Massive QuickTrack enhancement [Archive] - Quintessential Forum

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Lich
12-05-2003, 07:09 PM
Yeah, I'm using QuickTrack a lot, so I can suggest some improvements to it. Comments and further discussion is highly welcomed. Paul, catch this while it's hot:)

1. Currently I have near 550 hours of music in playlist, and QuickTrack listing of Artists is covering whole my desktop at resolution 1024x768. What shall I do, when my collection will be 700 hours or more? Maybe, buy second monitor?:)
So, here are first suggestion: add possibility to arranging Artists into Alphabetical folders. In anothers words, all Artists starting from "A", "B", etc.
[here goes Picture 1]

2. Currently, Albums withinn each Artist are sorted by alhabet. [here goes Picture 2] Is it correct? I think no - how I can find FIRST album if I don't remember YEAR it was recorded? BTW, if I'll assume what Album shown first in QT is also first in playlist (which is sorted by file name; file name including year of recording) and I'll use PlayNext feature on first Track of that Album - who'll guarantee what I'll hear ALL Artist's songs? (hope you'll understand:))
Second suggestion: add possibility to sort Albums by Year (as Tag&Rename does). [here goes Picture 3] From where to take Year? I think from Track#1 of Album. "To show or not to show Year in QT?" (c) Hamlet. Your decision.

3. Videos. Yeah, videos! That sweet plugin changed my mind - now I think what QCD can be excellent video player, if we are talking about music videos. How shall we organize and manage our collection?
Third suggestion: if video files is named like this: ARTIST NAME - TRACK NAME or ARTIST NAME - ALBUM NAME - TRACK NAME we can assume what first words (before "-" symbol) are Artist value and can be used for attaching video to Video subfolder in Artist's entry in QT. [here goes Picture 4]

4. Do you remember first QCD build what allowed right-clicking on QT? There was a bug allowing also clicking on Artist/Album groups. We can use it to issue commands for multiple tracks, separate Album, or even to whole Artist in our collection. For what? Just imagine - right click your Rammstein and block it all!:) Or Rename it (it will tag all Rammstein tracks with another Artist name).
Why do I need it? I am trying to compensape lack of Year sorting by manually retagging Albums (adding Year of recording to Album name). Here's 30Gb of music and it makes me feel sick:)
Further fantasies: drag'n'drop in QT (moving Albums/Tracks from one Artist to another). You can use it to manage remixes or something.
FREE YOUR IMAGINATION! Do you see potential MusicLibrary?:)
So, you've already get my fourth suggestion:) [here goes Picture 5]

5. QT is slighly low-informative. While in Playlist you can see which track is blocked and which is selected, QT doesn't show this.
Suggestion 5: add icons or color themes to QT. Maybe even skinning of QT:) At least - greying out of blocked/lost tracks (do not remove lost tracks from QT while they're still in playlist, just indicate they're unaccessible). [here goes Picture 6]

Thanks for reading this lame text:)
I feel heavy English language overdose now:)

Lich
12-05-2003, 07:13 PM
Only 5 attachements on post:(

Paul
12-05-2003, 07:36 PM
A lot of good ideas Lich, and most are feasable too. I don't think I will get to QuickTrack for a couple dev builds, but I do think many of these are worth having.

Lich
12-05-2003, 07:47 PM
MUHAHAHA! Yess! Thanks, Paul!!

jimmythesaint
12-17-2003, 04:11 PM
Good point with the QuickTrack, I'm using 1600 x 1200 res and it takes up quite a bit of space. Trying to find if there's some way of reconfiguring the font or window, and if not, praying that that feature is implemented in the near future

brian
12-17-2003, 07:46 PM
On Lich's point 1, have I missed something here? When I raised a similar request not long ago, Paul pointed out that you can already have QuickTrack show items grouped under letters of the alphabet; but he hasn't mentioned this in his response to this thread. So are we now talking about something else? Of course the existing alphabetical option doesn't put artists into subfolders, which is what I would ideally like.

chicubs
12-17-2003, 08:06 PM
lich, to me, it seems you're looking more for a media library? no?

Lich
12-17-2003, 08:58 PM
lich, to me, it seems you're looking more for a media library? no?And where is your media library?:)
QT is already here, and I like it more than WinAmp-style ML (it's good, but...).

chicubs
12-17-2003, 09:05 PM
And where is your media library?:)
QT is already here, and I like it more than WinAmp-style ML (it's good, but...).

I dont use either really, and all ive heard is "Media Library this" on this site and other audio player sites.

