Collection Identification

[bshonbeck]

I'm fairly new at this (120+ albums) and just ran into a minor issue with Collections.  Yesterday I created a second collection for my wife's music and imported a single WAV file that I had done a decade ago in Audacity.  All went smoothly, a testament to this software's design.  However this morning I was continuing with adding to my collection and forgot that my wife's collection was the last one in use.  So when I recorded the album, it went into her collection, requiring me to do the collection album transfer procedure. 

Here's where I think a simple improvement could be made.  On the Record page, could there be a banner of some sort to highlight what collection the recording will be going to?  Yes, the title at the very top of the page does show the collection file name but it is not exactly prominent.  When doing work among multiple collections, it would be real helpful to have the active collection prominently displayed. 

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

I think it's unlikely we will do this.  The window title is adequate, in our view.

Please note though that VinylStudio Pro can copy or move albums between collections.  There's a video about that on our tutorials page:

https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=725.0

[bshonbeck]

I had watched the video and alluded to using that procedure in my post.  It is a shame it is not felt this modification is wanted.  I could also picture a drop-down list of collections on the Record page so that it could be selected at record time.  Oh well....

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

We just don't feel it justifies the screen space, sorry.  There's a list of recently opened collections in the File menu.

[LateJunction]

I assume that, in the final analysis, the functional changes you make to VS must reflect, to some degee, the feedback you receive in this forum. I would like to comment on this specific aspect ('Collection Identification'):

Even after all these years of using VS (because there is no comparable alternative), I still stumble over the problems caused by failing to open the intended collection before I start recording a new album. Also, being intellectually incapable of understanding the value of 'rtfm' (or video in this case), I recently tried my own approach to moving an album from an inappropriate collection. After a day of trying this method  I decided it was quicker to re-record the album and then spend another few hours clearing up the mess within VS's 'database' that I had made.

All this coould have been avoided if the product had made it very clear to me what collection I was working in.

As an adjunct problem, I just discovered the issue of  making a recording after a very long break from using VS. After a rebuild of the laptop I use for VS I started afresh with newly purchased VS Premium but forgot about the defaults used by VS (and documented well, it must be said). So I ended up with my recording in a collection called 'My Albums', within a folder called 'My Recordings', in the documents folder on my C drive - where none of the other 250+ albums I have recorded reside (on a large external drive). Fortunately, with the information you have documented in the Help file, I did finally relocate these recordings. A video on how to move a collection and its included albums from one drive to another would be useful

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

> All this could have been avoided if the product had made it very clear to me what collection I was working in

It does!  It's in the title bar of the window at all times.

> A video on how to move a collection and its included albums from one drive to another would be useful

There's one on our tutorials page:

https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=725.0

[bshonbeck]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I fully understand LateJunction's frustration.  His point was that the Collection in use be 'very clear'.  When you are working on a large screen and dealing with the various popup windows that nicely lead you through the process of ripping, having the Collection name tucked away in the top left corner of the screen is not 'very clear' IMHO.  That setting is central to the ripping you are doing at that moment, as important as any of the other features on the Record New Album popup.

And now I'll get off the soapbox...

In spite of this, you have an awesome product!

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

OK, we'll add something to the 'Create / Record new album' dialog.

[bshonbeck]

Awesome!  Thanks Paul!

[LateJunction]

In spite of this, yo u have an awesome product!

I have said the same thing in the past but it bears repeating.

For example, just last night I discovered that the product supports the use of external software to do some editing. Brilliant. Just a few days agao I found the notes I made 7 years ago on how to 'interrupt' VS's procedues in order to use 3rd party click and noise reduction software. At the time it was so complicated that I had to draw a flow chart, which even now has taken me an hour to understand. If I had just read the help file I would have seen how to do this quite simply. And it all (*) works to my great satisfaction.

(*) Subject to development on the clarity of the user interface wrt to name of current collection !

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

> Subject to development on the clarity of the user interface wrt to name of current collection

It will be in the Create New Album / Record New Album dialog, that's all.  We can't scatter it around everywhere, when would we stop?  I'd just get used to checking the title bar tbh, all apps work that way to display the 'current document'.