Author Topic: Yet another question about compilations management and display!  (Read 8279 times)

psychoadept

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Library with album and track view will get you very close to what you want out of the box. We can help move and tweak things from there.

I think this is the key point here. I haven't seen anything in what you're trying to do that Music Explorer is really suited for. The library is much more flexible and customizable.

You might start here to see if you can make it look more or less the way you want it to look: https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Panel_Views
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campfred

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Library with album and track view will get you very close to what you want out of the box. We can help move and tweak things from there.

I think this is the key point here. I haven't seen anything in what you're trying to do that Music Explorer is really suited for. The library is much more flexible and customizable.

You might start here to see if you can make it look more or less the way you want it to look: https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Panel_Views

It sadly doesn't cut it or come close to the Music Explorer. Well, if someone has been able to, I haven't so far. :-\
May I ask then what is Music Explorer « suited for » then? As I said, I probably was wrong and didn't understand the brillant, farly superior software that MusicBee is so I'm asking this. Maybe that'll help solve the issue.

frankz

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For me, Music Explorer is a means for music discovery. Artists who are similar to artists in my library, what else an artist may have released that's not part of my library yet, track previews of the aforementioned, etc.  It's meant (at least in my mind) to put the music in your library in context with the rest of the world of music that's out there and help you explore it.  Music. Explorer.

I don't use it much because it, by design and purpose, lacks function for what I mostly do, which is manage my own library.  I spend most of my time in the Library Explorer (i.e. "Main Panel") that you've been directed to twice now as the right tool for what you're looking to accomplish.

I'm, again, along with psychoadept it seems, struggling to understand what it is that you think you'd be missing out on by using the Library Main Panel. "Doesn't cut it" or "Doesn't come close" doesn't really describe what you feel like you're unable to get there, and without knowing that bit of information we're kind of at a disadvantage as far as finding ways to help.
Last Edit: April 23, 2020, 04:34:26 AM by frankz

campfred

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For me, Music Explorer is a means for music discovery. Artists who are similar to artists in my library, what else an artist may have released that's not part of my library yet, track previews of the aforementioned, etc.  It's meant (at least in my mind) to put the music in your library in context with the rest of the world of music that's out there and help you explore it.  Music. Explorer.

I don't use it much because it, by design and purpose, lacks function for what I mostly do, which is manage my own library.  I spend most of my time in the Library Explorer (i.e. "Main Panel") that you've been directed to twice now as the right tool for what you're looking to accomplish.

I'm, again, along with psychoadept it seems, struggling to understand what it is that you think you'd be missing out on by using the Library Main Panel. "Doesn't cut it" or "Doesn't come close" doesn't really describe what you feel like you're unable to get there, and without knowing that bit of information we're kind of at a disadvantage as far as finding ways to help.

Well, so far, what you've told about the Music Explorer is pretty much what I'm doing there. So, I have a really hard time understanding what I'm doing wrong there if you too are using it the same way. :-\

When I'm in the Library page, I'm like a librarian who carefully documents and stores books (or in that case, music) with all their details catalogued for easy discovery later and to keep things nice and tidy.
When I'm in the Music Explorer page, I'm like an adventurer navigating through the library and, in that case, listening to music. I click an artist and voilà, music is playing and info appears about the song, the album and the artist that's displayed and played. I also get suggested similar stuff to discover and potentially buy in the future (or at least put on my wishlist on Discogs).

This is also why the library doesn't cut it. It's clearly meant to manage content (and that's all good!). It's certainly usable in the sense that I can double click a song there and it starts playing my whole library (not wanted) but starting by that selected song. But it's not working like the other page (and it absolutely doesn't look and work as nicely).

frankz

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It's certainly usable in the sense that I can double click a song there and it starts playing my whole library (not wanted) but starting by that selected song.
You can configure what gets played when you double click a song in the library


As for the rest, I'm really not interested in a debate on the respective merits of the library and music explorer. If you feel that music explorer works and looks better, then use music explorer. I thought the reason you posted in the first place was that music explorer wasn't working as you wished, and that's the issue I responded to.  You're of course free to use MB as you like.
Last Edit: April 23, 2020, 02:26:46 PM by frankz

campfred

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It's certainly usable in the sense that I can double click a song there and it starts playing my whole library (not wanted) but starting by that selected song.
You can configure what gets played when you double click a song in the library


As for the rest, I'm really not interested in a debate on the respective merits of the library and music explorer. If you feel that music explorer works and looks better, then use music explorer. I thought the reason you posted in the first place was that music explorer wasn't working as you wished, and that's the issue I responded to.  You're of course free to use MB as you like.

