there are way too many posts and simultaneous conversations going on to respond to them all, so instead i just want to hammer home some notions.
FIRST OF ALL,[/B] THE CURRENT IMPLEMENTATION SUCKS. IT SUCKS B/C IT IS NOT USER FRIENDLY AND NOT INTUITIVE AND NOT FLEXIBLE. I'VE USED SBS A LONG TIME, AND SHOWED IT TO OTHERS, AND I FIND IT UNPLEASENT AND SO DO THEY. NO ONE USES IT WHO DOESN'T HAVE THE HARDWARE, AND THAT SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING. IT ISN'T FUN, IT ISN'T EASY. IT CAN DO SOME THINGS, AND AFTER A LOT OF USAGE AND GETTING SOME BUGS/FEATURES IMPLEMENTED I CAN LIVE WITH IT, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN ALL IS FINE AND DANDY. *SECONDLY,* IT IS INSANE, OK, INSANE THAT I CAN'T ON THE FLY SWITCH BETWEEN BROWSING ALL ARTISTS, OR BROWSING ALBUM ARTISTS. THAT IS A PROBLEM PHIL. THAT IS AN EXAMPLE (BUT NOT THE ONLY ONE) OF THE \"ONE MASTER LIST\" I AM TALKING ABOUT. IF I GO INTO HOME>ARTISTS OR HOME>ALBUMS, ETC, ITS ALWAYS ALL OF THEM, THE SAME ONE MASTER LIST (OF SBS AA). SUCKS. *THIRDLY,* YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO CUSTOMIZE SUBSETS OF RESULTS. I DON'T WANT WHATEVER FEW DIFFERENT ENTRY POINTS TO THE WHOLE LIBRARY SBS GIVES ME, THATS STUPID. I DO WANT TO BE ABLE TO CREATE AS MANY \"VIEWS\" AS I WANT, THAT CREATE RESULTS LISTS BASED ON THE CRITERIA I CHOOSE. EACH VIEW COULD ALSO OPTIONALLY RECALL (AS WINAMP DOES) ITS LAST GIVEN SORTED METHOD, UNTIL THE USER CHANGES IT AGAIN. *FOURTH,* ONCE INSIDE A VIEW, I SHOULD BE ABLE TO SORT IT ANYWAY I WANT BASED ON THE SORTING METHOD I PICK. FOR INSTANCE I COULD HAVE: ROCK VIEW 1 -SORTED AS: AA, YEAR, ALBUM ROCK VIEW 2 -SORTED AS: ARTIST CLASSICAL VIEW 1 -SORTED AS: COMPOSER, ARTIST EASY LISTENING OF ONLY 4 STAR AND ABOVE ARTISTS VIEW 1 -SORTED AS: YEAR, TITLE ...AND SO ON. LET ME DETERMINE MY ENTRY POINTS AND SORTING METHODS! YOU COULD HAVE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE NOW PHIL, AND SO MUCH MORE! THE SORTING METHODS COULD BE USER DEFINED, AND YOU COULD JUST CYCLE THROUGH THEM ON ANY PLAYER. NO HAVING TO GO BACK TO HOME TO GO IN A DIFFERENT WAY, ONLY FOR DIFFERENT SUBSETS AND USER DEFINED CUSTOM VIEWS. NO HAVING TO ALWAYS BROWSE EVERYTHING, JUST A SUBSET (IF YOU WANT). *FIFTH,* SBS HAS RIDICULOUSLY CONFLATED AA TAGS AS MEANINGFUL AS TO COMP STATUS... THEY AREN'T AND SHOULDN'T BE! LOTS OF APPS PUT AA TAGS ON COMPS ON PURPOSE!!! [B]LIKE IT OR NOT, THATS THE FACT. let me be clear here, b/c i think it hasn't been understood, but i am NOT saying nor am i suggesting that everyone would need AA tags on everything to do the things i am suggesting! ok w/me to use VA auto-detection if u want; don't use AA tags, fine by me. but SBS does not NEED to know whats a comp or not. it CAN know, but it doesn't NEED to know. and much more importantly, it should not use AA tag status to determine what is or isn't a comp. what would make a lot more sense, is letting the user define AA strings that mean something is a comp, rather than telling users to remove the AA tags their software put there. how is a WMP user supposed to use WMP and SBS? this is the problem phil doesn't care about, he'll just say use yet another app or do this or that, but my point is WMP is a major app, and SBS should accommodate it, just as it does other apps like itunes. i want to reiterate though that there is almost no reason at all for SBS to even know what is and isn't a comp, in normal usage. however, it can be useful in some situations. but even if comp status isn't important, AA tags should not be conflated as comp status meaningful. -...a final note to erland...- you said earlier that you don't care whats in tags, you care whats in the DB. this really makes no sense. the DB, at least mine, is made up of what it scanned from my tags. the whole point of an app like SBS or winamp or whatever is to scan the files/tags and make it a managed/browseable collection via the DB. so i for one, expect the DB to reflect whats in my tags, and i want to browse based on that data. thats why the logics SBS uses should be optional. its why SBS shouldn't make assumptions about things like comp status based on something like an AA tag, esp given how different apps implement the tag differently. its why SBS shouldn't make up stupid DB fields like "track artists" which has no TAG equal. its also all these above things that causes so many problems in the consistentcy of the display in things like SP. you've only experimented with winamp a little bit. play with it some more, and tell me that SBS can even come close to its custom view abilities. the day SBS can natively allow a user to make a custom view of classical genre tracks in the mdw folder that are rated 4 stars or above that haven't been played this year, is the day SBS comes close. -- MrSinatra www.lion-radio.org using: sb2 & sbc (my home) / sbrec & ipeng (parents' home) - sbs 7.5.3b - win xp pro sp3 ie8 - p4(ht) 3.2ghz, 2gig ram - 1tb wd usb2 raid1 - d-link dir-655 - 45k+ mp3 ::VOTE FOR 'BUG 15604' (http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=15604)!!!:: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=84475 _______________________________________________ beta mailing list beta@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/beta
