Topic: Play from folders / explorer view

[verysame]

Hi there,

Sorry if this has been already posted, I searched the forum but I couldn't find another thread similar to this.

I like everything about XMPlay in fact at this point, I want to stop looking for a good audio player and just stick to XMP.
One thing I miss though from previous experience with other players is the possibility to play directly from folders with an explorer view.
Right now, I have to add the files from explorer to the playlist (alternatively I can click the + button in the playlist panel).
When doing so, I end up with a long list of tracks which looks rather confusing.
Looking for the song or artist within the list is not a quick process and even though I can use the search function, I rarely rely on that as more often than not I don't remember the title of the song.
That's where the explorer view comes in handy. Virtually, I don't even need to create any playlist as I can simply look at the folders, pick one, and start playing.

Any chance something similar will ever land on XMPlay?

[Ian @ un4seen]

Although not quite the same thing, perhaps enabling the "Show filenames in extended list" and "full path" options (in the Playlist options page) will be close enough? You could then open your music folder in XMPlay (eg. drag'n'drop it or right-click the + button), and all of the audio files will get shown with full paths in the extended playlist window. You can set a "List - Show filenames in ext list" shortcut for easy switching between titles and filenames. You can also hover over a playlist entry to see both its title and filename. If the list appears unsorted, you can use the "Sort by full path" option (right-click the ? button) to fix that.

[verysame]

Thank you, Ian

Yes, that's how I currently have XMPlay setup.
As you can imagine, the problem is that once I add a folder to the list the list grows and now I have a long list of tracks which is hard to navigate.
The only option left I can think of to keep the list tidy is to add and then remove the tracks, basically to keep only a couple of folders in the list but that's not handy either.

Too bad an explorer-like feature is not implemented, that would tick the last box for the perfect audio player for me.
At the moment, I don't think there's another player that can match quality, portability, and lightness as XMPlay and I think I tried them all!

[Ian @ un4seen]

Another option is to use XMPlay's library feature and set it to monitor your music folder(s) so that changes are picked-up automatically. The library window has a full path display option but can also display other info alongside it, ie. you're not limited to one or the other like the playlist is. Right-click on the library column headers to choose what's shown. If you enable the "Replace playlist when playing" option in the Library options page then the playlist will be replaced whenever you play tracks from the library (note you can select multiple tracks at a time, eg. a whole album), to prevent it getting cluttered.