Page last modified 13:38, 16 Apr 2012 by flokel

Page Notifications Off

MediaPortal Wiki > MediaPortal 1 > Using MediaPortal > Music > Browse Music

Browse Music

Was this page helpful?

1. 1.1. Customize Music
2. 1.2. Related Plugins
2. Browse by Shares (Explorer Style)
3. Browse by Views
4. Menu Options
1. 4.1. Layouts
2. 4.2. Switch Views
3. 4.3. Sort by:
4. 4.4. Search
5. 4.5. Play CD
6. 4.6. Now Playing
7. 4.7. Current Playlist
8. 4.8. Playlists
5. Context Menu Options
1. 5.1. Database views
2. 5.2. Shares View
6. Changes in the latest release

Customize Music

Music can be customized in an almost infinite variety of ways depending on your needs or preferences.

Configuration > Music

You may also change some directly within MediaPortal:

Music Settings

Related Plugins

Last.fm Radio
Audioscrobbler
Lyrics
Global Search
Smart Playlists
Fanart Handler

Browse all your artists, albums, tracks, CDs, DVDs or playlists, with album art and artist images, detailed artist biographies and their ablum track lisitngs, Select from several display layouts or views and sort the results. Add artists, albums or tracks to a playlist, or to your favorties list.

Browse by Shares (Explorer Style)

Now you have organized your music, either by folders and files, or by scanning them into the database, you can browse your music to your heart's delight.

If you organize your music by folders and files, you must use the Shares view:

You can press F3 ( or Show Info button on remote - usually the yellow button) on a selected artist, album or track to display the artist or album information or to download the information from AllMusic and automatically add the artist or album to the music database.

Browse by Views

If you tag your music and scan it into your music database, then you can use a variety of views and layouts:

If you select an artist, you can display all the albums or single tracks you have for that artist. If you select an album, you can display all the tracks and press enter to play the track.

Or, at any time you can press the Play button on your remote, or the 'p' key on your keyboard to add the artist, album or track to your playlist. You may even configure MediaPortal to automatically navigate to the Now Playing window, playlist, or fullscreen when you press play.

Use the Menu Options to choose the display layout, views, sort options, to search music, play a CD/DVD or to navigate to Playlists.

Menu Options

Access the Music Menu by pressing the left arrow key (in most skins), or hovering a mouse at the left edge of your screen.

Layouts

Clicking this button cycles through the various layouts or display modes for music:

List, Icons, Big Icons, Big Icons List, Cover flow, or Filmstrip.

Switch Views

Provides the option to change View:

Note: All views other than Shares View are Database Views which require that your music files have been added to the music database. If you use Artist/Album lookup from Shares View, and the artist or album is found, the file will be automatically added to the database, and the artist or album will appear in these views. You may also add files to the music database using the Scan option on the Context Menu (see below) in Shares view.

Sort by:

This allows you to change the order of the files.

Name, Artist, Album, Track, Title, File, Rating, Time, Size, Date

You may also define additional sort options and link them to specific views in Configuration > Music

Search

Selecting the Search icon at the bottom of the menu will display a virtual keyboard on screen for you to enter search terms.

Note: If you have installed the Global Search (Search Music) plugin, MediaPortal will automatically use this plugin when you select Search.

Play CD

Plays the CD disk inserted in the CD/DVD drive.

Now Playing

This button will take you to the Now Playing window, which is a 'full screen' display when music is playing.

Current Playlist

If you have added items to a playlist, or previously selected a playlist, this button will navigate to the current playlist.

You may also use F1 on a keyboard to easily switch between your current playlist and Music.

Playlists

This option will display any playlists you have saved, either in MediaPortal or external playlists in .m3u, .pls or .b4u format. To get your external playlists to appear, just add your playlists folder in Configuration > Music on the Playlist settings tab.

Tip: Choose separate folders for video and music playlists in configuration to display them separately.

Context Menu Options

Right click an item, press F9 on the keyboard, or the Info/More key on a remote to display the context menu.

The Context Menu options will vary somewhat depending on the current view.

Database views

Play now - This is the same as pressing play - stops any currently playing track, clears the current playlist, and plays the selected item
Queue item - adds the item to the playlist queue - plays the selected item after the current track has finished (if the selected item is an artist or album, all tracks will be queued
Show album/artist info - downloads information and artist or album images from Last.fm and automatically adds the artist/album to the MediaPortal database.
Show Playlist - displays the current playlist

When a song or track in any Database view the following context menu options will also be available:

Queue all items - adds all the tracks in the current list to the playlist
Add to Favourties - adds the track to your list of Favourties which can be displayed using the Favourites view
Rating - allows you to assign your own rating to a track

Shares View

Play now - This is the same as pressing play - stops any currently playing track, clears the current playlist, and plays the selected item
Queue item - adds the item to the playlist queue - plays the selected item after the current track has finished
Show album/artist info - downloads information and artist or album images from Last.fm and automatically adds the artist/album to the MediaPortal database.
Find Cover art - looks up album cover art from ? and adds it to ?
Scan - rescans your Music Folders

Changes in the latest release

The following table shows the changes that affect the user interface in the latest version of MediaPortal (final or test release), either within MediaPortal or in the Configuration tool(s). Select the links to view details of the changes. These changes are incorporated into this wiki page once the final stable version is released.

You may sort the table by any of the columns. Note: the Date column displays the date the UI Rellated Change wiki page was created.