Digital Music Server advice

[Keith Henderson]

Paul said...


>I'm not sure you're using iTunes correctly, here (because you can restrict song displays according to various metadata---or at least you could the last time I used it)

I'm probably not using iTunes "correctly" *at all* but it doesn't matter to me.  Restricting (and then unrestricting, when whatever I need turns out to be hidden) song displays is not something I want to be doing during simple playback for entertainment purposes.  That isn't any more fun than adding and deleting items from the active library, which is what I do now.  I only leave the files that I'm actively using, checking, manipulating, whatever in the library at any one time....I use iTunes as a working space primarily...it's lousy as a "radio" esp. for someone with so many songs.  Maybe I can import every single song in my archive all at once into the "working library" (I dunno...I never tried), and then manipulate the display to hide most of it in my window, but I don't see how that's any different than just cleaning out the whole thing every once in a while to keep my library display a little less cluttered.  I'm never going to want to just
 have a single library window full of 100,000 song listings, whether they could be "filtered"  or not.  What's the point of even having it "loaded" into the library unless it's for "working" on it?  To just *play* it, it shouldn't be necessary to constantly load/unload stuff, right?  (For any/all software, not just iTunes.)  Is there something I'm missing?  (It's possible.)

I want my player (the one my Mom will also use) to just access and show only what I want to listen to at that particular moment, and keep the library in the background.  iTunes has a couple ways of sorta doing that (miniplayer, CoverFlow view), but then I'm constantly switching back and fourth between these various modes also.

Anyway...

All those other things you discuss are not things I'm interested in, and my Mom certainly could even fathom.  She has a difficult time changing the channel on the TV, and I can't get her to even TRY to change the A/B/C switcher on the soundbar (which pisses me off, because it's like one goddamn button on the remote - but she can't handle the first-click-only-engages-the-toggle-but-second-click-moves-the-toggle-once-forward*-aspect - this is what we're dealing with!).

*however-if-you-take-more-than-five-seconds-of-blinking-you-have-to-reengage-the-toggle!

Therefore, I reiterate:  NO TV!  My Mom will NOT play music via computer/WiFi-through our TV.  She couldn't even comprehend such a thing.  :)

Thanks...Keith