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Topic: Viewing currently playing? (Read 1101 times) previous topic - next topic
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Viewing currently playing?

I've been looking for eons for just a simple music player that keeps track of my music database and accepts Microsoft Keyboard media keys. Why is this so hard?

I've found Foobar2000 and it is certainly simple. And its media key support is better than even MediaMonkey. But simple functionality still has me confused. Let me walk you through this.

I have "Album List" on the left (sorted by artist) and "Default" (apparently the playlist) on the right. In the left I type "Willie Nelson" in the filter. It shows all my Willie Nelson albums! I highlight the one I want and all the songs from that album show up under "Default" on the right side, sorted by track, and the first one starts playing. Yay!

Then I decide I want to search for a Dwight Yoakam album, and I don't want to drill down through the tree structure on the left. I associated Ctrl+Shift+F with "Media Library Search", so I hit that key combination and another window pops up with my entire library, along with a filter field for me to type "Dwight".

Question 1: There's all the Dwight Yoakam albums, and they seem to be grouped by album, but why are they not then sorted by track number? Sure, I can click "track number" to sort them all by track number, and then "Artist/Album" to sort them first by artist/album and then by track number, but why wasn't it already sorted like this? But never mind---there are much bigger questions.

I fiddle with the columns and get them sorted correctly in the "Media Library Search". I find the album I want and I highlight all the songs in that album.

Question 2: Now how do I get the selected songs in the "Media Library Search" to play?

I figure that what worked in the "Album List" should work here, too, so I hit "Enter". A song starts playing. It is not the first song listed. It is not the first song highlighted. It is one of the highlighted songs---perhaps it is the "selected file" out of the highlighted songs. But the "Default" playing list still shows Willie Nelson's album. And I hit "next song" and I get Willie Nelson again.

Question 3: In the "Media Library Search" how do I get the selected items to play? Why doesn't the Enter key work like it does in the "Album List"?

Question 4: When I hit Enter in the "Media Library Search", why isn't the "Default" playing list updated? How can I bring up a list of the current songs playing? It's as if there is some secret play list that has what is really playing, and the "Default" play list is just a decoy...

Trying harder, I right-click on my selection in "Media Library Search" and select "Add to playback queue". Um... nothing happened. The "Default" playlist didn't change.

Question 5: Why does "Add to playback queue" not have a shortcut key in the "Media Library Search"? Why doesn't it do anything? Where is the "playback queue" to which it added songs? How can I view this "playback queue"? Why didn't it update the "Default" song list in the right pane?

I decide to try the "View" menu. It only contains "Default" with 12 songs (apparently from the Willie Nelson album).

Question 6: Why isn't there a "View|playback queue"? If I supposedly added songs to the playback queue, why isn't there a way for me to view this playback queue?