Columns UI, alternative user interface Options

[tedgo]

@strogoff_ger
I assume you tagged the "Various Artist" value in the ALBUM ARTIST field.
Then use:
%album artist% - %album%

When no %album artist% field is present then %artist% is used instead by default.

This post has been edited by tedgo: Jan 11 2009, 14:22

[al007]

There is something like a 'show when grouped' option planned for each column which should do what you need.

Thanks, it would be nice.

[Alastor2588]

Yeah, i know. But what do i have to enter there to group compilations correctly? I have no clue.

You can enter in any code you want to take advantage of the metadata you want to use. For example, I have mine really simple such that when an album is not VA it will display

Artist - Album (Date)

and when it's VA it will just display the 'Album (Date)' part, and then in the track column (I don't keep an artist column) it will give the specific artist of each individual song after the title. I do this with

CODE

$rgb(61,129,193)$if($strcmp(%album artist%,VA),%album%[ '('%date%')'],$if2(%artist%,<no artist>)[ | %album%][ '('%date%')'])

in the NG Grouping part, and for my track column I use

CODE

$if(%isplaying%,$rgb(61,129,193,61,129,193)
$if($strcmp(%album artist%,VA),%title%$rgb(128,128,128) / %artist%,%title%),
$if($strcmp(%album artist%,VA),%title%$rgb(128,128,128) / %artist%,%title%))

From there just make sure that your songs have similar metadata. For example, if you have a VA album and some of the songs have %date% (and you display %date% in your grouping) information and others don't, or different values, NGPL will split them into multiple groups.
The $rgb() values in my code are specific to my config' obviously, but I hope that gave you some ideas or something you could work with at least. If you want some further ideas visit this page to see what other little things you can do.

This post has been edited by Alastor2588: Jan 12 2009, 00:56

[Hayden54]

I have a question about using multi-value artists in both album list panel and the filter panels in columnsUI. I like to have the artists formatted like so: $swapprefix(%album artist%,The).

I'd like to know if there is any way to have both mult-value and that particular formatting.

[strogoff_ger]

Thank you all very much. That helped a lot.

This post has been edited by strogoff_ger: Jan 12 2009, 11:54

[ZetaEpyon]

There is something like a 'show when grouped' option planned for each column which should do what you need.

This sounds good, and will help quite a bit. Thanks for all your work on this!

I'm wondering if there's any way to take it further though. For example, I'd like to have different NG Playlist (or even Columns Playlist) "views" of the same playlist. If I had different playlists, I could use the "Playlist Filters" feature to just display different columns for each one. However, this isn't possible (as far as I can tell) with a single playlist, specifically, the playlist targeted by the Filter panes.

With different views, I could navigate using the Filter panes, and then use a tab stack or some other method to switch between these playlist "views" to show which particular information I wanted to see.

Is there any chance something like this could be added, too? Apologies if something like this has already been suggested; I didn't really see anything on the FAQ.

This post has been edited by ZetaEpyon: Jan 13 2009, 18:35

[MasterT]

A separate vertical item padding option for the NG playlist group titles would be nice.
Also the support of the $tab() function in group titles.

[Squeller]

Hi MusicMusic, maybe you could think about implementing natural sorting in Filter panels. Personally, I often have things like "Symphony No. 1" - "Symphony No. 10+".
Chnaging Metadata to "Symphony No. 05" is ugly, doing a tagz workaround in the filter definitions will turn out to be bad for filter initialising performance, which would result in slower fb2k startup time.

[wolver1ne]

I was wondering if there was any chance in some near future of having NG playlist like the Vista explorer. With columns having a menu to select what to view, collapsible groups and etc.

[musicmusic]

Not SetPoint's fault (well I don't know why it needs a global hook, but that's a different question). I don't see any compelling reason that the OS is not at fault. I will try and check Windows 7 beta 1 64-bit sometime.

Alright I did some more investigating and the problem is complicated it seems.

Certain things such as the sizing of panel windows are recursive. Some kind of stack is being exhausted (the kernel stack according to one place). This occurs twice as fast on 64-bit Windows, possibly because kernel-mode handles (correct expression?) are twice the size. When a global message hook is active, the 'speed' is doubled again.

So it's that worst case where we mainly see problems. This seems all rather unfortunate. I'll have to do some more investigating as to what can be done about it

This post has been edited by musicmusic: Jan 17 2009, 19:19

[Yirkha]

Heh it's apparently not only doubled. Here someone said it was 19 (hooked) and 100+ (unhooked) on XP/x64. I tried WH_CALLWNDPROC now on Vista/x64 and it was those 19 when hooked, but quite impressive 3860 calls when unhooked. (Using more than that caused it to never return, above 5 or 6 thousands it crashed altogether.)

Then I tried the same under Win7 beta x64 in a VM – still ~3860 without a hook and only 18 with

It's weird that it has been known for so long and the only reply from Microsoft I found was this comment and a (most probably misleading) KB article

[musicmusic]

Thanks for the input..

This seems to say (slide 21) that the maximum size of the kernel stack is 64k on x86 and 88k on x64 Windows. That might explain the discrepancy between x86 and x64 Windows, then, if I read that correctly.

