Well, I've been tinkering with windows media player 11 beta 2 for the last couple of days. After using WMP10 avidly for the last 2-3 years, I had reservations on any functional improvements I might see from this update. At best, I hoped for faster access to my 5000+ library of songs, and an aesthetic upgrade; basically the bare minimum of what could be asked.
Aesthetically…
I am pleased with how it’s turning out, simply on the side of eye candy and view. Let me step out, shortly, to let you know I’ll be using the words “functional” and “restrictive” throughout this post quite frequently. Back to the topic, the eye candy and interactive features were a nice change. I’ve grown somewhat bored looking at the same window over the years. However, I feel like I’ve only been treated to a skin in this beta release. I never used skins with WMP10 because I felt they restricted the user greatly in a functional realm. WMP11, in this regard, is a nightmare. Personally, I feel one should never have to sacrifice functionality for looks. This became especially frustrating when I couldn’t change the background of my library from a violently bright white to a more easy-on-the-eyes darkish “whatever” color. Again, WMP11 looks good, but if you’re unsatisfied with its looks at all, Microsoft has written you a nice “Deal with it!” letter; its in your mailbox.
Functionality…
This beta release, I was hoping that many of the features I commonly used in WMP10 would stay intact. Instead I was treated to a flurry of iconic crap, overloading my senses and distracting from what I really wanted to do. The first order of business was to set things the way I like them, and after years of experience building play lists and organizing music, I’m fairly sure I know better then Microsoft how I want to run things. So I set to change all menus from Icon/Thumbnail view to a more suitable “Details” view. It was a success, and quickly I felt warm and fuzzy all over. But where are the details of each artist, where are the songs? Well, you have to double click the artist, taking you out of the artists tab, in order to view all said songs. This to me is incredibly annoying; not only do I loose quick access to my music, I have to treat my music player like a web page. After searching through all the settings, I discovered I was screwed. This would be the first of many instances involving me being angry at it, the blob of restrictive options known as WMP11.
Play lists…
I put my angst to rest, perhaps I will adapt I thought. I then proceeded to attempt a play list. I double clicked on a song amongst some Led Zeppelin I wanted to add to my list. Instead of adding the song to the list, instead of adding the album to the list; knowing what I wanted to do better then myself, WMP11 added Led Zeppelin III to a completely separate play list I couldn’t access without going to the “Now Playing” section. Hmm, I thought, I’ve got to change it. I want WMP11 to add the song on double click; if you too, like that feature of WMP10, crap in your pants right now. Pay close attention to this next sentence, it summarizes WMP11. The options to personalize could not be found; in fact, I can’t manipulate that action, or seemingly any action, in any way, what-so-ever. I walked away from this with a bad taste in my mouth.
Luckily, Microsoft has decided I’m right about one thing, drag and drop play list creation is still here. So, I proceeded to drag and drop about 100 songs into an “Easy listening” play list for the night’s entertainment; I saved it, and cleared it. Clicking on “Now Playing” got me to a familiar view, with not much changed besides a nice layout. I clicked on the tab right above the “Untitled Play list” hoping to find the means to bring my play list up. Instead, I get an incredible slew of 4-5 options. That’s about it. None of which pertain to importing said play list. Instead, I have to navigate through the libraries maze of web page styled crap to discover the play list section, followed with another convenient drag and drop. By now I have started my Google search for WMP10, just incase.
To Be Continued…
