Hey there,
Something which really bugs me are all the lines that simplaylist makes (see attached image 1).
Is there any way I can get rid of all this?
There are a few things that bug me too about both Facets and SimPlaylist - both fantastic components as they are, it is unfortunate their development did not continue.
(Edit: That might sound harsh - I'm not sure if something happened to the developer)
In Preferences > Display > SimPlaylist > Groups -
For 'Headers', the only way is what davideleo mentioned - use $repeat at the end to add spaces. I likewise find it looks better than the multiple lines. The only other downside is the tool-tip popup when you mouse hover the title with SimPlaylist (unlike EsPlaylist where you can turn that off). So depending on your screen resolution, maybe $repeat( ,350) is enough.
(I also add a $repeat( ,40) on the left to center the Headers a bit).
For 'Sub-groups' , the line only shows up on the first item, so you can add a non-existent field, say - [%null%] - as the top item. However it makes the sub-group text smaller. So it is a choice between, 1) slightly larger text with a line (the default), or 2) regular (playlist) sized text with no line. Or 3) use $repeat here too.
Also Simplaylist keeps showing Disc number despite the fact that I have entered them separately in the preferences (see attached image 2 and 3). I want it to show %subalbum% independently of %disc%.
Playlist grouping is a combination of both the group settings (in SimPlaylist preferences) and the files being tagged correctly, and by "correctly" I mean to achieve that particular grouping. So if both %disc% and %subalbum% are tagged for the entire disc, as it appears they should be in this case, you are seeing the correct result.
I'm not sure what you mean by independently? Why not put both %disc% and %subalbum% on the same line?
[Disc: %disc% ][%subalbum%]
(By the way, not that it matters, but I think the standard field names are %discnumber% and %discsubtitle% ...?)
Or do you perhaps mean you want a third sub-group to group a few tracks within a disc together? ("Act 1, Act 2" etc). (I use %grouping% but that tag is tricky with different programs)
And lastly, foobar also keeps making everything I write between brackets lighter, which I don't want. Can this be changed?
Yes, this is also a built-in feature (troublesome) of both Facets and SimPlaylist.
In Preferences > Display > SimPlaylist, modify the Title column pattern to use this instead -
$replace(%title%,'(','>>(',')',')<<')
Can do the same in Facets columns where there are sometimes brackets, for example %album% names.
Seeing as these two components dim all types of brackets - ( ) [ ] { }, you might want the complete code -
$replace(%title%,'(','>>(',')',')<<','[','>>[',']',']<<','{','>>{','}','}<<')
Cheers