Any way to employ more than 3 filters?

[FriendOfBach]

To display my music, I only find "simple, two, three" filters to apply. Currently with me these are Genre, Composer and Album. I listen to classical music and find this restriction way to low. Is there a {trick | hack | plugin | other} to have more than 3 filters applied?

[Aminifu]

Hi FriendOfBach,

I'm not sure what you mean. If you use the Big Bento modern skin (UI), you can have the media library window for Local Media - Audio show more than Genre, Composer and Album filters.

The middle options button on the top right side of this window lets you choose among the preset filters or select others. You can even create your own custom view (Smart Views).

The right most options button on the bottom of the top window, that displays info on the current song selected or playing, allows for info from more tags to be selected and displayed.

There are even other skins, that can be downloaded, that will display the same or more info in different arrangements.

[FriendOfBach]

Hi Aminifu,

probably I did not make myself understood. What I need is more FILTERS to further detail my selection, not just more COLUMNS. Is there a way to apply four, five or more filters than the three that I find at the moment?

[DrO]

nope and i wouldn't expect it to happen - there was briefly a 4-pane setup but that had to be removed due to legal issues.

-daz

[FriendOfBach]

What kind of "legal issues" would that have been?

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by FriendOfBach

Hi Aminifu,

probably I did not make myself understood. What I need is more FILTERS to further detail my selection, not just more COLUMNS. Is there a way to apply four, five or more filters than the three that I find at the moment?

I was not referring to adding more columns to the media library view (although that is also an option). I don't understand what adding more panes will allow you to display that is not already displayable. If there are tags you want to display that are not allowed, what are they?

[FriendOfBach]

OK, let's try it this way:

Pane 1 (Genre): I select "Classical Solo Works" and get a list of according composers
Pane 2 (Composer): I select "Beethoven" and get all of his solo works
Pane 3 (Album): Scroll and find among hundreds of records, as there is no further selection

What I want, past Genre and Composer is:
Pane 3 (SomeTag): Select "Piano Sonatas"
Pane 4 (SomeTag): Select "Sonata No. 32"
Pane 5 (SomeTag): Select "Barenboim"

This is just an example. I have a big classical collection. Within the formentioned Beethoven Piano Sonatas (which is just a tiny part in this entity) I have some 300 recordings of different performers.

Putting the according values into whatever tag is no problem. However, WinAmp seems to just allow for three filters, which from a technical point of view is hard to follow. For modern music, this may be fully sufficient. When it comes to classical music it does not even come near to what you need.

So, again: Is there a way to have more than 3 filters (or panes) to further detail the selection?

[DrO]

and again, there is no way of having more than 3 panes. and it all relates to a player beginning with I.

-daz

[MrSinatra]

no, there isn't. you can have 3 panes, no more.

but what you can do, is create specific "smartviews" for each type of result you want to have. smartviews are built based on criteria you specify. it may not be practical for you, but it is possible and you could check that out.

EDIT: sorry DrO, u beat me to it!

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by FriendOfBach

OK, let's try it this way:

Pane 1 (Genre): I select "Classical Solo Works" and get a list of according composers
Pane 2 (Composer): I select "Beethoven" and get all of his solo works
Pane 3 (Album): Scroll and find among hundreds of records, as there is no further selection

What I want, past Genre and Composer is:
Pane 3 (SomeTag): Select "Piano Sonatas"
Pane 4 (SomeTag): Select "Sonata No. 32"
Pane 5 (SomeTag): Select "Barenboim"

You do have an interesting request. Have you used Google to search for classical music organizers? As I see it, with the current Winamp features, you have 2 possible work-a-rounds.

First: Set up the 3 panes as you have indicated and use the search bar to narrow down the list of hundreds for the Piano Sonatas or Sonata No. 32 or Barenboim, and so on, as your immediate interest dictates. You can use the special search terms to only look within certain tags. These search bar features are explained elsewhere in the forums, but I don't remember the exact posts at the moment (you can search for them).

Second: Create Smart Views. Create a basic template that shows the 3 panes as you have indicated. Then create individual views from it that will only list the tracks that you now would like to see in the additional panes (as you suggested). You will end up with a long list of views (in the panel on the left) and you can only select one at a time, but it saves you from having to type in search terms.

EDIT: It appears MrSinatra and I have the same suggestion, as to Smart Views (which I briefly stated in my 1st response). It also appears that Apple has patents on the view arrangements you would like. It is not reasonable for a free app like Winamp to pay royalties.

[FriendOfBach]

Thanks, using Smart Views actually provides for a 4th filter (pane). I'd still need another one, but that alone takes out 90% of the pain.

[MrSinatra]

only 3 filter panes, the bottom "tracks" pane is just the results.

[FriendOfBach]

Well .. however you see it. I select a Smart View (filter 1), get result in pane "composers", select there (filter 2), get result in pane "category", select there (filter 3), get result in pane "Album", select there (filter 4) and find resulting tracks in the "tracks" pane. For me that's applying four filters and actually pretty cool. Still I wished there'd be one more .. Also I found a good description here in the forum on how to directly edit the gen_ml.ini, so setting up some 30 Smart Views was roughly 5 minutes. What bothers me though is that WinAmp Backup seems to backup only the files of the context it is running in, i.e. admin. My (user) gen_ml.ini is not in the backup set. But that obviously belongs into another thread. Anyway, I am a complete novice with WinAmp and so far pretty much impressed with the quality of the forum. Good job.

[MrSinatra]

thats the nav tree, where the views are. it can act as a filter, but is not referred to as one, but rather as "the active view"