looks like you're missing artwork and album for a lot of the things in that screenshot.  What is the album artist for those tracks?  That's what controls the grouping header (big font).

[H-Cue]

Hey psychoadept,

thanks for your insights. You're right, I am missing almost every album art and name there is. If I understood it correctly, the big letters appear based on the album artist? That must be the issue, then. My music files are extremely incomplete, as you can see, so the majority of it has no album name/year/genre whatsoever. I am currently using MB to edit my files and add such details. I guess I need to add album for everything in order to have that layout. My hope was that I could group it like in the example picture just by artist, disconsidering albums altogether since I never really cared for album names or other details like that.

MB 3.0 is looking pretty sweet! I just realized something, though. I am currently running the portable MB, how could I replace it with the newer version without losing my current layout? I know it's somehow possible to save your current settings and such, but is it the same process with the portable version?

[psychoadept]

You should be able to copy the 3.0 files into your current install folder and it will import everything automatically when you run it.  In any case, 3.0 will create its own separate settings file, so it shouldn't affect your 2.5 installation.