Thoughts on WMP12

I've been using the Windows 7 beta for a few days now, and it includes the
new version of WMP (12). Below are my thoughts - not all are positive
unfortunately, but hopefully these are seen as constructive.

Feel free to chime in with yours as well!


PRO:
- Quick access to things from the taskbar.

- Better colours - things are light and airy now, as opposed to dark and
scary! :P

- The "Play To" function - this will be fantastic whenever I use my laptop
and want decent sound quality without headphones.


CON:
- The ubiquitous list pane on the right-hand side of the player. It was
nice as an optional thing when building playlists, but it doesn't need to be
there all the time (i.e., when I'm at an album's page, I've already got its
tracklist in front of me). Can't it just be a drawer-type pane that can be
opened and closed?

- Where is the Advanced Tag Editor? PLEASE tell me it hasn't been fully
removed. "Find Album Info" always seems to bring up incorrect information
(typos, poor quality artwork, etc.), and it was nice to have this so that I
could EMBED high quality album art (if the artwork isn't embedded, it just
gets lost when moving files -- case in point, when I upgraded to W7beta! --
now I've got tons of albums without artwork).

- What's with the Now Playing view? Why is the album art shrunken down so
much, and why are things aligned to the left? Seems like this is an
unfinished idea.

- Still no Zune integration? *Sigh*

- Still no way to choose the way that albums are sorted within an artist's
library - since the Vista version of WMP11 this has defaulted to
alphabetically; prior versions defaulted to the release year (which made more
sense to me).

"PRC" <PRC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F4924E6E-1B35-4A5D-A162-6D7193D7CA71@microsoft.com...
> I've been using the Windows 7 beta for a few days now, and it includes the
> new version of WMP (12). Below are my thoughts - not all are positive
> unfortunately, but hopefully these are seen as constructive.
>
> Feel free to chime in with yours as well!
>
>
> PRO:
> - Quick access to things from the taskbar.
>
> - Better colours - things are light and airy now, as opposed to dark and
> scary! :P
>
> - The "Play To" function - this will be fantastic whenever I use my laptop
> and want decent sound quality without headphones.
>
>
> CON:
> - The ubiquitous list pane on the right-hand side of the player. It was
> nice as an optional thing when building playlists, but it doesn't need to
> be
> there all the time (i.e., when I'm at an album's page, I've already got
> its
> tracklist in front of me). Can't it just be a drawer-type pane that can
> be
> opened and closed?
>
> - Where is the Advanced Tag Editor? PLEASE tell me it hasn't been fully
> removed. "Find Album Info" always seems to bring up incorrect information
> (typos, poor quality artwork, etc.), and it was nice to have this so that
> I
> could EMBED high quality album art (if the artwork isn't embedded, it just
> gets lost when moving files -- case in point, when I upgraded to
> W7beta! --
> now I've got tons of albums without artwork).
>
> - What's with the Now Playing view? Why is the album art shrunken down so
> much, and why are things aligned to the left? Seems like this is an
> unfinished idea.

Exactly.

> - Still no Zune integration? *Sigh*
>
> - Still no way to choose the way that albums are sorted within an artist's
> library - since the Vista version of WMP11 this has defaulted to
> alphabetically; prior versions defaulted to the release year (which made
> more
> sense to me).

-cant rip dvds

"ewastudent" <ewastudent@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:ezGSF%23NfJHA.1248@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> -cant rip dvds

Ripping DVDs probably doesn't need to be the focus for a *player*. There's
probably tons of other interesting things that can/should be done first.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"PRC" <PRC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F4924E6E-1B35-4A5D-A162-6D7193D7CA71@microsoft.com...
> I've been using the Windows 7 beta for a few days now, and it includes the
> new version of WMP (12).

If people are part of the official (not the public) beta, it's very much
best to get feedback in through Connect.

> - The ubiquitous list pane on the right-hand side of the player. It was
> nice as an optional thing when building playlists, but it doesn't need to
> be
> there all the time (i.e., when I'm at an album's page, I've already got
> its
> tracklist in front of me). Can't it just be a drawer-type pane that can
> be
> opened and closed?

Click the Play header.

> - What's with the Now Playing view? Why is the album art shrunken down so
> much, and why are things aligned to the left? Seems like this is an
> unfinished idea.

Almost like it's a beta? ;)

> - Still no Zune integration? *Sigh*

Very different products, sorry. That's probably not happening any time
soon.

I've had multiple conversations this week based strongly upon Connect
feedback. If you're part of the official beta, get your feedback in there.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.