musoware forums

Re the proposed new version, just a few thoughts:
1. A minor request to reconsider the way the app opens and behaves in relation to the tray. I'm not exactly sure what the standards for this behaviour are, but I think would it be better to open the full UI at launch then minimize to the tray. Also, when I do open the full GUI, it doesn't show the last browser view (as set in options) but just defaults to the statistics page. Also it doesn't remember the window size and position. (I guess those should be classed as bugs, but it's not much of a problem).
2. I'm not a big user of muso tags or star ratings. Maybe one reason for not using star ratings is that you have to set them at the track level, although I suspect that I don't use it largely because I know most of my collection. Nevertheless, would it be better to also allow setting at group or album level?
3. This is a non-feature request. Please don't change the look and feel of the desktop too much in version 2.5. It really is pretty great just as it is!

The minimize to tray only occurs when you auto-start the remote server. It's for people who mainly use the remote & don't normally use the full UI - which is why it starts in minimized state and only pre-loads the stats page (to save on resources and to speed up start time).

Good idea to add the option to rate albums/groups - I'll consider the implications of that soon.

Not planning to change the UI too much - the main changes are in the .NET build platform and the deployment method - plus I've got the embedded player working (it's basically Windows Media Player embedded into Muso). I expect to release this beta within the next week or so.

musoware wrote:The minimize to tray only occurs when you auto-start the remote server. It's for people who mainly use the remote & don't normally use the full UI - which is why it starts in minimized state and only pre-loads the stats page (to save on resources and to speed up start time).

I realise that, but otherwise you need to remember to start the remote server manually, which I kept forgetting to do, so I though I would be better to start it in server mode. Not a big deal - just trying to have my cake and eat it.

So, maybe another option with the auto-start server to start minimised or full?

That would be good.

Another minor tweak to consider in the new version:
At present, when sorting the gallery by "plays", it seems that the algorithm looks how often each track has been played and then adds this up for the album. I am inferring this because albums with many short tracks seems to get higher billing than albums with a few long tracks. Maybe the method is a bit different from this, but it does seem to give non-intuitive results. In fact, it seems that only playing a few tracks from an album with a large number of tracks boosts its position in the "plays" ranking. Obviously, there is a question of how to deal with partial plays of albums, so the record-keeping does need to be done at the track level, but I wonder if there is a "fairer" way of computing it?

You're right on all counts - it could work out album plays as total track plays divided by number of tracks.

I think that would be better

2.5 seems to run without a hitch on a Win 7 64 machine. One very a first impression I specially like the possibility of rating at album level. Thanks.