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2009-06-08, 13:57
I've used XBMC without library mode for the first few months. Silly me. I didn't put much thought into it; I suppose I just accepted that XBMC didn't support reading music tags, or so I thought. But this weekend I activated Library mode, saw the light, and suddenly get a lot new nifty options when browsing music.
My question to the developers is: Why is library mode optional and turned off by default? From a usability point of view, I can think of few reasons why library mode shouldn't always be used.
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It's not turned off by default.
You simply have to scan your media, and then hit the button to go to library mode. In PM3.HD it goes to library mode by default once you've scanned your media.
This will ofcourse be improved - good things take time, however.
Cheers,
Jonathan
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Another logical reason to have file mode as 'default' is that for first time users.... library mode needs to be scanned / built... and there are mistakes made.
File mode is much more immediate and gives some reassurance that things are working.
Can you imagine a totally blank library and folks ditching XBMC because they thought it didn't work?
That said... a couple of the skins have a LOUSY UI for empty library mode... no help at all as to how to import / scan media... but that's another issue.
IMO, nothing is perfect, but XBMC and MediaPortal both do a pretty good job of getting your media into a database with little fuss. And by the time we've got this figured as users, we immediately want the developers to write more and more sexy stuff, and not have a new user wizard etc...
Library mode IS the right way to go of course. Of that, there should be no doubt.