[seemingly abandonware] Columns UI, alternative user interface Options

[wojtek]

Am I missing something obvious here? I'd rather like to have things completely alligned to the border and add space with a padding option...

Don't know if I understood correctly, but couldn't you just use single column with formatting like:
if ( playing ; $tab() playback-info $tab() [tabs to center it] ; info_from_column_1 $tab() info_from_column_2 [ tab should align it like on the screen] )

[Squeller]

No. Because I would have to make one of those columns very wide in order to hold all information which is just shown in the playback track.
I could merge both columns though; but I don't really want to...

[wojtek]

I've implied to merge them into one with with equal current two columns. Besides sorting using column title buttons I don't see why this would be so unwelcome...

[Squeller]

I had a look at it and I think you're right . [x] Done.

[odyssey]

@musicmusic:

Can you make it possible to move the cursor to the closest entry (up/down) according to search order, when you press a character on the keyboard?

Oh course this only makes sense if column search order is specified...

[musicmusic]

Album list panel 0.3.4 released:

• Added functions $meta_branch_swapprefix, $meta_branch_stripprefix, $meta_branch_remap_swapprefix, $meta_branch_remap_stripprefix
• Natural number sorting
• Bug fixes / optimisations

[Black_Over_Bills...]

Many thanks musicmusic, I'll give it a try.

[musicmusic]

Can you make it possible to move the cursor to the closest entry (up/down) according to search order, when you press a character on the keyboard?

It already does something similar according to the first column (NG Playlist). If that doesn't suit you I guess you could make a new first column with 0px width to workaround it.

This post has been edited by musicmusic: Mar 28 2009, 20:28

[odyssey]

Can you make it possible to move the cursor to the closest entry (up/down) according to search order, when you press a character on the keyboard?

It already does something similar according to the first column (NG Playlist). If that doesn't suit you I guess you could make a new first column with 0px width to workaround it.

Well, really it varies what column I'd like to do this on. Sometimes artist, sometimes title... The workaround may work somewhat, but it's a little ugly.

Another request: Can you (at least make an option to) let text from a column continue in the next column if it's empty? This behavior is also seen in Microsoft Excel, so maybe it's even a feature of the control itself

[musicmusic]

Filter gives shorter delay time than Album list, that's right. [..]

Are you using Windows Vista with theming? That seems to cause a considerable delay with lots of tracks in Album list panel. If you go into Colours and Fonts settings, you can turn it off for either just Album list panel or globally.

[edit]Yes you did mention upgrading from XP to Windows 7, same should apply with 7.

This post has been edited by musicmusic: Mar 28 2009, 23:41

[Black_Over_Bills...]

Hi musicmusic
I've done a little testing with the new $meta_branch_swapprefix() function and it doesn't give me what I expected.

What I was trying to do was get a list of all my library. If the track has a %band% tag then test if it is Various Artists - if so use the %artist% tag else use the %band% tag (and some formatting for the album). If no %band% tag then use the %artist% tag. And I'm trying to cope with multi- bands and artists.

This is the script I'm using;

CODE

$if(%<band>%,$if($strcmp(%<band>%,Various Artists),$meta_branch_swapprefix(%<artist>%,a,the),$meta_branch_swapprefix(%<band>%,a,the) >>|$if(%date%,'('%date%')' - ,)%album%),$meta_branch_swapprefix(%<artist>%,a,the))

Could you please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks for the update, I'm sure I'm doing something wrong.

This post has been edited by Black_Over_Bills_Mothers: Mar 29 2009, 09:09

[musicmusic]

You use it like $meta_branch_swapprefix(artist,..).

[Hakubo]

]Are you using Windows Vista with theming? That seems to cause a considerable delay with lots of tracks in Album list panel. If you go into Colours and Fonts settings, you can turn it off for either just Album list panel or globally.

That was it for Album list, thank you.
Which leaves the second-or-so delay from Filter. It is this long only when the "All" nodes are chosen in the top two filters, and theming does nothing to change it. I've checked again (it seems last time I was checking with some genre selected in Facets), with the same conditions, Facets updates 2-3 times faster, so there probably is some room for optimization, I hope.

[Black_Over_Bills...]

Hi musicmusic
Okay, changed script to;

CODE

$if(%<band>%,$if($strcmp(%<band>%,Various Artists),$meta_branch_swapprefix(artist,a,the),$meta_branch_swapprefix(band,a,the) >>|$if(%date%,'('%date%')' - ,)%album%),$meta_branch_swapprefix(artist,a,the))

Now seems to work - thanks.

