Introduction to the user interface

Overview

The user interface of Helium Music Manager is logically divided into different panes. This is designed to make the process of managing your music collection simple once you have learnt what the different panes represent, even though at first glance it might seem complex.

Sections

• The Main Menu & Toolbar
• The Views Toolbar
• The Left Sidebar
• The Track List
• The Active Playlist
• The Right Sidebar
• The Album Pictures Panel
• The Internal Player
• Tips and tricks

The Main Menu & Toolbar

The main menu & toolbar area is the area marked in red in the screen to the right. At the top is the main menu; where you have direct access to the most common functions in Helium Music Manager.

Just below the main menu (to the left) is the main toolbar. From this toolbar you have quick access to a few commonly used functions in Helium Music Manager. You can customize which buttons you want to be visible on the toolbar by right clicking on the toolbar area and selecting Customize Main Toolbar from the context menu.

The Search Toolbar

To the right of the main toolbar is the search toolbar. The search toolbar is used when you wish to perform a search quickly. The results are presented in the Search view, which will be introduced later in this text. Please note that you can select the type of data that you would like to search for by pressing the magnify-glass icon . By default Helium Music Manager tries to match your expression on all arguments.

 

 

 

The Main Toolbar

The Main Toolbar is located below the main & search toolbars, marked in red in the image to the right.
From this toolbar you are able to execute several of Helium Music Managers commands quickly.

You can customize this toolbar to contain the command you prefer.

For more information, click the links below:

• Customizing the Main Toolbar

• More information about the Main Toolbar

 

 

The Left Sidebar

The Left Sidebar is the area marked in red in the screen to the right. When navigating between different browsers, the contents of the Left Sidebar are changed according to the selected view.

To the very left of the Left Sidebar there is another small panel. This panel is a quick collapse/expand panel. Clicking this panel toggles between a collapsed or an expanded left sidebar.

The Left Sidebar can be resized freely except for three unique cases:
When you are in either the Album Browser, the Artist Browser or in the Music Library and have the browser filter (located at the top of the Left Sidebar) visible, you can only reduce the width of the sidebar to a pre-determined minimum width.
Closing the filter lets you resize the left sidebar freely without any constraints.

Each left sidebar has its own bottom toolbar, with quick access to common functions.
You can choose to hide/show these toolbars from the Options dialog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Track List

The Track List is the pane where you find your files. This List is populated from several different tasks, when you select an album, when you perform a search etc.

The Track List contains columns at the top which can be adapted to your choice by either choosing View | Columns | Select Columns or right clicking on the column header and choosing Select Columns from the contextual menu. You can re-order the currently selected columns by simply dragging them to a new location.
You can sort the contents by a specific column by simply clicking the column. You can also define a standard sorting with up to three levels of sorting that are applied each time the contents in the Track List are updated. To define this sorting either choose Edit | Track List Sorting... or right click on the column header and choose Track List Sorting...

The Track List can be configured to display different background coloring on each track. You can for example choose to display tracks in the Track List with tags with a white background color and tracks without tags with a pale pink color to be able to quickly see which tracks need further adjustments.

The Database driven views have a unique filter facility which works with the Track List. You can choose to enable the Track List Filter from View | Track List Filter. In the Track List filter you can enter expressions that must be matched to display a track. Tracks not matching the entered argument will not be visible.

The track list can be viewed in either a detailed mode or as thumbnails. Click here to read more about the thumbnail mode.

 

 

 

 

The Active Playlist

The Active Playlist is the pane located just below the Track List. The Active Playlist is (as the name implies) the Playlist currently in use.

Helium Music Manager uses the Active Playlist to play all tracks you have added to the Active Playlist, from top to bottom. When a track is being played, it will be shown with a bright orange background.

To add items to the Active Playlist, either right click a track and select Enqueue | Enqueue Files... or Enqueue | Enqueue Directory.... You can also take advantage of drag 'n' drop to add tracks to the Active Playlist from the most views in Helium Music Manager. Below are a few examples listed

• The selected tracks from the Track List
• An Album Item from the Album Browser
• A Playlist or a Smart Playlist from the Playlist Browser
• External files and folders

Just below the Active Playlist is located a quick collapse/expand bar. This works the same as for the Left Sidebar, but it collapses/expands the Active Playlist.

Click here to learn more about working with the Active Playlist

 

 

The Right Sidebar

The Right Sidebar is located to the right of the Track List and the Active Playlist. The Right Sidebar contains three sub-views (except when you are working in the Music Information Browser, when only one sub-view is active.)
The following sub-views are available

• Now Playing - Shows information about the track currently being played
• Summary - Shows information for the track/tracks selected
• Quick Tag Editor - Allows quick editing of basic tags for the selected track

The Summary and the Quick Tag Editor are not available when you are working with the Music Information Browser.

To the very right of the Right Sidebar, a quick collapse/expand bar is available. It works in the same way as for the Left Sidebar and the Active Playlist, except that it affects the Right Sidebar.

 

 

 

 

The Album Pictures Panel

The Album Pictures panel shows attached pictures for the file selected in the Track List. If the files contains pictures attached in the tags, these will be show, otherwise the original album picture will be shown. If the original album picture is unavailable, Helium Music Managers thumbnailed version will be shown.

 
The Album Pictures panel can also display the current album image for the file that is currently being played.
 
When displaying a file with attached pictures you can quickly choose which picture that should be displayed from the context menu, if the file contains multiple attached pictures.
 
The Album Pictures panel will by default be located below the Left Sidebar, but the panel can be drag and docked to other positions.

 

 

The Internal Player

At the bottom of Helium Music Manager you will find the Internal Player pane.
The Internal Player shows information about the track that is currently playing as well as offering the most common replay functions.

Apart from the most common player facilities, it contains functions which let you view available sub-tracks and quickly jump to a specific sub-track.
The rightmost button lets you toggle between standard mode and player mode. When you are running Helium Music Manager in player mode, only the Internal Player is shown, and Helium Music Manager acts as a "player" rather than a full-sized music management application.

 

 

 

 

Tips and Tricks

• Take time to learn what the different panes do and how they work. This will simplify the rest of your Helium Music Manager usage.
• Learn to use the quick collapse/expand bars to effectively get the maximum workspace area needed.
• You can drag tracks out of the tracklist to other applications. This can be useful if you for example would like to burn a few tracks visible in the tracklist with Nero (for example) or add the selected tracks to Winamp's playlist. Drag the selected tracks to the receiving application and drop them.