Author Topic: Custom Views  (Read 20567 times)

Steven

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This has been requested a few times in different contexts and recently in connection with having an easily accessible way to load customised fields for switching between a pop and classicial view of fields.
This version has support for saving and editing custom views based on one of the standard layouts (Track Details, Album and Tracks and Artwork). The displayed fields, sort order and layout specific settings (set in the Customise Panel Settings dialog) are all saved.
To save a view, click the Panel Layout button to the left of the search box/ Saved Views/ Save View To...
Once saved, you can adjust and save any fields/panel layout settings.
To switch views just select the view from the Panel Layout button

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

Steven

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which view do you have active in the main panel at the time and how are you opening the customise panel settings window?

tom_dl

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I have Albums & Tracks open and the error comes up if I use the little button above the up arrow on the scroll bar of the main window or if i use the panel layout button to the left of the search box.

Thanks for any help

Steven

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jistme

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Thanks a lot for implementing! This is very handy.

But....
A good deed never goes unpunished ;-)
I experience some strange (erronous) behaviour in saving presets.

Example:
- create track detail view with columns 'Artist' and 'Title', save as 'at.mbv'
- add a third column 'Album', and save as 'ata.mbv'
- choose saved view 'at.mbv' to display, and it is shown looking the same as 'ata.mbv' (three columns instead of two)

And a small request; make it possible to delete presets from the same menu?

 

Greb

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When I select 'Play' or 'Queue' an album, it changes song's order.

EDIT Fake alarm. It works fine now.
Last Edit: July 03, 2012, 04:21:35 PM by Greb

Steven

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- create track detail view with columns 'Artist' and 'Title', save as 'at.mbv'
- add a third column 'Album', and save as 'ata.mbv'
- choose saved view 'at.mbv' to display, and it is shown looking the same as 'ata.mbv' (three columns instead of two)
the implemented behavior is it saves immediately on an action such as changing columns. I accept it could be confusing in some scenarios like the one you mention if you are not aware of that, so i will look to make it more like editing/ saving a document but i anticipate some compilcations so might leave it as is

i think the windows Save As dialog box allows delete and rename of files, but i will probably create a delete menu item

jistme

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Ok, I get it.

Some good advice to others then:

When you want to create a new view, don't start from one you already saved and want to keep using (it will be overwritten), but start from a default view.

Steven

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does anyone else have an opinion about the intuitiveness of using this function?
at the moment any changes to a view (such as column changes) are automatically saved straight away, so if your intention is to make changes and then save those changes to another view this approach can be confusing until you know this. However I think keeping changes unsaved until you Save the view to a new name or exit MB leads to other scenarios where MB would need to be guessing what the intention was.

So what i propose is to keep the immediate saving of changes the same as now, and the function name was changed from
"Save View Settings To..."
to
"Copy Current View Settings To..."

Do you think that would make it clearer?

jistme

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This is a tricky one.

The confusion will probably mostly arise from users wondering sooner or later what happened to there carefully created and saved presets.
Naming it copy instead of save will not prevent that.

Might it be possible to achieve it so that as soon as a change is made to a view, it is immediatly saved in a preset named for example 'last used' and so not overwriting the custimized preset?

mtone

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does anyone else have an opinion about the intuitiveness of using this function?

The auto-save behavior is fine imo. I think the term "Copy to" is clear, but "Saved views" may not be . It can imply that you can "save" them (manually). Calling it "Current View" or similar might dissipate any confusion upon auto-save.

I like the feature, and I have some wishlist for it  ;D

1) Would it be possible to include the column browser settings (how many columns, and what fields) in the saved view? For example, if someone creates a view for classical, one may want to replace the Album Artist column to Composer instead.

2) Would it be possible to assign/remember a saved view to a library (so it changes when switching)?
Last Edit: July 09, 2012, 04:58:00 AM by mtone

Roadrunner

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I agree with jistme and mtone, that viewes called "saved views" will be expected to be save... It doesn't matter much, if you call the other function "copy to" or "save as". Standard editors usually put a "*" behind the name, as soon as the content changes and more important: The user will be asked if he/she would like to save it, when he switches to another one or closes the program.

In contrast to mtone, I'd prefer a really save view, which cannot be destroyed accidentally.

paq

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Wish: When creating or editing a playlist, auto and static ones, one can choose to have the playlist displayed using a particular view. It would be nice to see the custom views in this list of views to choose from :)