What Happened To Ability To Move "Now Playing" Album Cover?

[Batalanto!]

Dear All,

I love Media Monkey for being one of the few indie software companies competing with the big guys. Having said that, this long awaited revamp is a disappointment.

1) In the previous version, the information quadrants could be moved around. I could put "Now Playing" on the left beneath the tree. Or, I could put my "Now Playing" album cover there. There seems to be no such customization now. If wrong, I'm willing to hear you out.

2) Upgrades to include playing video. Upgrades for smart phone usage. Fine. But I think the priority should have been to tighten up the fundamentals before jumping to add things. For example, it seems that I still need to advance through each file and click on the "Rename files according to file properties". Why can't all files be selected, open properties, and click that button once? Was it there in MM 3? That button doesn't show as an option for group editing when I select more than one tune.

3) I recognize the trend these days is to go with lighter, almost see-through colors. (Google calendar comes to mind: colors so light you don't know where the boundaries of things are). But this new default scheme is so translucent and light that it lacks punch.

4) It would be nice to have an intuitive way of doing whatever needs to be done in order to use the new "cover flow" album art feature. I've managed to pull it up once.

5) Again, sticking with the idea of solid basics, a handful of totally new skins would also have been welcomed.

Feedback welcomed. Solutions welcomed.

Peace,

- NR

[Gyroscope]

I don't have MM in front of me, but IIRC I too faced not being able to move the "Now Playing" Album cover. I think you need to right-click on/near the tabs at the top of "Now Playing" and "Selected", and check something that makes the menu bar on this "quadrant" reappear - the actual label name escapes me but it should be obvious. At this point you can move it around, re-dock it, then switch the menu bar back off.

Sorry to be so vague, but it's certainly fixable.

Now to work out how to report the regression / undesired change I've run into with adding album art

Cheers.

[Batalanto!]

Good to hear from you G-Scope,

Nope. Only parts of the top toolbar can be juggled around. We seem to be stuck with an ugly 3 column layout. The tree cannot be moved. The Now Playing or Selected album art is to the right. There is no setting to lock/unlock this. This is a simple design feature MM had in the past that worked. At this rate, I'm switching back to MM3. I already paid for the gold Upgrade on this and I'm wondering if I need to move to Winamp or iTunes....

- NR

[bgibbard]

There is a setting to unlock the position of the album art

Right click on the album art window.
Click to check "Show titlebar (move window)"
A little grey bar "Art & Details" will show up just above the art. Click and hold on this bar to drag the album art over to the left and let go.
Adjust the vertical and horizontal sizes to your liking.
Uncheck "Show titlebar (move window)"

If you only want two columns instead of three to give more space for the main display, on the Edit menu at the top uncheck "Now Playing"
(You can always see Now Playing anyway by clicking on its node on the tree)

[Batalanto!]

Dear Bg:

I thought I had clicked everything,,,and then some.

I'll give this a go. Thanks for the pointers. Peace.

- NR

[dwmd65]

How about moving the player. I like it displayed above the now playing list.

By the way, love the new MM4.

[dwmd65]

Never mind, just have to find the right spot in the window.

[Mizery_Made]

2) Upgrades to include playing video. Upgrades for smart phone usage. Fine. But I think the priority should have been to tighten up the fundamentals before jumping to add things. For example, it seems that I still need to advance through each file and click on the "Rename files according to file properties". Why can't all files be selected, open properties, and click that button once? Was it there in MM 3? That button doesn't show as an option for group editing when I select more than one tune.

You've always been able to rename multiple files based on their properties, at least since 2.5 which is where I came into the program. You just highlight all (or any number of files), right click and choose the "Auto-Organize files..." option. You can also access this from the "Tools" menu. Furthermore, there's also a background process you can set up to do this (it was a Gold feature in v3, not sure if it remained a Gold feature in v4 or not) in the options on the "Auto-Organize" page. This allows you to set up rules, which renames the files automatically if the tags (or conditions) change.

3) I recognize the trend these days is to go with lighter, almost see-through colors. (Google calendar comes to mind: colors so light you don't know where the boundaries of things are). But this new default scheme is so translucent and light that it lacks punch.

The software offers a simple solution to this, change the skin. I don't care for lighter skins either, but as you note it's the current trend. While not software, I've asked a few individuals who run websites who did redesigns to lighter skins and they cited that it's "more professional looking" than a darker skin. Brighter and more inviting or some nonsense. Luckily though, there are some darker skins already developed for the program. v3 skins should work for the most part with v4, and some skinners are working on v4 versions now that v4 is officially released which will take advantage of features added or to skin areas which weren't there in v3, etc.

5) Again, sticking with the idea of solid basics, a handful of totally new skins would also have been welcomed.

The program hasn't really ever had a large number of default skins, which may be a good thing as that would add to the package size of the installer. MM4 gave us a revamped "Vitreous" skin and from what I recall, it's pretty much a "new" skin as it's been drastically revamped (unless I'm thinking of the wrong MM3 skin) as well as Pulse. There was one other that was included early on, but was later removed as a default skin. It was a dark one too. Not sure what the reasoning was behind that. Regardless, the community has a number of skins already available, and I would imagine we'll see some MM4 specific skins popping up soonish now that it's been released into the wild. I think there's already a few MM4 skins and ports that were done during the Beta process.

[Batalanto!]

Hi Mizery,

Thanks for taking the time to offer your detailed thoughts and feedback. I'll give some of that a go.

Skins are a fairly small file size if I remember correctly. So if MM4 wants to go with "watercolors", it would be constructive for us to have some alternates to work with. I'm sick of light blue, gray, etc. And I get the "more businesslike" argument. But this is music software we're talking about here. Know what I mean? I'm not putting together a corporate Powerpoint

Good discussion. Thanks all

- NR

[nohitter151]

FYI: alternate skins

[secondamano]

I don't have MM in front of me, but IIRC I too faced not being able to move the "Now Playing" Album cover. I think you need to right-click on/near the tabs at the top of "Now Playing" and "Selected", and check something that makes the menu bar on this "quadrant" reappear - the actual label name escapes me but it should be obvious. At this point you can move it around, re-dock it, then switch the menu bar back off.

Thank you, the "right click -> show titlebar" solution works fine.