Yes. That's what shipped with MusicBee and it doesn't solve it. :-\
I have the option on and on the right, there's still the whole library as you can see.

frankz

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Those are my options for my setup in my screen shot.  It's playing the whole library because you've told it to do that.

I'm suggesting for you that if you just want the selected songs or album to play, then you should set yours to just play the selected songs or albums, either queued after what's currently playing or replacing it.

Or don't.  Honestly, good luck I think.

campfred

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Those are my options for my setup in my screen shot.  It's playing the whole library because you've told it to do that.

I'm suggesting for you that if you just want the selected songs or album to play, then you should set yours to just play the selected songs or albums, either queued after what's currently playing or replacing it.

Or don't.  Honestly, good luck I think.

Sorry about that. I must have missed some explanation that's in your message that still doesn't load up on my end. I'll check that.
So, for now, we only have a small part of the problem solved. Since you look actually super good with this, do you have solutions for the rest too?

psychoadept

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It's the "play all tracks" part that is loading your whole library.  Try different settings and see what works for you.

It sounds like Music Explorer does offer functionality that you like.  In terms of subdividing artists the way you expressed in your original post, though, only the library can do that. In the library, you can view any tracks where an artist is credited, or you can choose to only view tracks where they're credited as Artist or Remixer or Performer, etc.
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campfred

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It's the "play all tracks" part that is loading your whole library.  Try different settings and see what works for you.

It sounds like Music Explorer does offer functionality that you like.  In terms of subdividing artists the way you expressed in your original post, though, only the library can do that. In the library, you can view any tracks where an artist is credited, or you can choose to only view tracks where they're credited as Artist or Remixer or Performer, etc.

That's bizarre that the Music Explorer can't display that properly. I miticulously tag every artist and composer in the Track Artist field with each their role on that (Artist, Guest Artist, Remixer, etc.). I was certain that the artist list in the music explorer would pull out a list based on artists.

What officially does the Music Explorer rely on exactly for that list? Maybe that will help me understand it.

campfred

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I think I found something. The grouping is not allowing us to change it anymore.
Clearly, we're supposed to have multiple options but there's only one now.


Edit: Link to the GIF embedded in this message since it doesn't seem to show for everyone : https://i.imgur.com/9VheuyL.gifv
Last Edit: April 27, 2020, 07:31:42 PM by campfred

4nubis

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Hey, have you found the solution to this?
It's infuriating me and I can't find how to rectify it myself in the docs.

psychoadept

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@campfred, can you post a screenshot of what you mean by grouping? I can't seem to find it.
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Steven

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That's bizarre that the Music Explorer can't display that properly. I miticulously tag every artist and composer in the Track Artist field with each their role on that (Artist, Guest Artist, Remixer, etc.). I was certain that the artist list in the music explorer would pull out a list based on artists.

What officially does the Music Explorer rely on exactly for that list? Maybe that will help me understand it.
You can choose whats displayed in the left panel of the Music Explorer by clicking the button at the top of that panel. Under "Other tags" you can choose various types of artists. However I do so I overlooked the "Artists" tag which would show all artist types together. I will add that into the next patch update

edit:
https://getmusicbee.com/patches/MusicBee33_Patched.zip
unzip and replace the existing musicbee application files
Last Edit: April 27, 2020, 10:53:27 AM by Steven

campfred

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I think I found something. The grouping is not allowing us to change it anymore.
Clearly, we're supposed to have multiple options but there's only one now.



Continuing on this, I'd like to know how to have more options in the first field that's listed there (shown in the GIF).
Hey, have you found the solution to this?
It's infuriating me and I can't find how to rectify it myself in the docs.

Not yet. I only have a feeling of where the sorting/grouping logic is (shown in the GIF) because when I'm playing with it, it actually changes the display of the albums there but it just makes it worse but as a simple user, I don't know how the program is actually made.