Library explorer should be able to change context from My Computer

[Xyzzy]

So it seems a common opinion is that it is not known what Library Explorer is supposed to be.

One specific purpose I could find in old posts is to have access to Music when browsing another Library item, in order to fe. add tracks to the Audiobooks). But this is awkward. If you want to add tracks to non-Music, just browse Music and add tracks to a chosen item in the tree, and then switch to it. But then, LE should not be available when browsing Music, because is does not make sense in this context...

[Gary Young]

So it seems a common opinion is that it is not known what Library Explorer is supposed to be.

Somehow yes. But on the other hand I use the LE very often.. intuitive.. somehow..

Hm, maybe it's helpful to think about how people possibly use the LE.

I, for instance, use it mostly for reducing the library to a subset which matches a certain tag or tag groups. Most of the time that tag is <Genre> but I also use <Decade> pretty much. In contrast, if I wanna go to a certain artist I personally prefer the search box on top of the main panel.

And now.. while I'm writing this, I found an amazing feature I didn't know. You can just start typing in the LE and a search box appears! I'm amazed, I always wished there was a search box

Sorry, but that changes everything for me now. I have to think over a bit...

[redwing]

And now.. while I'm writing this, I found an amazing feature I didn't know. You can just start typing in the LE and a search box appears! I'm amazed, I always wished there was a search box

Everyday I'm learning something new. How many features on earth are hidden behind MB's surface?

[Uill48]

Having switched from MM recently to MB (which I have found is a lot more intuitive) I simply have been using LE as a quick way to navigate (drill down into) my music collection to select a particular album/track... or select one on the basis of genre, mood, occasion or simply a particular year ...

[Adson]

I alway wondered why the LE behaves so strangely if a playlist was chosen before.

I would definitely expect that all! songs of an artist are shown when i click on the artitsts node in the LE.

Maybe it can be solved as an option, so that a click into the LE would reset set all previous playlists/filters or not?

Adson

[redwing]

Speaking of the beauty of LE, this tip might be useful to some and can be a tentative answer to certain needs such as this: http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=5955.0

If you are like me and a big fan of multi-column track browser, you may often feel constrained in navigating because of the fixed left-to-right filtering direction. At this moment LE comes in handy. When you click any node in LE, it serves as 0th column of track browser and immediately updates the content of the main panel according to the new filtering scheme. By this you can achieve sort of circular filtering algorithm, not a perfect one though. I don't know this was intended, but works beautifully.

[Steven]

i inclined to agree it should show the filtered files in the library in all cases so its consistent. As i mentioned before, the only reason it wasnt done like that in the first place is i believe some people navigate to an album or track in the library explorer and then drag that node into a playlist or now playing list in the main panel. You lose that ability (although of course of the now playing list is in the right sidebar then thats not a problem).
But overall i think i would prefer to lose that functionality and have consistency

[redwing]

i inclined to agree it should show the filtered files in the library in all cases so its consistent. As i mentioned before, the only reason it wasnt done like that in the first place is i believe some people navigate to an album or track in the library explorer and then drag that node into a playlist or now playing list in the main panel. You lose that ability (although of course of the now playing list is in the right sidebar then thats not a problem).
But overall i think i would prefer to lose that functionality and have consistency

Great! I'm sure the consistency will serve more people. And it's almost like adding a new feature rather than changing one.

[beeing good]

Does this mean that the LE will show the tags/files in the inbox when you have the inbox open rather than the library files/tags?

[Steven]

as proposed it would show library files only, and it would navigate away from the Inbox to the music library node.
if it were to filter whatever was in the main panel then it shouldnt be called a Library Explorer and it would need to get repopulated as you navigate from Inbox/ Library/ Playlists etc, but then i my mind why wouldnt someone just use the Track Browser which already does that

[beeing good]

That's fair enough, thanks for the clarification.

[Steven]

this has the amended behavior as described:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_1/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

i have also added a "Send To" menu to the Library Explorer so its still possible to send to a playlist via the explorer (and also added to the Track Browser as well)