Managing Your Media Library

Windows Media Player’s Media Library feature lets you gather all kinds of media files into a single outlined list, where everything is easy to relocate and replay. Related items in Media Library are automatically gathered into playlists, and you can create additional custom playlists of your favorite tracks.

As Figure 17-7 shows, Media Player’s Media Library uses two panes to display your library. The left pane is an outline, and the right pane displays the details of the left pane’s current selection.

Figure 17-7. Windows Media Player uses an outline to organize your media library.

Adding Items to Your Media Library

As you have seen, if you’ve already copied some CDs to your hard disk, copied audio CDs automatically become part of your media library. Windows Media Player creates entries in the audio section of your library for album titles, artist names, and musical genres. Adding tracks by copying CDs is, however, only one of several ways to build your library.

Using Search to Add Items

A very effective way to populate your media library is to let Windows Media Player search your disks for media files. To do this, choose Tools, Search For Media Files, or press F3. Click the Advanced button in the Search For Media Files dialog box to reveal the full dialog box, as shown in Figure 17-8.

Figure 17-8. Windows Media Player can populate your media library by searching disks for media files.

By default the program searches all local drives, ignoring audio files smaller than 100 KB and video files smaller than 500 KB, and ignoring system folders. These defaults filter out sounds and videos employed by the operating system (your logon and logoff melodies, for example), while collecting media items that you’re likely to want to hear or see again.

caution

Ifyou have more than one version of Windows installed on your local hard drives, the default search parameters will not filter out sounds used by that other operating system. If you search all local drives using these defaults, your library will acquire such items as Tada, the Microsoft Sound, and the Windows Logon Sound. No harm is done if these and similar works find their way into your library, but you will probably want to delete them eventually. You should also be wary of running broad search-and-gather operations if you have media-rich applications such as Microsoft Encarta on board. Otherwise your library is likely to collect dozens of inscrutably named audio and video files that might not be terribly useful out of context.

To limit the search to a particular drive, open the Search On list. To focus on a particular folder and all of its subfolders, click Browse. In the Browse For Folder dialog box that appears, you can specify shared network folders as well as local folders.

Adding Items When Played

If you download media from the Internet, you have a choice about whether to add such items to your library automatically. If you want every item you play to take up residence in the library, choose Tools, Options, and click the Media Player tab. Then select Add Items To Media Library When Played. Otherwise, leave this check box clear.

Adding Specific Files or URLs

If you don’t add media items automatically the first time you play them, you can drag a media file from Windows Explorer (or your desktop) and drop it onto Media Player’s right pane to bring the item into your library. Or you can choose File, Add To Media Library. The submenu that appears lets you specify a file, a URL, or whatever item is currently playing.

Searching for Items in Your Media Library

As your library grows, you might find it more and more difficult to locate particular items of interest. Windows Media Player’s Search command can help.

note

Don’t confuse the Search command that searches the items already in your media library with the Tools, Search For Media Files command that searches your hard disk(s) for content to add to the library.

To search your library, first click Media Library in the taskbar (if you’re not already there). Then click Search in the button bar above the library. In the Search Media Library dialog box, specify words to search by and categories of media information to search, and then click the Search button.

Working with Playlists

A playlist is a collection of media items that Windows Media Player can play back as a unit, in either linear or random order. Each item listed at the lowest level in Media Library’s left pane is a playlist. So, for example, in Figure 17-9, the Paul Simon entry listed in the Artist category is a playlist consisting of tracks from two albums, Live Rhymin’ and Still Crazy After All These Years. If you want to listen only to one of the Paul Simon albums, each album is available as a playlist in the Album category. Similarly, you can listen to all items of a given genre by selecting one from the Genre category.

Figure 17-9. Each item at the lowest level of the Media Library outline constitutes a playlist.

Creating a Custom Playlist

You can create custom playlists to combine your favorite tracks, to compare several performances of the same piece, or to serve whatever purpose you choose. Follow these steps to create a custom playlist:

1. Click New Playlist at the top of the Media Library window.

2. Enter a name for your playlist in the New Playlist dialog box, and click OK.

3. To add a track to a custom playlist, select a track from the right pane of the library and drag it to the new playlist entry in the left pane, or right-click the track in the right pane and choose Add To Playlist. In the latter case the Playlists window appears, in which you select the playlist you want to add the track to. (You can also create a new playlist from this window by clicking New.)