In my case I set up a test app that does a similar child-window-recursive SetWindowPos that would happen in Columns UI, and I was going by the approx number of nested child windows I could create before things stopped working (that did approximately double in the manner I described, but what other factors are involved here I don't know. The last SetWindowPos call doesn't signal a failure, either).

Aha! Doing my processing in my WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGED handler rather than on WM_SIZE should help as that should eliminate one level of recursion each time. In fact, what it seems to do is (practically I guess) eliminate the effect of the global hook on this (the number of nested child windows/SetWindowPos). So that is a great help. (Assuming the recursive SetWindowPos is the only place this was causing an issue in Columns UI...)

But still, "Arghhhhhh.....". Honestly I don't see how it is desirable to have this large discrepancy between 64-bit and 32-bit Windows.

This post has been edited by musicmusic: Jan 17 2009, 22:40

[2E7AH]

is there any way that we could make two separate playlist views: one for now playing (or maybe just to bind to some playlist) and the other for browsing through library (default behaviour) but without single column playlist view?
i think the answer is no, so i'd like to make this as a request
if this has been discussed simple yes or no would be sufficient
thanks

[musicmusic]

The general scope of a 'now playing' playlist is probably beyond this component. However there exists some kind of concept of it in the Filter panel. Are you saying though you want both the active and now playing playlist visible at the same time?

[musicmusic]

Hi MusicMusic, maybe you could think about implementing natural sorting in Filter panels.

Yes I will have a look at it again soon (everywhere applicable, not just Filter panel).

[2E7AH]

yes, i'm using single column playlist to show now playing playlist, and NG playlist for browsing, playlist making etc, and it's all right, but the functionality is somewhat limited, if a access an item in SCP, then NG playlist takes focus on that playlist because it becomes active playlist and so on
and because SCP has this ability i thought it could be made as option for playlist view (to show now playing playlist or possibility to bind playlist to view)
i don't know, what do you think?
i'm using album list, it's just more comfortable to me than filters, so i don't know what you mean by concept in filter panel

[musicmusic]

OK well it depends on what you mean exactly by 'now playing' playlist. I thought you wanted it to retain the playing view in the album list etc. whilst you browsed around, but it sounds like you just meant whatever playlist is currently playing.

This post has been edited by musicmusic: Jan 28 2009, 01:07

[2E7AH]

whatever playlist is currently playing.

yes, that's right,
i activate the now playing playlist through NG playlist, but then i can't do anything in SCP without activating the same playlist in NG playlist
i hope it's not confusing, and it makes sense




EDIT: ok, maybe this way:
let's suppose we have option for two different playlist views
and pretend that one should be active (default behavior as it is right now) and the other passive playlist view (if we only choose two playlist views)
if we are accessing a playlist view - it becomes active view, and it doesn't reflect on the other (passive) playlist view, unless it's the same playlist of course
if we are browsing through library or accessing the playlist view in any other way it should reflect on the active playlist view, which is the last playlist view that had focus
or maybe we could decide which playlist view should be active
and then we could even have more than two playlist views (although two is enough for me


This post has been edited by 2E7AH: Jan 28 2009, 03:12

[watercolor]

Hi, I have few question. I press Ctrl key on the Columns UI Playlist.
after that,dotted line is appear on the Columns UI Playlist.
how i can this line remove perpetuity？
Sorry my poor English.

[Squeller]

Hi, I have few question. I press Ctrl key on the Columns UI Playlist.
after that,dotted line is appear on the Columns UI Playlist.
how i can this line remove perpetuity

Yes, strange behaviour here, play around with: Preferences - ColumnsUI - Display - Colours and fonts - Colours - [ ] Use custom active item frame

This post has been edited by Squeller: Feb 5 2009, 16:20

[metalboy]

I have a question about the Album List Panel. Is it possible to sort the incoming files by: "string" like the filter does?

[Remedial Sound]

Hi Musicmusic,

Would it be possible to have the volume sliders in Columns UI "snap" to the volume step specified in Preferences > Advanced > Playback (or to have the option for this behaviour)?

I brought this up in a separate thread, though apparently the Default UI behaves differently with respect to this.

Thanks

[vlada]

2E7AH
You're probably looking for something I've been requesting for many years. I think it would be nice to have an option in NG playlist not to reflect any actions made in a SCP playlist (or other instance of NG playlist). But this functionality might be for my needs replaced by a more advanced filter panel, which would allow multiple columns. I think this is planned. It would be nice, if every filter would be in fact a NG playlist with the same possibilities.

Btw. how do you force SCP to always show a certain playlist?

[_phantom]

Hello!

Can you advise me what to change in playlist code to switch the display order from this look:


to this:



I just want it to display the artist name when the actual track is a single, not featured on an album. Tags are filled properly - the second config takes "Album Artist" tag instead of "Artist".

[musicmusic]

Hi Musicmusic,

Would it be possible to have the volume sliders in Columns UI "snap" to the volume step specified in Preferences > Advanced > Playback (or to have the option for this behaviour)?

I brought this up in a separate thread, though apparently the Default UI behaves differently with respect to this.

Thanks

The scale used is not a linear function of decibels. Hence it doesn't make any sense to me.