View Schemes
View Schemes provide a way to view your library based on customized fields that you select. You can define your own "View Scheme", which is a list of prioritized groupings (or filters) of your library. You can create Schemes by combining any of the default groupings (including artist, album, genre, year, bitrate and type), as well as user-defined Playlist Groups or search terms in any order that suits you.
Think of a View Scheme as a sorting rule:
- Show all my audio files, sort them by Decade, then by year, and then by Rating
- Show all my image files, and sort by People and then Year.
- Show all my video files, and sort by file type, then folder name.
You can also use smartlists when setting up a View Scheme to narrow your scheme even more. Here are the same examples as above, but with additional smartlist information.
- Show all my audio files, sort them by Decade, and then by year. Don't sort by rating. Instead, just show me only those files that have a Rating of 4 or 5.
- Show all my image files, and sort by People and then Year. Don't display files that have too high a resolution, because I will be selecting some of these files and uploading them to an ftp server using Tools > Send To > Email/Web.
- Show all my video files, and sort by file type, then folder name, but exclude the folders on my M: drive and exclude the files that include "Amsterdam" in the filename.
A View Scheme Group is a folder that contains View Schemes. The Media Mode buttons are View Scheme Groups: the Audio Media Mode is a group for all Audio Schemes. The children of the group can honor the Group's rules or not.
Example: You can create a View Scheme Group called the 70s. Include all file types, and with a smartlist rule, show only the files from each year of the 1970s. The Scheme Group sorts by Year, then Month. Create View Schemes within that group that honor the Group's rules. One scheme could be called "Artwork", where you include a smartlist to display only images and video files, and sort by a custom Fine Arts column, then Nationality.