Figure 17-10 shows a custom playlist that combines performances of the Chopin Preludes by four different pianists, with the tracks from the four albums interleaved to facilitate comparison.

Figure 17-10. One use for a custom playlist is to compare performances of the same music by different artists.

Editing a Custom Playlist

You can change the order in which tracks appear in your custom playlists (but not in the playlists that Windows Media Player generates itself). The simplest way to rearrange a custom playlist is to display it in Media Library, and then drag tracks upward or downward with your mouse. You can also do this in Now Playing, if the playlist is displayed along the right side of your screen.

To reorder a custom playlist with menu commands, right-click an item you want to move. Then choose Move Up or Move Down from the shortcut menu.

tip - Change the playlist order—temporarily

You can change the play order of any playlist, custom or default, by sorting on a different field. Want to play an album’s tracks in alphabetical order? Select the album in the left pane of the Media Library window and click the Title heading in the right pane. Click a second time to reverse the sort order (that is, change A–Z to Z–A). You can also use this technique to play an album’s shortest or longest tracks first or to play the tracks according to their play counts—the number of times each track has been played. Unlike changes that you make to custom playlists with the Move Up and Move Down commands, however, sorting changes are temporary. The next time you start Windows Media Player, everything will appear in the original order.

To delete an item from a custom playlist, right-click it and choose Delete From Playlist. (Be sure not to choose Delete From Library—unless you want to remove it from the library altogether, not just from the custom playlist.)

tip - Change the playlist order—permanently

The only way to permanently customize the play order of a playlist that Windows Media Player generates is to copy it to a custom playlist. For instance, you might have copied a CD to your disk and want to play the tracks in a special sequence that can’t be set by sorting on one of the category fields in the right pane. To play the disc in your preferred custom order each time you select it, follow these steps the first time:

1. Select the album (or an artist if you prefer) in the left pane.

2. Click anywhere in the right pane and press Ctrl+A to select all the tracks.

3. Right-click the selected tracks and choose Add To Playlist.

4. Click the New button, and then name the new playlist.

5. Select the new playlist in the My Playlists section and arrange the tracks exactly as you like.

Your custom list will contain the same tracks as the one generated by Windows Media Player, but you can always play back your list in your custom order, and you can rearrange the order whenever you like.

Exporting and Importing Playlists

You can save a playlist in a file by selecting the playlist in Media Library’s left pane and then choosing File, Export Playlist To File. These steps create a file with an .asx extension. You can replay the saved playlist by double-clicking the .asx file in Windows Explorer (provided the media files themselves are still present). An .asx file consists of a plain-text description of your playlist that can be read in Notepad or a similar text editor. (To open an .asx file, right-click it in Windows Explorer, choose Open With, and specify Notepad.) As Figure 17-11 shows, the file uses XML tags to specify the name, genre, artist, and other parameters of each track in the list.

Within each <Entry> block, the line that begins <Param Name = "SourceURL" specifies the location and name of the entry’s media file. If these SourceURL lines specify paths that are valid on another computer, you can reuse your .asx file on that other computer. For example, if you’ve copied CDs to more than one computer and you have the same folder structure on both computers, your exported playlist will work on both computers. If the paths are not valid on the computer on which you want to use your playlist file, you can edit the SourceURL lines. For example, if your other computer is networked with the computer where the media files are stored, you can make the exported playlist file work on that other computer by replacing local paths with network paths on the SourceURL lines.

Figure 17-11. An .asx file uses XML tags to describe the items of your playlist.

Windows Media Player can also import playlists in a wide variety of formats, including formats created by other media programs. Choose File, Import Playlist To Media Library. In the Open dialog box that appears, use the Files Of Type list to specify Media Playlist (*.asx, *.wax, *.m3u, *.wvx, *.wmx) and then choose the playlist file you want to import.

Editing Metadata Tags in the Media Library

Information in the right pane of Media Library is organized in categories, the first five of which—Title, Artist, Album, Composer, and Genre—are editable (the rest are read-only). You can edit anything that appears in these first five columns by right-clicking it and choosing Edit from the shortcut menu. While you’re editing, you can move from column to column by pressing Tab or Shift+Tab, and move from row to row by pressing the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key.

