Galleries

[jarek]

Dear Peter,

can you write more about how to get advantage of galleries ? I suppose I know how to add albums or tracks, but do not know what next ? Supposing I would like to play a track or build a playlist from a gallery ? How can I do this ? How to play a track/album from Demo gallery or Nice Stuff  or Custom made one ?

Jarek

[PeterSt]

Hey Jarek,

At using Galleries you'll always have one root for that. Put that on your fastest drive for reading, usually an SSD (and not the RAMDisk haha).
The root could be named c:\Galleries\.

Under that root you'd have your typical collections of any kind you like. Could be \Jazz\ could be \Women\ could be \To Examine\ could be \To sell\. And of course \Nide Stuff\ or \Demo\.
An album or track is allowed to be in as many Galleries as you want.

Now, the only thing you need to do is make that c:\Galleries\ folder your Music Root (Settings). From there on you can do everything as if it were normal music in there. Select it for playback, drag it onto XX (meta data file, a whole folder) But it is much faster, and the disk doesn't spin down assuming it's an SSD.
In the end all your music is under this one structure.

Take care that at the bottom text field (Library Area active) that Gallery Root is filled in (which will happen at clicking your Gallery Root in Embedded Explorer).

I hope this gets you going a bit. If it is not what you wanted to hear, let me know.
Peter

[jarek]

Peter,

Does it mean that I cannot have both at the same time: Galleries and Library ? If I cannot, then how can I keep adding files from Library to Galleries ? Before adding I would like to listen to track in the library. It is not convnenient to changing music root in settings from Library to Galleries and back.

A solution is to have Gallery of all tracks, and then play from it, but I do not know if it is possibole to create such Gallery, and then add tracks/albums from Gallery to Gallery.

Jarek

[PeterSt]

Jarek,

All what you say seems true, but in the end is not because it is related to the "approach" you'd have to have to this all.
First off, there is no such thing as a "Library" and "Gallery"; A Gallery is a (meta data) derival from real music folders, and your Library is the thing you see after choosing the Library Area. So, all is "Library" so to say.

If you have chosen (at the bottom) another "root" - hence the root for your Library at that moment, and that coincidentally is a folder with real music data, what prevents you from a. playing that and b. put things from there (or anywhere !) in a Gallery ? Things are just so unrelated that ... ehhm ... you think they are ?

The other way around, if you have a normal music folder as Music Root, what prevents you from selecting a Gallery (or part of it !) at the bottom text field ? also nothing. But *this* is not logic, because all your music should be under a Gallery Root (hence show in the left pane for standard / default) because ... well, there isn't another way (btw I think W7 can do similar things). So, your Gallery structure must be the base of it all, while you're in the process of having this the other way around, just because you don't have that structure yet.

So let's now mix it ...
Create that Gallery Root, make it your Music Root, and now start asking for your main "music roots" from your several disks by means of selecting them at the bottom text field. Whatever those "music roots" mean to you, they''ll have a name or function. Now, create that name under your Gallery Root Folder, and stuff *everything* from that folder in there (select all the Items in the Library Area - Right Click - Add to Gallery - Choose (or/and create) a Gallery. Now that whole "disk" will be in your Gallery, under that chosen structure. Now do the same for your next disk. Create another Gallery Folder for it, or stuff it under the same as before because you had no other logical separation between the two disks other than "the first was full". Do this with everything you have.

What happened ? now suddenly your Gallery Structure is leading *and* you will see and understand that. Now you also can't have the "problems" you described, because you don't have a reason anymore to hop over to the original disks. All is in your Galleries now ...

At this stage, you have all in the Galleries, but still no logical structure. Think of "demo" which will be a first applicable one for you. So, you create that Demo, and can just do it under your Gallery Root again. Notice that this is parallel to you other disk roots, but also notice it is redundant. I mean, if you'd now ask for the complete Root, your Demo entries will show up twice in the Library Area; one for the Demo and one for the Original. But, this is because you asked for the main root. Don't do *that*, and nothing is redundant.

Once you use everything in full, and you'd have a more normal structure like "Jazz", "Rock" etc. etc., *and* you'd create an additional Root for that (like "MyStructuredGalleries") and under that you put the "Jazz" etc., you'll start working with that root only ... and you'd make it your Music Root.

