Media Browser Classic is Devolving and not Meeting My Expectations

[mmmann 8]

Dear coders, admins, et al.,

 

I enjoy Media Browser and have been using it for a long time. This is my first post: it's a critique (a nicer way of saying "criticism") of the new and evolving interface.

 

The Media Browser Classic interface is evolving in a direction that I dislike. By default it attempts to be very fancy with posters flying all over the place, but this sacrifices usability for mere eye candy. For finding media to play (the true purpose of a media player, IMO), this pales in comparison to the dense, innate usability of a windows-centric, mouse and keyboard, text-based list interface. The interface I just described most efficiently supports my expectations. My expectations are to (1) quickly find one of a handful of new movies that have been loaded to my hard drive, or (2) find an old movie that I want to re-watch. By "new" I mean that the directory entry (e.g. "The Matrix (1999)") or the movie file (e.g. "The Matrix (1999)\Matrix.mkv" since I may have upgraded the file) has a newer, modified timestamp. By "old" I mean that I want to search for it by name, alphabetically. I know where everything is. I have my movies in separate folders that describe the source (DVD collection, movies ripped, movies downloaded), the type (DVD, Bluray), etc.

 

What I want is a sticky option to put EVERYTHING in list view and I want it to survive version upgrades and installs. I suggest you provide a drop-down that selects the default view then afterward, the user, at their discretion, can configure different views here and there where appropriate. To find new movies, you can provide an option to list "New Movies" and I want to configure (1) how many days or weeks old constitutes "new" and (2) the maximum # of movies to list therein. I want the option to drop into one of my scan folders where I can use pg-up, pg-down, use the mouse scroll wheel or hit the first letter of the movie to QUICKLY find the movie. Crucially, I want to configure multiple top-level entry points that allow me to enter the same directory but with different sort orders: I want to click on "DVD Movie Collection by Timestamp" and enter D:\Movies.DVD.Collection, sorted by timestamp. I can then find my newest movies. Give me that and you can throw out the "New Movies" entry point. But I ALSO want to click on "DVD Movie Collection by Name" and enter the folder sorted alphabetically. If I feel like perusing by genre (for the rare occasion when I don't have a specific movie I intend to watch), I want to click on "Genre" and "Sci-Fi by Timestamp" or "Sci-Fi by Name".

 

To summarize: I care not a whit (OK, perhaps one or two whits) about a fancy interface because it's INEFFICIENT. I want an EFFICIENT, FAST interface where I can quickly find the movie I desire to watch. Go ahead and make fancy interfaces for other devices and other purposes: it's important. But for people like myself, PLEASE provide a quick, list-based, keyboard and mouse wheel, windows-centric interface that can be made the default, is sticky and is recursive against every view and subfolder.

[techywarrior 688]

You do realize you are asking for a complex keyboard and mouse interface for a program (MBC) that is a plugin of WMC which is designed specifically to be used with a remote control and NOT a mouse and keyboard right?

 

There are multiple themes and within those themes many options so perhaps if the default theme (Chocolate) is not what you are looking for then one of the other ones would be more to your liking. I doubt any of them are going to be as plain as you want because once again, the entire thing is designed for a 10' interface (used remotely from the couch on a TV).

 

The one valid point you have is that the options selected (list view, etc.) should persist after upgrade. I know it has happened to me where everything got reset but it doesn't happen all the time so I don't think anyone has actually found the reason. I know other people have mentioned it on the forum as well.

 

Most of the rest of your requests would add too many nuanced options for too few users. The options menu would become pages long.

 

It really sounds like all you want is file explorer...

[Deathsquirrel 741]

The program you seem to want is the web ui.  Set it to a list view and setup an external movie player.