Noob question

[widescreen]

Forgive this noobie for what may be a stupid question, but is there any way to cut down on the number of steps needed to play media?  Example: if i want to play a audio file using a orbiter or remote, i have to go to media, then go to audio, then select a album, then sect a song(the last two of which i understand), but then still have to choose play, close, delete, or move, in order to play a file.  Now again, i'm new to this so maybe i'm missing this. I read the wiki and went through forums.  Is there anyway to reduce the steps needed to play media? thanks

[tschak909]

That is a very logical progression, not exactly sure how we can trim that down.

-Thom

[widescreen]

hmmm perhaps, possibly making the selection of the song be the trigger for playing the song instead of having to go to the play/close/delete/move screen(like windose off((windows))).  Maybe it could be made optional to have to go through that screen since closing the screen can be done by remote normally anyway? 

[johanr]

I have had the same thought. However I have also noticed how good it is to have that extra "safety" before the song/movie starts.
 I have had a few occasions where I have simply pressed the wrong song or similar due to fat fingers or delay of the orbiter and that way been able to revert.
Not arguing against it, just trying to point out that "a coin has many sides"

Maybe having the possibility to choose if it(Lmce) should ask or not. But since I don't know how to do it I cannot help unfortunately.

-johan

[tschak909]

No.

Making a preference is a geek cop out, and is very rarely the right answer.

Come on guys, think outside the box.

-Thom

[widescreen]

Hi Thom, I can appreciate what you mean when you say it's a geek cop out. The only thing is that we may not be the only one's using linuxmce, I love and it im already addicted to this thing.  By the way i appreciate all the work you geniuses have done, what you devs have done, especially you and Hari have done thus far is amazing! round of applause. back to my point...i'm sure many of us are trying to get our friends and family to use and appreciate linuxmce the same way we do.  That was just one of the questions posed to me from friends when i was showing off my system and I kinda saw that it was a little bit of pain to have to make several selections just to play a audio/video file. I know it's open source and we have a choice not to use it, but like i said we love it, but maybe we can make one or two little tweaks here and there so it's usable for those that just want to click one or two selections and have the file play quicker can do so. please don't take offense to this, it's just a observation.   

[tschak909]

Playlists are another option. You may also want to watch my screencast on using the media system:

http://www.localeconcept.com/pub/Using_Media_in_LinuxMCE_part_1.ogg

Thank you for the compliments. This system is the work of many people over almost a decade's worth of solid work. We do need work on UI, so any solutions that can be done... let's try them...but let's also try to understand the capabilities of the system by all involved, so that we can best figure out how to extend the system.

-Thom

[wombiroller]

Hi widescreen,

The media screen (play/close/delete/move) is also useful to be able to see media attributes. I often browse to a movie and then select a genre to view more of the same type...Not sure I'd like to see this one go   

For commonly accessed media - have you looked into custom scenarios?
I have a few music playlists I like to run. To cut down the number of required steps - I created a scenario to load the playlist, set the volume and shuffle the songs. I have added these under the Climate section (because I have no Climate control currently) but you could put it under Media also. Now I just have to tap a single button on my Nokia N810 to start one of these pre-defined scenarios... Very handy!
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Scenarios