Author Topic: Playlist Manager enhancements  (Read 18218 times)

redwing

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Playlist Explorer

- If you open playlist explorer from a pinned playlist tab, that tab changes to playlist explorer tab instead of opening a new tab. Then you have to re-pin the playlist to a tab.

- Would be useful if clicking on playlist explorer from left navigator toggles to show and hide it in the left main panel. Currently you have to click on another node to hide it.

Edit list on the right

- When the edit list opens, the main panel always changes to Music node, but is it necessary? Also if you open it from a pinned tab, it opens a new "Music" tab. Why not allow it to edit from the pinned tab? Anyway, at that point, go back to the original tab and try adjusting the width of list panel on the right, then the UI crashes between right sidebar elements of the tab and the list panel.

- There's not much you can do with the current limited functionality of the list panel if the playlist contains hundreds of tracks. Hard to figure out which songs from which artists are included. Would be great if it can behave like the artwork view list on the right you recently improved with its own group-by, sort-by settings and multiple layouts. Also add playlist # at the beginning by default. Filtering bar would work great as well just like the one for playing tracks list.

Steven

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- Would be useful if clicking on playlist explorer from left navigator toggles to show and hide it in the left main panel. Currently you have to click on another node to hide it.
if i changed it to do that and the Playlist Explorer node is active, then MB wouldnt have anything to show in the main panel.
But i do agree with the point about it not being obvious how to get the playlists back so as a compromise i could have MB select the auto-dj node just below so something is still showing in the main panel

redwing

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as a compromise i could have MB select the auto-dj node just below so something is still showing in the main panel

When Playlist Explorer node is active I think showing Music node would work better because then focus could just stay on playlist explorer node. To show Auto-DJ node, focus should immediately move down to Auto-DJ node when the user closes the panel by clicking on playlist explorer node and this whole thing could look confusing.

Other issues:

- When playlist explorer opens in a new session, the first playlist folder gets selected. This is no good because "New Playlist" command from the header or dragging tracks from the main panel will create a new playlist inside the folder rather than inside the root playlist folder. Instead the first (auto) playlist in the root folder should be selected so that users don't have to select it additionally just to change folder selection.

- If you drag tracks to playlist explorer, it creates a new playlist and focus goes to the playlist's naming box properly. But if you drag tracks to the playlist section header in left navigator, it just creates a "Playlist (counter)" named playlist. I think it used to work properly just as playlist explorer does, but it no longer gives a chance to name the playlist.

Steven

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as a compromise i could have MB select the auto-dj node just below so something is still showing in the main panel

When Playlist Explorer node is active I think showing Music node would work better because then focus could just stay on playlist explorer node. To show Auto-DJ node, focus should immediately move down to Auto-DJ node when the user closes the panel by clicking on playlist explorer node and this whole thing could look confusing.
after i wrote that it occured to me that all that needs to happen is MB selects the current active playlist from the playlist explorer

redwing

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You're right.
BTW there may be still some people who fail to notice the toggling function. You might want to consider adding close command to the header too.

Steven

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- If you open playlist explorer from a pinned playlist tab, that tab changes to playlist explorer tab instead of opening a new tab. Then you have to re-pin the playlist to a tab.
Trying this now, i cant reproduce the issue (I assume you also had Full Navigation lock enabled).
However what i do find is if a playlist has full navigation lock, the act of pinning that tab changes the type of lock to partial, so i will fix that.
Do you think thats what happened for you?


redwing

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What I meant was when you have a pinned playlist tab with partial lock. If you open playlist explorer from that tab, the tab now becomes playlist explorer tab with no way going back. You might say it still allows to navigate to a different playlist in that pinned tab, but the layout I want to use is different as I don't want playlist explorer opened in that pinned tab. So if the user opens playlist explorer from a partial-lock playlist tab, I think it should open it in a new tab.

Steven

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If you open playlist explorer from that tab, the tab now becomes playlist explorer tab with no way going back.
thats no longer the case though (unless i am misunderstanding you). You can simply click the Playlist Explorer node again to close it or click "Close Panel" from the header menu

redwing

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That works. But I still think it would work better if any pinned tab could open playlist explorer in a new tab. Then you don't have to worry about keeping your pinned tab unchanged. Currently if you open playlist explorer from a partial-locked playlist tab and then click on a library node, the pinned tab ends up changing to playlist explorer tab.

Steven

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Edit list on the right

- When the edit list opens, the main panel always changes to Music node, but is it necessary? Also if you open it from a pinned tab, it opens a new "Music" tab. Why not allow it to edit from the pinned tab? Anyway, at that point, go back to the original tab and try adjusting the width of list panel on the right, then the UI crashes between right sidebar elements of the tab and the list panel.

- There's not much you can do with the current limited functionality of the list panel if the playlist contains hundreds of tracks. Hard to figure out which songs from which artists are included. Would be great if it can behave like the artwork view list on the right you recently improved with its own group-by, sort-by settings and multiple layouts. Also add playlist # at the beginning by default. Filtering bar would work great as well just like the one for playing tracks list.
the bug  in the first is fixed for the next update. I will consider the 2nd and post any changes i do make

redwing

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Also if you try to edit playlist from a pinned playlist tab, you get this error:

10.0.14393.0 - 3.1.6164.37229 - System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at MusicBee.MusicBeeMain.#=qxFfSxg5eR96FCz6EnYWGoJ7ljy9ZEspP4cYohgGsGmw=(#=qhAnWMhTJ4tM6HpUtcmnNXCLWML8BIIhpDu0ngsOsmQo= #=q7YosK67kamxtkWfG2BO34A==, #=q9RtzrQ$SOLoEUmrd52BArnuViKPlEdSBGhc88NBwU9o= #=qrpfxlnTvv28YjZfF03QP61jKWFMwIfYCUcHFH54Cw_I=)
   at MusicBee.MusicBeeMain.#=qILPCaI3ghlSrUDJ$VaeA3HehsvCzNtNfu8JAlg3Pc2M=()
   at MusicBee.MusicBeeApplication.#=qVhDJ6pFuJ1Udn1hF6Gpl1A==.#=qS95RSrytbd_CKPisjhHzSA==(ApplicationCommand #=qjsIedVWOHYWDjXgg_FlKIQ==, Object #=qHz_ujOoKQ3vDOJ17qMyx9Q==, IList`1 #=qRDDZi9OjCiIuwqpBb_q6QQ==)
   at #=qYyJeK15KJ0ObeZ2i2gLv6xdn727GkEKSIJaO4ayourU=.OnClick(EventArgs #=qCBPoCZcv6U_5hOSYlTmJwg==)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Steven

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that sounds like the bug that's fixed and I will make the update available tomorrow

Steven

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http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_1/MusicBee31_Patched.zip

i also made a change so grouping is done when sorting the edit playlist
i will add in support for a "find" panel later

redwing

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Working better.

- Probably grouping by title is not necessary in most cases.
- When grouped by artist or album artist, tracks just get sorted by disc-track # per artist disregarding albums. Would be much useful if they're grouped by album. Or offer sort-by settings to use custom sorting sets.