format strings assoc'd with sorts seems wrong they should be assoc'd with views,
if I'm in album view when i drill down to the track names I want to see 01.trackname1, 02.trackname2
if i'm in song view I want to see 'trackname' by 'artist'
if in artist view I want to see 'trackname' from 'album'
If I change the sort I dont want the display format to change at all, I can't see why I would ever want it to. I can see I might want to
sort by year and so show year in right column
sort by length and so show duration in right
sort by rating and so show rating in right
but in all cases it is only the right column I would want to show something different and this could be hardwired as it is obvious by the sort what the right column should show.
So I would move the format textbox from 'Music Sort' toa column in 'Music Views', drop the Music sort tab completely and just have 4 hardwired sorts for Alpha, Year, Duration, Rating where Alpha is just the a..z of the current view. Obviously until you actually drill down to tracknames alpha is the only sort.
In it's current form I just use the shares view, I have never bothered to use the database (for long) as it is far too complicated and awkward to use (for a tv app), attested by that no one I ever showed it too really understood it. By migrating the format to the views, advanced users can create as many diff views as they want. So it ends up being simpler and far more flexible. History shows though that 95% of users of win-apps NEVER change the default settings, so adding too many options results in them not only not using the options but not even using the app period...
also
1.That top line just above the track list, that usually duplicates the current entry should have an option to supply a format string so we can always show tracknum.artist.album.trackname regardless of how it is being displayed in the list, handy when viewing songs as song-artist to know the album it's off as there may be the same track by the same artist from different albums (if you set the format to show all this info in the main list though it would end up too cluttered and unreadable.
2.View List/Icons/Film could do with an album view Layout that shows the cover on left and tracks listed on right (in track order) I think a view like this is already in MP though not accessable from here.
3. if the format strings also enabled for selection of diff colours for artist,album,track,tracknum it might help, though in practice it might be too offensive to the eye
if I'm in album view when i drill down to the track names I want to see 01.trackname1, 02.trackname2
if i'm in song view I want to see 'trackname' by 'artist'
if in artist view I want to see 'trackname' from 'album'
If I change the sort I dont want the display format to change at all, I can't see why I would ever want it to. I can see I might want to
sort by year and so show year in right column
sort by length and so show duration in right
sort by rating and so show rating in right
but in all cases it is only the right column I would want to show something different and this could be hardwired as it is obvious by the sort what the right column should show.
So I would move the format textbox from 'Music Sort' toa column in 'Music Views', drop the Music sort tab completely and just have 4 hardwired sorts for Alpha, Year, Duration, Rating where Alpha is just the a..z of the current view. Obviously until you actually drill down to tracknames alpha is the only sort.
In it's current form I just use the shares view, I have never bothered to use the database (for long) as it is far too complicated and awkward to use (for a tv app), attested by that no one I ever showed it too really understood it. By migrating the format to the views, advanced users can create as many diff views as they want. So it ends up being simpler and far more flexible. History shows though that 95% of users of win-apps NEVER change the default settings, so adding too many options results in them not only not using the options but not even using the app period...
also
1.That top line just above the track list, that usually duplicates the current entry should have an option to supply a format string so we can always show tracknum.artist.album.trackname regardless of how it is being displayed in the list, handy when viewing songs as song-artist to know the album it's off as there may be the same track by the same artist from different albums (if you set the format to show all this info in the main list though it would end up too cluttered and unreadable.
2.View List/Icons/Film could do with an album view Layout that shows the cover on left and tracks listed on right (in track order) I think a view like this is already in MP though not accessable from here.
3. if the format strings also enabled for selection of diff colours for artist,album,track,tracknum it might help, though in practice it might be too offensive to the eye