Question: What is the use of the remap functions?


This post has been edited by Black_Over_Bills_Mothers: Mar 29 2009, 13:18

[Anas]

While I'm at it: Is it planned to have the ability to disable the album art for certain groups? I'm thinking of displaying album art only if the number of items in the group is equal %totaltracks%. This would be extremely useful for playlists with full albums and single tracks mixed. It would also be possible to display album art only for albums which have more tracks than just two or three. Saves space.

Maybe just a (setting for the) minimum number of tracks in a group before displayed the art.

Thinking about this some more, I don't think that a static minimum tracks setting would suffice. It would for sure save space with singles and EPs, but I believe it would be much more comfortable to be able to define a condition via titleformatting in the grouping preferences.
Something like $equal(%group_count%,%totaltracks%), would display art only albums where all tracks are present and one could disable the art display for tracks without album tag as well.
I can't estimate how much work that would be though, but it was nice if you'd consider this.

[odyssey]

Another request: Can you (at least make an option to) let text from a column continue in the next column if it's empty? This behavior is also seen in Microsoft Excel, so maybe it's even a feature of the control itself

Bump?

@musicmusic:
I don't know if it's intended, but it sure is somewhat annoying that the vertical scrollbar "disappears" if toolbars are wider than foobar-window.

[musicmusic]

Which leaves the second-or-so delay from Filter. It is this long only when the "All" nodes are chosen in the top two filters, and theming does nothing to change it. I've checked again (it seems last time I was checking with some genre selected in Facets), with the same conditions, Facets updates 2-3 times faster, so there probably is some room for optimization, I hope.

I can probably do some things here, I'll have a look, thanks

Question: What is the use of the remap functions?

Take A and B and interpolate, or something. (I'll write a wiki article sometime...)

Thinking about this some more, I don't think that a static minimum tracks setting would suffice. It would for sure save space with singles and EPs, but I believe it would be much more comfortable to be able to define a condition via titleformatting in the grouping preferences.
Something like $equal(%group_count%,%totaltracks%), would display art only albums where all tracks are present and one could disable the art display for tracks without album tag as well.
I can't estimate how much work that would be though, but it was nice if you'd consider this.

My thinking was that when there is a certain amount of tracks, the space is already gone, so you might as well use it. It won't affect the indentation (only minimum height) otherwise the columns won't be aligned (with the header). Your way might be some visual indication that an album has some tracks missing, but there could just be a valid reason for that anyway.

Another request: Can you (at least make an option to) let text from a column continue in the next column if it's empty? This behavior is also seen in Microsoft Excel, so maybe it's even a feature of the control itself

Bump?

I don't think it has enough value, sorry. If someone want's to make a playlist view based upon Microsoft Excel, that's a different story

I don't know if it's intended, but it sure is somewhat annoying that the vertical scrollbar "disappears" if toolbars are wider than foobar-window.

It's designed like that depending on your layout, it's not just the scrollbar that would get cut off. Maybe the toolbars should get chevrons or something.

[maqzek]

I'd like to request a small feature that I miss greatly, will finally switch to CUI from DUI if it's added. (Currently using DUI + Facets with folder structure, but seems can do same with CUI Filters. The only reason I want to switch it to have 2 playlists, and since ELplaylist allows that now, I want to switch to CUI. )

All I want is to add an option to specify playlist name for "Auto-send selection to playlist" under CUI => Filters => Behaviour so I could send selection in filters to specific playlist. I'd be very grateful. That would allow me to have 2 playlists with facets-like functionality.

Thanks.

(P.S. Maybe also adding playlist names for double click and middle click actions along the way?)

Anything?

[2E7AH]

All I want is to add an option to specify playlist name for "Auto-send selection to playlist" under CUI => Filters => Behaviour so I could send selection in filters to specific playlist. I'd be very grateful. That would allow me to have 2 playlists with facets-like functionality.

it's already set to fixed "filter results" playlist

results from filters is sent to "filter results" playlist if selected "auto-send selection to playlist" in filter settings
then using album list panel you can sent results to "library view" playlist if selected "auto-sent to playlist" in album list panel settings
so this combination of layout and two different ELplaylist assigned accordingly to "library view" playlist and "filter results" playlist works reasonably for me and not interfere with each other (when playing) because none ELplaylist view is assigned to active playlist

