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#REDIRECT [[Library]] |
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Media Center uses two main approaches to help you organize your media library. It offers flexibility in creating various custom fields, Playlists and Smartlists to help you manage your media library, and it provides flexibility in viewing your library. |
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==Organization Flexibility== |
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In most programs, you can organize your media using various standard fields including artist, album, genre, and comment. Media Center goes beyond this. You can create your own database fields, some of which can be saved in the media itself. Do you need a field for composer? Orchestra leader? Photographer? No problem. |
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==Importing== |
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You can easily add media files to your library. See [[Import]] for more details. |
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==Media Modes and View Schemes== |
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The entire collection of media files you are managing is readily available in the organization tree. With the [[Media Modes]] buttons, you can narrow the display to Audio, Images or Video. Furthermore, these Media Modes display only relevant [[View Schemes]]. This simplifies navigation of large libraries. |
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The program comes with default View Schemes, enabled when you select Audio, Video or Images in the tree. Selecting Images, for example, displays the default Images View Schemes (Year, Month, Day) as well as other View Schemes in the expanded tree (including "People/Places/Events"). |
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All these View Schemes are customizable. You can change the defaults, remove them, and/or create your own. |
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==Playlists== |
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Media Center offers you even more flexibility with [[Playlists and Playlist Groups]]. With these tools, you can organize your files according to the features you select. Playlists (unlike Smartlists) are ordered lists, and are used when you want to preserve the order of tracks. For example, you may create a playlist for "Top 40 1971" in which you have the tracks in order. |
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You may also want to create a compilation playlist of your favorite tracks, in order of preference. You can also create a playlist with your favorite Radio Stations, so that they are easily accessible at all times. |
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The point of creating Playlists is to group your collection in groups that you identify, and which are then very easy to access. |
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==Smartlists== |
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[[Smartlists]] are a special kind of Playlist that store rules instead of lists of files. There are hundreds of rule combinations you can use to create your Smartlists. The basic difference with a Playlist is that a Smartlist, being rule-based, creates the list of files that meet the rules' conditions on the fly, so it always takes into account any changes you may have made to your files. |
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The program comes with dozens of automatic Smartlists. To enable them, right-click on Playlists and select "Create Stock Smartlists". |
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* 4 or 5 Stars |
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* 100 Random Songs |
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* Imported This Month |
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* Missing Cover Art |
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* Not Recently Played |
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* Small Images and Videos |
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There are many more stock smartlists accessible when you create a smartlist and select the arrow next to the Smartlist Rule field. |
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You can create your own Smartlists as well, using rules to include or exclude any database field, including your own custom fields. |
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==Rating and Other fields== |
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Media Center has a five star rating system, so that you can easily rate your tracks, pictures, or movies. It also has fields for replay gain, BMPs, intensity, width and length (good for images), and many more. If you can't find what you want, [[create as many custom fields]] as you need. And of course, you can easily edit database fields and ID3 v1 and v2 tags. |
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==Sorting/Viewing (View Schemes)== |
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And that's not all.Not only can you categorize your files the way you want, but you can choose how you view them. With the Media Mode buttons, you can select to view only relevant files and View Schemes. You can create as many View Schemes as you want. For example, with a Genre/Year View Scheme in Audio Mode, you can view your entire music database by genre, and then by year. You can also create View Schemes using custom database fields. For example, you can create a custom field called "Nationality", and then you can create a View Scheme that includes that field. In this way, viewing all of your "Scottish" files is just a couple of clicks away. |
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You can view up to three different panes at once, using the [[Split View]] feature (in the View menu). The panes can be a combination of [[Playing Now]], View Schemes, Playlists, or anything else in the tree. |
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==Managing Libraries== |
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[[Manage Libraries]] describes how to created, delete and load other libraries. |
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==Synchronize Libraries== |
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[[Synchronize Libraries]] describes how to transfer files between two instances of MC |
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Latest revision as of 18:15, 24 March 2014
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