MP2 - V2.4.1 Remembering different views (1 Viewer)

[Haze]

Hi everyone, a newbie here who's just started playing around with MP2.

I'm trying to get my music collection sorted (a collection of scanned in cds on a NAS drive); I've got it all successfully up and running within MP2, but I can't seem to get the views configured to be the way I want...

I want to have MP2 remember that I want different views depending at what level in the 'hierarchy' I'm at. For example, at the lowest level - when I'm looking at the track listing for a particular cd - I'd want the view mode to be 'small list', and then at a higher level, when I'm browsing the various albums within a particular artist, I'd like the view to be 'cover'. However I've found that when you change the view mode in one level, it seems to then change the view mode for all levels.

Is it possible make MP2 'remember' the views I want at different levels? Or am I hoping for too much?

[I'm using the WMC skin, btw]

Cheers!

 

[ge2301]

Hi,

MP2 should normally remember the settings by screen, this includes filter and view modes. Can you try to once reset all filters, means go to your audio library and set the filter to show all. Then set the filter to album and afterwards the view mode to grid or cover. Then select an album and set the view mode to small list.
The settings should be remembers without problems now (at least they did here). If not please upload the log files after doing above and check once, if view modes are remembered correctly for series and movies for example.

 

[Haze]

I figured out that if I use 'library view' instead of 'folder view', then the various screens nested under will remember the individual views that I've set. Whereas, in folder view, it doesn't seem to work like that; the lower level screens seems to be tied together view-wise - if you change the view on one, the other changes too. I don't know if that's a bug or not. So I guess that means I need to use library view.

Anyway, it's revealed another problem. Well maybe not a problem, but an observation/suggestion. Within 'library view', I use filter by 'album artist' and 'small list' view. It brings up a split screen, with the album artists down the LHS. (as per attached screen grab) However the RHS doesn't show anything useful at all, it just repeats the name of the album artist you're currently hovering on. [It's the same if you use 'medium list' or 'big list' too.]

Surely the RHS ought to automatically show the level below, i.e. the various albums belong to the particular artist you're currently hovering over? As it currently stands, it would seem there is no point to splitting the screen and having the RHS at all.

 

[ge2301]

I figured out that if I use 'library view' instead of 'folder view', then the various screens nested under will remember the individual views that I've set. Whereas, in folder view, it doesn't seem to work like that; the lower level screens seems to be tied together view-wise - if you change the view on one, the other changes too. I don't know if that's a bug or not. So I guess that means I need to use library view.

Folder view is just a basic view, that uses the folder structure of windows explorer, but most benefits as fanart and additional information are not existing, the library view is intended for that.

Anyway, it's revealed another problem. Well maybe not a problem, but an observation/suggestion. Within 'library view', I use filter by 'album artist' and 'small list' view. It brings up a split screen, with the album artists down the LHS. (as per attached screen grab) However the RHS doesn't show anything useful at all, it just repeats the name of the album artist you're currently hovering on. [It's the same if you use 'medium list' or 'big list' too.]

It’s not a bug, it just seems you did not activate online scrapping for artist information or didn’t prepare the information offline. The right side would show artist images, artist fanart in the background, birth date, biography infos, …
It’s all described in the wiki, so perhaps it’s better to read the preparation and configuration options there.

 

[Haze]

Thankyou for trying to explain things further. I appreciate you explaining what the RHS panes are meant to be for; so it's good to know there is a point to them!

However, I'm not interested in faffing about with all that extraneous third-party 'fanart' stuff. I'm just talking about the way MP2 displays the basic/innate information it's already got by default, thanks to Windows sucking in my CD collection.

Is it not possible to have the 'list' view do what I want? i.e. behave like any typical file explorer in that the RHS pane defaults to showing the contents of the folder you're currently highlighting on the LHS? Seems like such an obvious and intuitive way to make use of a split screen view...

[I've also now noticed that the tv recordings are presented in the exact same limited way; i.e. the various tv series it's been recording are listed on the LHS, but no corresponding sub-folder contents information appears on the RHS]

Seems like what I'm after is somewhat of a hybrid of the 'library' and 'folder' views; maybe it's just not doable..?

 

[ge2301]

It’s technically not possible to combine the library and folder view. This is also the case for other HTPC softwares I fear. The media can quickly organized by filters, sorting etc., it’s not about fanart. The folder view is meant just as a basic navigation feature.