Make Playing Now More Friendly

[jameson_uk]

I think the music setup in MP had progressed brilliantly over the last few years. It was the main thing stopping me leaving Meedio to come over to MP but I am here now

One thing I do think needs some work is what happens when you play tracks. Browsing is now quick and logical but when I sat the gf down she was confused what was happening once she had clicked on a track as it started playing but she had no idea how to queue up other tracks etc.

I have also struggled a bit once you have got a list of tracks to play on how to get to this list to see what is playing, what is queued up etc.

It just isn't as intuitive as it could be.

[trdmlc]

I agree fully. I am used to the XBMC interface for the Xbox, which is in my opinion, Perfect. They have yet to successfully translate that to the HTPC though, so I am searching for alternatives. I do like several things about XBMC, but it leaves much to be desired. When browsing my music folders, I would like to see a track that I want to play, press a button, and have it added to the "Now Playing" list. If this is currently possible, I haven't discovered it. I do like the Movie/DVD integration in MP and several other things, so I will continue to use the product, but I hope to see strides in the music area.

[2BitSculptor]

Originally Posted by trdmlc

I agree fully. I am used to the XBMC interface for the Xbox, which is in my opinion, Perfect. They have yet to successfully translate that to the HTPC though, so I am searching for alternatives. I do like several things about XBMC, but it leaves much to be desired. When browsing my music folders, I would like to see a track that I want to play, press a button, and have it added to the "Now Playing" list. If this is currently possible, I haven't discovered it. I do like the Movie/DVD integration in MP and several other things, so I will continue to use the product, but I hope to see strides in the music area.

Find a track, focus, hit "info"... the first item in the OSD is "add to playlist", just hit "okay" and it's added. find another track, repeat. The first track to be added to the playlist starts to play immediately. You can add an entire album if you want with "add all to playlist" or find an album in album view, focus, hit "info" and you can add the entire album to the playlist, find another album, repeat.

You can collect a group of tracks by their genre as well (in genre view), focus the genre, hit info, ... or by artist, or by year, etc....

Chuck

[trdmlc]

I had been just playing a song by selecting it directly, and when I would try to queue another song by doing as you advised, it would just play the next song in the album I was already playing. By adding the first song I play to the playlist, rather than just playing it, it seems to work.

[jameson_uk]

Originally Posted by 2BitSculptor

Find a track, focus, hit "info"... the first item in the OSD is "add to playlist", just hit "okay" and it's added. find another track, repeat. The first track to be added to the playlist starts to play immediately. You can add an entire album if you want with "add all to playlist" or find an album in album view, focus, hit "info" and you can add the entire album to the playlist, find another album, repeat.

I know you can do this but is just not very intuitive. I sat my mum down in front of Meedio and she was using it with a couple of mins. Tried the same with MP and she just got frustrated and wanted to go back to Meedio.

I don't think anyone expects to click play (or enter) on a track in the middle of an album and then have the next track on the album play. If they wanted to play the whole album they would expect to click play (or enter) on the album level or select a "play all" option.

To make matters slightly more confusing if someone clicks play on a track and then goes to another one and clicks add to playlist it will carry on playing the original album. When you look at current playlist you see what you selected but not what is playing.... This is also confusing as if you have clicked on something and pressed play you have no idea what you have clicked on other than what track is playing now and what track is playing next. You have no idea if it was an album that was clicked on, a genre or your whole collection

I think MP should implement a default now playing playlist. If you press play on a track and there is no playlist then it should create one.

The only issue this leaves if if you do want to clear the current playlist then you have to do something. A good solution to this is to have the play button replace the current playlist with what you have selected and enter (ok on MCE remote) to add items to the current playlist.

This also partly removes the confusion about now playing and current playlist screens as they would basically be the same thing. You could have a view which is what you see in Now Playing with just the one track and playing next details and your standard list view which would have all the items in ???

Meedio implemented a playlist / play mode toggle where in one mode selecting an item would add it to the playlist and t'other would replace playlist.

Also great thing that Meedio did was flagged each item you added to the currrent playlist with a big dot. When browsing through you collection you could see which tracks had already been added to the current playlist. You could also deselect them by clicking enter on them and this would remove the dot and remote the item from the playlist.

[2BitSculptor]

Originally Posted by jameson_uk

I don't think anyone expects to click play (or enter) on a track in the middle of an album and then have the next track on the album play. If they wanted to play the whole album they would expect to click play (or enter) on the album level or select a "play all" option.

When the Album cover is in focus and you hit "okay" or "enter" on the remote, you enter the album folder to view the tracks. Alternatively, if you hit PLAY (VCR control "arrow" button) or select "play now" from the INFO OSD list, it does create a playlist and begins playing the first track of the album. any subsequent album addition to the playlist is via the INFO OSD.(focus Album/press INFO/press OKAY)

To make matters slightly more confusing if someone clicks play on a track and then goes to another one and clicks add to playlist it will carry on playing the original album. When you look at current playlist you see what you selected but not what is playing.... This is also confusing as if you have clicked on something and pressed play you have no idea what you have clicked on other than what track is playing now and what track is playing next. You have no idea if it was an album that was clicked on, a genre or your whole collection

If you press ENTER or OKAY the track plays without adding it to the playlist, if you press PLAY a playlist is created and the track begins to play, subsequent track additions is via the INFO OSD. (focus Track/press INFO/press OKAY) You can preview a track without adding it to the playlist. Pressing PLAY on a track (or an Album) will replace the current playlist with a new one.

I think MP should implement a default now playing playlist. If you press play on a track and there is no playlist then it should create one.

The only issue this leaves if if you do want to clear the current playlist then you have to do something. A good solution to this is to have the play button replace the current playlist with what you have selected and enter (ok on MCE remote) to add items to the current playlist.

This also partly removes the confusion about now playing and current playlist screens as they would basically be the same thing. You could have a view which is what you see in Now Playing with just the one track and playing next details and your standard list view which would have all the items in ???

Meedio implemented a playlist / play mode toggle where in one mode selecting an item would add it to the playlist and t'other would replace playlist.

Also great thing that Meedio did was flagged each item you added to the current playlist with a big dot. When browsing through you collection you could see which tracks had already been added to the current playlist. You could also deselect them by clicking enter on them and this would remove the dot and remote the item from the playlist.

I agree that flipping button functions and flagging the items in the playlist would be nice features. Also if an album had a few tracks in the current playlist the dot could be one color, if all the tracks in the album were in the playlist, it could be a different color. I don't think it would happen in MediaPorta 1, as it is in feature freeze (unless the developers think it just HAS to be added). MediaPortal IS evolving and it might be something to suggest in the design of MP II, if it isn't already.

Chuck