Greater configuration options for media libraries

[AndyCherry]

It may be my lack of knowledge of the .my file structure and what gbpvr can currently do, but I would like to see more configuration than I can currently do at the moment and some changes - some examples:

per folder configuration between icons and lists
able to define text above and below the icon
use tag information from the files themselves
select by genre, artist, etc.
use the WMP cover art (hidden folder.jpg file) rather than default.jpg (or define which)
differnt way to go back a folder (rather than the "previous directory" icon
able to show text about the album/album cover, track list etc. formatted instead of taken from directory listing

None of these are high priority, but would make the navigation experience much nicer

[sub]

folder.jpg is already supported in the current release.

Tags from mp3 files are already used. If they're present song title is put above the icon, artist name below.

For .my files, the feature title is show above the icon and the video chain name is show below. See http://www.gbpvr.com/images/video.jpg.

What would prefer rather than the "previous directory" item?

A button to switch between icon and list could be useful.

I'll also look into the other stuff. I also want to come up with the mechanism to let you know what song is currently playing - useful when using the current .m3u playlists. I'd like allow you to make playlists without having to leave GB-PVR as well.

[AndyCherry]

I don't think the folder.jpg file is picked up - it is a hidden, system file. To get the screenshots done for the Quick Start Guide I had to attrib -h -s folder.jpg

I didn't check that folder.jpg worked at that point - I copied it to default.jpg and re attrib'd folder.jpg

I don't know if there is a way to check if a file exists if it is hidden/system (other than trying to open it!.

I'll come back on the other bits with a more thought-through message (sorry - on re-reading my original post it isn't very useful, and sounds very whinging!

Cheers,
Andy

[colin]

Quote[/b] ]I'll also look into the other stuff. I also want to come up with the mechanism to let you know what song is currently playing - useful when using the current .m3u playlists. I'd like allow you to make playlists without having to leave GB-PVR as well.

For the creation of playlists you could use something like the mechanism for scheduling the recording of programs. You navigate your audio tracks, select the ones you want. This could then be accessed from another button in the music section.

Clicking the new button again could be similar to the recording section. It brings you into a area similiar to the recordings listing allowing you to select individual tracks which in turn brings up the sub menu to remove them from the list, etc.

You can have buttons to the side of the list for storing them as a playlist, reordering, shuffle, etc or whatever else you would want associaled.

Cheers,

[sub]

Ok looks like I broke support for folder.jpg in one of the previous releases. I've just corrected it.

[AndyCherry]

For the music folder I was thinking of something "music aware" (I can't think of a better term! that distinguished between artists, albums, and tracks - for example:

A list of artists (because generally I don't have generic artist pictures) - I suppose you could do thumbnails of the sub pictures like Windows XP does, but not sure of the value of that.



When you go to the albums for an artist, they usually have album art if ripped using a decent ripper (even WMP!.  I've used a rotated play button for the "up" button - I'm not 100% on the image I've put together, but something of that ilk.  Also on this section, most album art is square for music (unlike DVD) so the icons could be smaller height-wise.



When you go to the tracks it switches back to listing format, as there are generally no pictures associated with the tracks.



Somewhere where album art could be displayed enlarged, plus info about the artist or album (e.g. from CDDB) would be nice, but certainly not essential!



I'm not sure about how best to do the navigation between all these bits, but it has a whole different feel to it like this I think...

Cheers,
Andy