[edit]
well i tried this suggestion only quickly but now noticed that "filter results" playlist is changed to "filter results (playback)" playlist when start to play something from it and ELplaylist automatically switches to it although "filter results" playlist is selected
you can change the playlist from "filter results (playback)" to "filter results" playlist in ELplaylist settings if you want to browse filters again
or set double click action to "send to autosend playlist and play" which will sent the results from double click to "filter results (playback)" playlist and automatically play them unfortunately

This post has been edited by 2E7AH: Mar 31 2009, 19:11

[Anas]

My thinking was that when there is a certain amount of tracks, the space is already gone, so you might as well use it. It won't affect the indentation (only minimum height) otherwise the columns won't be aligned (with the header). Your way might be some visual indication that an album has some tracks missing, but there could just be a valid reason for that anyway.

Always one step ahead of me.
You convinced me, if you'd implement this and the group count, you got me happy and I'll stop bugging you. Thank you very much for your great work.

[maqzek]

All I want is to add an option to specify playlist name for "Auto-send selection to playlist" under CUI => Filters => Behaviour so I could send selection in filters to specific playlist. I'd be very grateful. That would allow me to have 2 playlists with facets-like functionality.

it's already set to fixed "filter results" playlist

results from filters is sent to "filter results" playlist if selected "auto-send selection to playlist" in filter settings
then using album list panel you can sent results to "library view" playlist if selected "auto-sent to playlist" in album list panel settings
so this combination of layout and two different ELplaylist assigned accordingly to "library view" playlist and "filter results" playlist works reasonably for me and not interfere with each other (when playing) because none ELplaylist view is assigned to active playlist

[edit]
well i tried this suggestion only quickly but now noticed that "filter results" playlist is changed to "filter results (playback)" playlist when start to play something from it and ELplaylist automatically switches to it although "filter results" playlist is selected
you can change the playlist from "filter results (playback)" to "filter results" playlist in ELplaylist settings if you want to browse filters again
or set double click action to "send to autosend playlist and play" which will sent the results from double click to "filter results (playback)" playlist and automatically play them unfortunately

Yeah, but I don't want to use album list panel, I just want to able to specify different playslists for "auto-send" and "send on double click", should be easy to implement, no?

That would be perfect.

[2E7AH]

i don't think it's very likely but who knows
you can assign one view to active playlist and other to filter result for browsing, but you probably know that

the dual playlist view implementation is somehow not very easy to accomodate
at least i don't think ELplaylist way is the best one because this way was accomplished with single column playlist view component even earlier
i posted earlier that in dual or even more views it would be easier if active playlist view is reflected by current focused window i.e. if i click on item in playlist view A that playlist should became active playlist, and then if i click in other playlist view B or C or whatever than that playlist should became active.
this way i think we can avoid unwanted playlist interaction betwen different views

[Squeller]

Can you make it possible to move the cursor to the closest entry (up/down) according to search order, when you press a character on the keyboard?

It already does something similar according to the first column (NG Playlist). If that doesn't suit you I guess you could make a new first column with 0px width to workaround it.

Hey, this looked like a good plan for me. But can you make it better? I added an additional column with the following code:

CODE

$lower($left($if2($substr(%composer%,$add($strrchr(%composer%,' '),1),999),%artist%),3)$trim(%work%))

This concatenates the first 3 letters of a composers surname with the works name. Example: if I type "brusy" I want to have it jump to "Anton Bruckner"/"Symphony No. ...". It works! BUUUT: It's very slow. CUI first thinks a moment (about 5 seconds here), it seems like it performs a database search. i.e. find-as-you-type is not supported directly. OK I admit I tested with a big playlist with 15000 entries.

Can you make it faster?

EDIT: It seems to depend on the playlist size. A 1000 entry playlist is very fast.

BTW- 0px will not be 0px in the NG playlist, but I can handle that.

This post has been edited by Squeller: Apr 1 2009, 13:49

[qwertz]

I want to make a custom rating filter that shows:

rating 1 or greater
rating 2 or greater
rating 3 or greater
rating 4 or greater
rating 5

I'm brooding over it for some time now (tried several $ifgreater formats), but I can't come up with anything that works. Anybody able to help?

[Zarkon]

Not possible, because every track can only show up (be grouped) in at most one of the filter entries, unless you change the rating tag to a multi-valued field, where 5 = 1; 2; 3; 4; 5, 4 = 1; 2; 3; 4, and so on.

This post has been edited by Zarkon: Apr 1 2009, 15:27