[mythtv-users] MythMusic dynamic sorting

[Paul Harrison]

Steven Adeff wrote:
> On 7/24/07, Paul Harrison <mythtv at dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>   
>> I did briefly try to update it to work with the new DB schema but
>> managed to comprehensively break it and like I said before I wasn't 100%
>> happy with it when it _was_ working so didn't want to spend too much
>> time on it. If I get some time later today I'll take another stab at it
>> and see if I can at least get it working again so I can take some screen
>> shots so that anyone interested can take a look and provide some feed
>> back on whether it is worth continuing development on it.
>>     
>
> Well, when you first mentioned it, I envisioned the "All Music" (or
> whatever its titled, I almost wrote "My Music" =)  have a separate set
> of sub divisions before you get to the actual music. Something along
> the lines of,
>
>  - Directory
>  - Artist
>  - Genre
>  - Album
>  - Compilations(?)
>
> With, directory (or whatever you decide to call it) being the regular
> directory view, Compilation showing by Album the tracks tagged as a
> Compilation, and the others building based on the id3 information in
> the database. Much like the current ability to format the tree
> structure based on "Artist" "Album" "Genre" etc in the setup. In fact,
> the be all end all would be to allow the user to create multiple tree
> formats in the setup to create their own list. So I could do
> Aritst / Album
> or
> Artist / A-D / Album
> Artist / E-I / Album
> etc
> Genre/Rock/Artist/Album
> Genre/Jazz/Artist/Album
> etc
> etc
>
> type of thing. But for now just the ability to have the simple layout
> I showed above would be a huge improvement, perhaps with the simple
> option to use the Artist or "Split Artist" format, I have *a lot* of
> music...
>
> hopefully that gives you some direction. now i just need to continue
> working on those MythMusic rehash concept drawings....
>
>
>   

I've abused the wiki and put up some screen shots of what I have now.
Like I say I'm not really happy with it but maybe it can form the basis
of a usable system.

The basic idea is to allow you to browse though your music and allow you
to add or replace tracks on the active play list. At the moment I've
just added a new 'Browse Music' menu item to show the 'Music Browser'. I
think it would make more sense if it could be shown directly from the
playback screen though.


http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Image:Mythmusic_browser3.jpg
The first screen shot shows the browser when it is first shown. It
defaults to showing all artists in the list view. The filter edit at the
top of the screen allows you to show only items (artist in this view)
that start with whatever you type in. This allows you to quickly find an
item in the list. Pressing 'Select' on a item will move up to the next
level, so if an artist is selected the list will switch to showing all
albums by that artist. If you want to show all Genres of the tracks by
the artist then you can click menu and switch to the Genre view. The
check boxes work in the same way as on the 'Select Music' list so if an
item is checked then all items below that will be checked e.g. if you
wanted to select all the 'Rock' tracks by an artist you would first find
and press select on that artist then switch to the Genre view then find
'Rock' in the list and then  make sure the check box is checked. The
problem here is what key to use to toggle the check box because select
is already used to move up one level. It currently uses  PLAY/P which
isn't exactly intuitive.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Image:Mythmusic_browser2.jpg
This shows the popup menu that allow you to switch views, switch to grid
view or go back up one level.   

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Image:Mythmusic_browser1.jpg
This shows the Artist view in Grid View mode. The images show a montage
of four album covers by the artist. One of the things that seemed like a
good idea at the time not so sure now.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Image:Mythmusic_browser4.jpg
This shows the album view after first selecting the 'Christmas' genre in
the top level.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Image:Mythmusic_browser5.jpg
This shows a simple 'Album Viewer'. The original idea was that when an
album is selected in the browser then this screen would be shown to view
all the tracks on that album.


I'm really looking for ideas on where to go with this.


Paul H.