GUI improvement request

[Jochen]

Hi
I’ve been using Mezzmo for some weeks now and very happy with its functionality and reliability. Certainly money well spent. :)

Having found the suggestion the wish list in the forum I wanted to share some ideas to improve GUI and functionality:

Loading external playlist:


It would be good if the user could add the referenced songs of an existing external playlist (eg .m3u) to a configured standard Mezzmo Playlist.
If the external playlist is faulty the application shows a very generic error message and there is no information about what is not working. The status section of the screen could be used to show any issues with a playlist (maybe adding an additional tab next to “FileBrowser”. It would also be good if the application would browse the entire playlist (might be already the case) and show all errors of the playlist.


Deleting Files from library


Deleting files from a large library freezes the GUI and the application is marked as “Not Responding” by the OS (although it is working and eventually un-freezes). It would be more user friendly of the application would behave like when adding new files / folders to the library. During this process information on progress is displayed in the status section of the screen.
When hitting the delete button with more than one file selected no information is displayed on how many files are actually selected and the user can only "choose" to confirm “one by one” or mark the “Apply to all” option in the dialog. Maybe a interaction like in the Windows Explorer would be more user friendly? A message box could ask “Do you really want to delete 320 entries?”. Progress would then be shown like described above.
The performance of deleting multiple files from a larger library is anything but good.


Adding Files to a library


When adding files to a library by adding folders if would be good if the user could choose to just which kind of documents to add (e.g. checkboxes for Music, Video and Photo). This would allow for better management.
Maybe this function exists and I just missed it?



Regards,
Jochen :cool:

[Paul]

Some answers/comments:



Loading external playlist:


It would be good if the user could add the referenced songs of an existing external playlist (eg .m3u) to a configured standard Mezzmo Playlist.
If the external playlist is faulty the application shows a very generic error message and there is no information about what is not working. The status section of the screen could be used to show any issues with a playlist (maybe adding an additional tab next to “FileBrowser”. It would also be good if the application would browse the entire playlist (might be already the case) and show all errors of the playlist. We'll look into better error reporting for importing/referencing external playlists.


Mezzmo supports external playlist files (.M3U, .PLS, .WPL) in two ways: (i) you can add the files from an external playlist in your Mezzmo library using the 'Add Files From External Playlist' menu item, and (ii) you can dynamically reference an external playlist file in Mezzmo using Create Playlist -> Linked Playlist. The latter means Mezzmo will dynamically read the contents of the external playlist file whenever you browse it in Mezzmo or from your DLNA device. Whenever you make a change to the external playlist file, this change will be automatically reflected in Mezzmo. This lets you have one set of playlist files that you may edit/maintain from another media organizer/player application.



Deleting Files from library


Deleting files from a large library freezes the GUI and the application is marked as “Not Responding” by the OS (although it is working and eventually un-freezes). It would be more user friendly of the application would behave like when adding new files / folders to the library. During this process information on progress is displayed in the status section of the screen.
When hitting the delete button with more than one file selected no information is displayed on how many files are actually selected and the user can only "choose" to confirm “one by one” or mark the “Apply to all” option in the dialog. Maybe a interaction like in the Windows Explorer would be more user friendly? A message box could ask “Do you really want to delete 320 entries?”. Progress would then be shown like described above.
The performance of deleting multiple files from a larger library is anything but good.


We also know about the poor performance of the Mezzmo GUI when deleting files from larger Mezzmo libraries. This is a recent issue that has crept into v2.6.x. We are looking into it now & will fix it shortly. Thanks for the suggestions regarding better feedback when deleting more than one file. We'll certainly consider it.


Adding Files to a library


When adding files to a library by adding folders if would be good if the user could choose to just which kind of documents to add (e.g. checkboxes for Music, Video and Photo). This would allow for better management.
Maybe this function exists and I just missed it?


In the Folder Properties dialog, you can choose to filter the files added into your Mezzmo library by file extension. There is a Presets > button that lets you auto choose All formats, Music formats, Video formats and Photo formats.

[Jochen]

Thank you.
Jochen