If you’re going to make the same editing change to an entire column, select all the rows first (click the first entry and then Shift+click the last entry). Then right-click and choose Edit Selected Items. Move to the column you want to edit by pressing Tab or Shift+Tab, make the edit in one row, and then press Enter to duplicate the edit to the entire column.

All editable data in the right pane of Media Library is metadata. That is, what you’re doing when you edit is changing the values of tags associated with your media files, not file names. To change file names, you need to work in Windows Explorer.

Adding Lyrics to Songs

You can add lyrics to a song’s metadata and then display those lyrics as you play the song. Start by right-clicking your song’s entry in Media Library. Choose Properties from the shortcut menu and then click the Lyrics tab. Enter or edit the lyrics there, as shown in Figure 17-12.

To display the song’s lyrics in Now Playing while you play it back, choose View, Now Playing Tools, Lyrics. As Figure 17-13 shows, Windows Media Player centers the lyrics display.

Figure 17-12. Use the Lyrics tab of a song’s Properties dialog box to enter or edit lyrics.

Figure 17-13. In Now Playing, you can display your song’s lyrics.

Working with Your Media Library in Windows Explorer

Windows Media Player’s Media Library and Windows Explorer are tightly integrated, so that you can manipulate your library easily in either context. If you rename or move a media file in Windows Explorer, Windows Media Player will figure out what you have done; you won’t have to rebuild or edit your library in any way. If you delete an item using Windows Explorer, the item will remain in your library. But the first time you try to play it, Windows Media Player will display the deleted track in red and go on to the next track in the playlist. If you right-click the track that now appears in red, and then choose Error Details from the shortcut menu, a dialog box like this one appears.

If the item still exists somewhere (other than in your Recycle Bin) and Windows Media Player is mistaken about the deletion, click Browse and help Windows Media Player find it. If you have deleted it and want to remove the listing from your media library, select the Remove File From Media Library check box and then click OK.

By default, Windows Media Player stores copied CD tracks in My Music, a subfolder of My Documents. As Figure 17-14 shows, Windows Media Player populates My Music with artist folders, storing album folders within artist folders and individual tracks within the album folders. At the top level of this structure, Windows Explorer’s thumbnails view uses album art to adorn the folders; you can display as many as four album images on a folder this way (the Paul Simon folder in Figure 17-14, for example, includes two images, because it contains two album folders—Live Rhymin’ and Still Crazy After All These Years).

tip - Use your own art

To use any album image as folder art, save it in the album folder with the file name Folder.jpg.

At any level of this folder structure—My Music, an artist folder, or an album folder—Windows Explorer’s left pane conveniently offers links to relevant tasks. You can play an entire folder (including all the individual media items in its subfolders) by

Figure 17-14. Windows Explorer uses album art in thumbnails view.

selecting the folder and clicking Play Selection. Or you can play all media items in My Music by selecting nothing there and clicking Play All. In either case, Windows Explorer passes the list of media items to Windows Media Player, which builds and plays a temporary playlist.

If you click Shop For Music Online, Windows Explorer transports you to Burning Custom CDs," opposite.

Deleting Items from Your Media Library

When you delete an item from your media library—by right-clicking it in the right pane and choosing Delete From Library—Windows Media Player transfers the item to the Deleted Items section of the library. If you change your mind, go to Deleted Items\All Deleted Media, right-click the item in the right pane, and choose Restore from the shortcut menu. To remove the item permanently, right-click it in All Deleted Media and choose Delete From Library. The following confirmation dialog box appears.

Click Yes, and the item is removed from your media library. Select the check box first, and Windows Media Player will also remove the music file from your hard disk.

To delete a custom playlist, right-click its name under My Playlists, in the left pane of Media Library. Then choose Delete from the shortcut menu. Windows Media Player will transfer the playlist to the Deleted Items folder. Select the playlist there, press Tab to moveto the right pane, press Ctrl+A to select all items in the playlist, right-click, and then choose Delete From Library. Without asking for confirmation, Windows Media Player will transfer the individual items to All Deleted Media.

tip

To clean out your All Deleted Media folder all at one time, select any item in the right pane of that folder, press Ctrl+A, right-click, choose Delete From Library, and then answer the confirmation prompt.