At this stage we're here :

Galleries\
Galleries\MyDisk01
Galleries\MyDisk02
Galleries\MyStructuredGalleries\
Galleries\MyStructuredGalleries\Jazz\
Galleries\MyStructuredGalleries\Rock\

But you could just as well have created this as :

GalleriesContainingMyMusicDisks\
GalleriesContainingMyMusicDisks\MyDisk01
GalleriesContainingMyMusicDisks\MyDisk02
MyStructuredGalleries\
Galleries\MyStructuredGalleries\Jazz\
Galleries\MyStructuredGalleries\Rock\

which implies two separate Gallery-Roots, not retrieveable in one go (like in the first example you could ask for Galleries\ and retrieve everything and all, but redundantly as hell). This is correct, because you'd get redundant data only.

Notice the "importance" of the GalleriesContainingMyMusicDisks\ in this last example, because it allows you to retrieve all your music data under one "folder".


Lastly for now :
Yes, you can have Tracks in there too, but tracks actually emerge because you ask for them explicitly (fill a T(rack) in that box where now an A(lbum) shows), and the system will *present* you tracks. Of course in the folder structure nothing changed; only now the tracks are shown. So, indeed this allows you to show all the tracks you have in one list, which IMO is not useful for copying them at a track base to Galleries (because you can - and should do that from within the PlayList Area, or the Remote while playing) BUT which is very very useful in just finding a Track (Name), not knowing the Album Name and especially when it's (or may be) on a collection album (audiophile samples etc.). This is just a matter of filling the Track Name (or any part of it) in the Search field near the bottom, and those which match will show up in the Library Area.
Now, to let this work conveniently, you'd have to a trick :

What probebly not many people know, is that you can right click on that button I show in the first picture below;
That gives you this small popup, and it allows you to save the list in the Library Area, no matter how that list got there. This is called "Saved Result Lists". What you'd do is asking for all your Tracks which may take 10 minutes (as in my case, with some 300,000 tracks). Because it takes so long, you'd want to save the result. And, as you see in the second picture, via this same popup you can ask for that Saved result List, and really within one second now the 300,000 tracks appear in the Library Area, ready for you to select from.
Notice that this too is unrelated to the Library Area vs. Galleries, because this just works on the result in the Library Area. As said, no matter how it got there.

Once you're into tricks anyway ... ask for all the Albums you have, type Pink Floyd in the Search box, save the Result to a Saved Result List *or* just select the whole list and save it to a Gallery "Pink Floyd" (think about the structure). In either case you created a Pink Floyd selection within seconds, now ready to be added with other related stuff like : do the same for Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Rick Wright, Syd Barret - and all you may find related to Pink Floyd. It all goes in a whimp, and in the end you could have a nice Gallery with 120 Pink Floyd related albums, like I have at the moment.
And notice that -yes- this is based upon creating Galleries from Galleries.

Peter

[jarek]

Peter, I am trying to understand your ideas, and I have some more questions:
1. When building ALL MY STUFF gallery, the albums have the same hierarchical structure (artist / album) as in the library, whilst when selecting the album they I acualy play, it is copied to the gallery without that structure. Is it possible to copy the album together with the upper container (artist album) ? Otherwise I do not know who is the artist of the album in the gallery.
2. Can I manually rearrange the gallery after being built without any harm to the XXHighEnd (manually move albums to added artist containers) ?
3. When trying to add a track or album by using a hotkey (ALT-H or any others) the playing music always stops after 2-3 seconds. When trying to add it by using right mouse click, it is OK. Why is it like that ?
4. When adding the whole album by using right mouse click, and ADD TO GALLERY, it is being expanded to default option Add to transactions. Because I am using touch pad, I have chosen this option by mistake several times, and had a XXHighEnd crash each time. What is it option for and why it is always defaultly highlited ?
5. Supposing I have addad all my CD directories/disks to the ALL MY STAFF Gallery, how can I have it synchonized with Library ? Do i need to add each CD manually to this Gallery ? If so, how can I identify which CD is not already added to the ALL MY STUFF gallery ?
Sorry for so many questions.
Jarek

[PeterSt]

Just some short answers for now :

1.
This is not the case per definition, but I can imagine you do it such that this happens. Please provide a picture, and tell me what you did to get what's in the picture.
Btw, if it were for me it works exactly like you want (if I understand that correctly ).

