A Musicbee user's: Day with MediaMonkey (to be updated as testing continues)

[ma_t14]

Look 4 posts above you 

[VX]

Excellent comparison ma_t14.  Thanks for continuously updating the topic. I was using MediaMonkey quite long time ago, but it was really slow, heavy-weight and the GUI was cluttered for me.

Looking at your comparison I can see room for MusicBee to get improved, but in fact MediaMonkey is far behind our Bee when it comes to ease of use, design and productivity.

The one and only feature I REALLY would like to see in MB, is a small button to switch between player view in the right top corner next to 'Minimize' button. It should be added to Mini and Compact Player as well for better consistency and ease of use.
I'm sure it would be much more intuitive and practical solution, I know that the similar feature already works with MB with 'Maximize' button for Compact Player and 'Show main window' button for Mini Player but I guess a separate button (identical for all views) would be much appreciated.

I like the way Album and Tracks view is organized in MediaMonkey too (you can see more Albums because less free space is wasted IMHO).

[beeing good]

I'd like to a +1 for collapsible track listings, it's one function that I just can't get used to in MB and the only one that stops me from using the art and track view.
Configurable for people who don't want that behaviour would be great. 

[Anti]

I also used to miss the collapsible track listing when I first moved from mediamonkey, because scrolling through the listing took longer. But after using musicbee for a while, I don't miss it at all now.

Firstly I realised that if I had to scroll more than a couple of pages I used the album/artist node anyway. So in musicbee I just open the library browser in the navigation pane, which does the same thing.

More often, though, I use the A-Z jump bar. Not sure if mediamonkey has a jump bar - I never had it enabled. I didn't like the idea at first, but actually it's really fast and intuitive if you know the artist you're looking for.

If collapsible tracks listing was instigated, I probably wouldn't use it now, because it does tend to get in the way when selecting single tracks.

Just my two cents worth.

[beeing good]

I agree that it's not essential and there are ways around things like taking longer to scroll but I just find it messy without it. Perhaps it's just my OCD kicking in but I can't stand seeing all the albums with different lengths, especially when some albums have 30 or so tracks.

[Steven]

i've implemented an option in the Album and Tracks layout to only show the first few files, where the hidden files can be unhidden for any particular album. It doesnt have a way to re-collapse an uncollapsed track list.
I'll post a link tomorrow

[beeing good]

That's great news, look forward to trying it out.

[Steven]

for anyone wanting to try it out - its set in the Album & Tracks layout settings
http://www.mediafire.com/?puok71vgzc4iqkb

[ma_t14]

i've implemented an option in the Album and Tracks layout to only show the first few files, where the hidden files can be unhidden for any particular album. It doesnt have a way to re-collapse an uncollapsed track list.
I'll post a link tomorrow

Just tested the new feature and it works great. 

p/s I found an easy way to recollapse the tracks. Just press F5. It refreshes (instantly) and collapses any uncollapsed tracks. Very happy with the current way it works. Steven if you ever implement a way to collapse uncollapsed tracks please make it so F5 works the same way it works now! 

[Steven]

give it a good play around with, especially when an album is selected and the tracks are hidden (eg. select and play an album when some of the tracks are hidden).
It was actually quite a difficult change to make so even though i have tested it myself there might be scenarios i overlooked.

[Blinghound]

Thanks a lot Steven, it works really well, and I agree with ma_t14, for now, pressing F5 works nicely. I did find a small bug, if you double click on the playing song in the player, it doesn't scroll to that song in the library.

[beeing good]

Seems to work nicely. I thought I found a bug where if you select an album in the inbox by clicking on the picture and then delete, it doesn't delete the hidden songs. However, it only seemed to happen once and I can't reproduce it so I presume this isn't a problem or bug.

I like it a lot, thanks for implementing this.

[ksvane]

for the album and tracks view, check out the config settings for that view as you can already set the album details to display to the right of the picture. It doesnt have the collapsable tracks though.

Have you considered adding an option to show the album details above the artwork? I like how that looks in foobar, and it leaves more space for columns.
Thanks for the collapsable tracks thing! Works perfectly for me as well! Been trying out MediaMonkey a few times, and that was one of the things I liked.

[cartman005]

for the album and tracks view, check out the config settings for that view as you can already set the album details to display to the right of the picture. It doesnt have the collapsable tracks though.

Have you considered adding an option to show the album details above the artwork? I like how that looks in foobar, and it leaves more space for columns.
Thanks for the collapsable tracks thing! Works perfectly for me as well! Been trying out MediaMonkey a few times, and that was one of the things I liked.

You can't move the details to the top but you can put them on the side of the artwork, which is nice. To do this to to Preferences > Layout. Click Configure File Views, select Album and Tracks and pick the field location to the right of the artwork.

I don't know if this helps you at all.