Rex_Mundi_Incarnit
12-17-2003, 10:34 PM
I think a media library (=an addtional QCD window) isn't too bad of an idea. It saves a lot of frustration when quicktracking and the next window suddenly appears on the other side of the screen due to lack of space, if you follow my logic. I am by no means referring to the winamp media library, though. I'm sure it can be designed a lot better :)

Shadowman
12-18-2003, 05:04 PM
Maybe just do a windows start menu option on it, and have a menu that can scroll when you get to the top or bottom....

That would prevent the initial menu streching across the entire screen....

Paul
01-08-2004, 10:58 PM
I didnt want this thread to fall off the forum.
Lich's ideas 1), 2) and 4) will be available next build (with some design changes that I deemed useful). 5) already happens now.

Lich
01-09-2004, 03:28 PM
1), 2) and 4) will be available next build (with some design changes that I deemed useful). 5) already happens now.That's great! Can't wait to try out 4, and already using 5.
Am I allowed to post new thread - "Massive Playlist enhancement"?:)

Hanzo
01-09-2004, 03:44 PM
I will be finding myself using QT instead of the playlist if half of the features Lich suggested get implemented.

Looking forward to get those soon ! :cool:

Lich
01-11-2004, 04:09 PM
Hey, I wanna say b68 is cool. No more tagging with year in Album field needed:)
--
There's little mistake in b68, see illustration. Right-clicking on separate Album of any Artist and selecting Edit should load tracks of that Album into TrackEditor, not all track by Artist.
In example, we'll Edit all Ayreon tracks instead of Universal Migrator album...

addition: fixed in b69.

acozz
01-15-2004, 09:46 PM
This idea came to me from the tabbed playlist thread. Why not allow the playlist loading menu to be added to QuickTrack?

Lich
02-02-2004, 05:53 PM
1. Currently, clicking 'Play Next' on Artist/Album item is disabled. But it can be used as 'play next first track of that Artist X' or 'play next first track of Album Y'. What will you say?
2.When I use 'Play Next' feature, 'playnexted' track also becomes selected. Can this be changed? I don't want to select it...
3. Clicking 'Edit' on Artist/Album should not only load tracks in TagEditor in MultyEdit mode, but also select them all. This can save one more click.

Lich
11-13-2004, 08:42 PM
On this rainy november night I have received dangerous package form Russia's nuclear heart - Arzamas-16 closed city. It contains come radioactive DVDs with high-illegal, prohibited by RIAA material – "the MP3s".



Yeah, bands like Skepticism, Esoteric, Evoken, Winter, Thergoton, Shape of Despair and so on funeral doom, gothic and black. Best death for metalhead is to be crushed by his music's heaviness:)





But there's desperate difficulty in wielding so big collection: QuickTrack no longer working (for me) on 8000+ playlist. Just no reaction on right-click.



So I've came here to ask Great Spirit (we all believe he exists!) to... make it happen:)

crackity
11-13-2004, 11:07 PM
with a large playlist you end up hitting some windows limit on the size of menus...... not for sure exactly what and why but that is what i think.

the version i use only loads the current menu you see (and not all the submenus) so you dont run into this problem. It is faster in some respects and slower in others, but it works for the most part regardless of playlist size.

I have posted on this before and ended up just making my own plugin (not trying to cause controversy here in the forums so will not say for what player).

acozz
11-14-2004, 01:36 AM
I think we had a thread on your plugin awhile ago. No need to be afraid, we're calm people.

Todd The Kiwi
11-14-2004, 06:19 AM
On this rainy november night I have received dangerous package form Russia's nuclear heart
sounds like the intro to black sabbath
Yeah, bands like Skepticism, Esoteric, Evoken, Winter, Thergoton, Shape of Despair and so on funeral doom, gothic and black. Best death for metalhead is to be crushed by his music's heaviness
cool man, you rule.
death metal and black metal sound so much better when they are played in qcd (and are free)
:skull: dark angel - leave scars
:skull: immortal - battles in the north
:skull: sadistik exekution - any album (burning blasphemy is a wicked tune)

p.s "8000+playlist" man how fast is your upload speed ? ;)

MLO
11-14-2004, 06:26 AM
But there's desperate difficulty in wielding so big collection: QuickTrack no longer working (for me) on 8000+ playlist. Just no reaction on right-click.
Have you tried QCDLib for this? I added a QT like feature too (right click on an Artist or Album and you'll see it). It works for me with my MP3 CDs/DVDs.
http://www.quinnware.com/list_plugins.php?plugin=102