2.
No. This is always to be done from within XXHighEnd and the available functions (like Rename).
Please notice that 0.9z-3 will be far more complete on this than what you have there.

3.
This is because those hotkeys are explicitly for Unattended (I hope that's written somewhere). With Attended you should (and can) just use the normal functions for that.
I'm not saying this can't be made for Attended, but I just didn't.

4.
Maybe it depends from where you do it, but the only thing I know is that this "Transaction" function is just *disabled*. I can't tell how you see this as "highlighted" hence default ... Anyway from within the Library Area it is (disabled). Do you use this elsewhere ?

5.
Yes, you'd have to add everything manually. But ... this now is (needed by you) because you took my example, which may not be 100% legit (because 100% redundant). But, in the end this is not difficult :
Open that new album via (normal) Explorer, and drag the album onto the Playlist Area. One track is enough. Now cause the coverart to appear in the left pane (Playlist Area is still active), and rightclick on that coverart to add to the Gallery you want.
Also notice that the last Gallery you used will always be the default one in there (per function you used I think), so clicking OK to the folder selection screen at once usually suffices (but keep your head with what you're doing).
If an album is already in there, it's no problem. You can do it as many times as you want (no message about it will appear).


Yes, I can imagine you want things some more conveniently working ... I do too. But even without that, I wouldn't be able to live without the Galleries. But to be honest, for me it is more easy to know what can be done and what not, so that's quite an advantage (to survive the possible "not aligned" quirks). But as said, 0.9z-3 will be a lot better on this part.

Peter

[PeterSt]

And Jarek, re 1., I think you clicked an Artist in the Embedded Explorer. Not that you can't do that, but what actually happens is this :

All you *click* in Embedded Explorer goes for its path to the bottom textbox. Now watch closely ... exactly what is there will be removed from the path shown under the coverart in the Library Area. Now, you could say you can't see that part, but that missing part has become the root in the Embedded Explorer. Seems logic to me ...

I never do that if it is for selecting something to play; I rather drag the album onto the Playlist Area from within Embedded Explorer. This even works with the Library Area active (well, here, and I might be a bit ahead of your version, I don't know anymore), because the Playlist Area becomes active because of this. Also notice that with the Playlist Area active you can get forward the Embedded Explorer by means of rightclick on the coverart in the left pane and choose "Show Embedded Explorerer here".

Blahblah.
Peter

[jarek]

Peter,

here is what I mean about #1.
Picture 1 shows herarchical gallery, picture 2 shows flat organized gallery where you have only albums. I do not see any possibility to load single album to a gallery with artisc (like on picture #1). I hope you know what I mean.

I is easy to find something in library #1, it is very difficutl to find anything in gallery #2, because you do not have artists there visible, only almum names.

Jarek

[PeterSt]

Jarek - I understand what you are trying to make clear, but not how you did that. See below for "my" sequence please, and the result of it.
At the first picture I did RightClick - Add to Gallery for "On Every Street".

Do note that this may be the result of changes for 0.9z-3, which sure improved on adding a track (by means of the Remote) to Nice (etc.) Stuff, where indeed things might happen from your picture #2. Whether this improvement is related to what I show below ... I wonder (but I don't think so). Anyway, this is how it will work for 0.9z-3. So, if you can't copy this way of working right now, please wait for 0.9z-3.
But let me know !

Peter

[PeterSt]

... or to eleborate a bit on what goes wrong in your 0.9z-2 :

Below I'm playing the highlighted track (Unattendedly) (1st pic);

On the Remote I choose "Copy Track to Demo Gallery";

Nothing from Canned Heat was there before. The second pic shows the new entry in the "Demos" Gallery (only that one track is in there);

The 3rd pic shows the contents of the Demos Gallery for the Canned Heat entry (which is a representative of that one track -> you can't see that here).

Now, in 0.9z-2 it probably only had obtained a "Let's work together (the best of)" path, and had left out the Canned Heat part;
Using the Remote for Copy Track to Demo Gallery would be the same as rightclick on the coverart in the left pane, and choose similar from there. So if you did that all is explained (and solved for 0.9z-3).

Ok, if I'd now clear the Playlist Area, and select that new Gallery entry (Jarek10), you see the particular track being in the Playlist Area (Jarek11 - last pic).