intro

general information

The Urman Media Manager is a desktop application that allows you to manage your media collection effectively. This task is completed through utilization of metadata base. You are responsible for completeness and accuracy of metadata in the media and metadata files. The more complete and accurate the metadata, the more manageable the media behind it.

media sources

When you start Urman for the first time you see a big disabled area called the pick panel, and some buttons one of which is red. The pick table is empty because there are no tracks yet to show. Click the red button to start the media sources dialog where you can specify what directories with media and metadata files Urman is to manage and then get Urman search for metadata. The count column in the dialog shows the number of relevant files in each directory. It is zero for newly added directories and will be updated after the scan. When the searching is done, in the pick table you'll see a list of audio tracks that Urman has detected in the specified media sources. Information about the total number, duration, and size of all the tracks will be available in the tooltip of the media sources button that won't be red by now.

the pick panel

columns

In the columns settings dialog you can select which columns of metadata you want to see in the pick table and in what order. You can start the dialog from the context menu of the table header (right-click), and then drag-and-drop items between and within the lists of shown and hidden columns.

sorting

If you want to sort the tracks in the table then left-click the corresponding column caption and choose one of the sorting schemes. Columns with an ascending order have a greenish caption and columns with a descending order have a bluish one.
You can reorder the tracks by sorting metadata in multiple columns. In this case, position of the columns matters: the leftmost column will have the highest priority in sorting, and the farther other columns to the right the less priority they'll have. You can change position of the columns in the columns settings dialog.

filtering

If you want to filter out the tracks then use the filter bar at the top of the pick panel. The filter is only applied to the metadata for which a corresponding column in the table is shown, i.e. if you want to see all tracks containing the filtering words in their title then the column "title" must be there in the table. You can add or remove columns in the columns settings dialog.
Now just enter a word or two in the filter field and the table will only be repopulated with tracks having your words as part of their metadata. Numbers on the left of the filter bar provide information about the total number, duration, and size of the matched tracks.

selecting

You can select tracks in the pick table one by one by pressing and holding the Ctrl key, or in a range by pressing and holding the Shift key or by dragging the mouse over. If you want to select all the displayed tracks then use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A. Every time the selection changes the information about the total number, duration, and size of the selected tracks on the right of the filter bar gets updated.

operations with selected tracks

The operations can be invoked from the context menu of the pick table (right-click).

• play
  Replaces the current playlist with selected tracks and plays it. If you want to play just one track, just double-click it in the pick table.

• enqueue
  Adds selected tracks to the current playlist.

• edit audio
  Opens the current track in a media editor specified in the file associations settings. Disabled if no editor command has been specified.

• edit metadata
  Opens the current track in a metadata editor specified in the file associations settings. Disabled if no editor command has been specified.

• file associations
  Starts the file associations dialog. See below for details.

• move
  Moves selected tracks to another directory. The tracks will be removed from Urman.

• copy
  Copies selected tracks to another directory.

• delete
  Deletes selected tracks from the file system and Urman.

file associations

In the file associations dialog you can set commands for media and metadata editors. A command can be picked from a drop-down menu or entered manually. You can start the dialog from the context menu of the pick table (right-click).

the play panel

There is a button in the main tool bar to hide, unhide and set keyboard focus on the panel. If the panel is shown when you press the button it will get the focus if it doesn't have it or will be hidden if it already has the focus.

player

Disabled if there are no tracks in the playlist. The playback control buttons will be available when appropriate.

playlist

The current item has a play icon on the right. The item is also shown in the window title bar. If you want to play an item, just double-click it. You can drag items within the playlist to change their order. The context menu is disabled if there are no tracks in the playlist.

operations with selected tracks

The operations can be invoked from the context menu of the playlist (right-click).

• remove selected
  Removes selected items from the playlist. If one of the items is current, playback will be stopped.

• the last to play
  Selected item will be the last to play and playback will be stopped thereafter. The item will have a stop icon on the right if it's not current or a skip forward button otherwise. You can unset it by repeating the process.

• clear
  Clears the playlist. Playback will be stopped.

• auto-scroll
  Scrolls the playlist to a new current item automatically if it's not visible in the viewport. Enabled by default. Press to disable.

• remove duplicates
  Removes all duplicate items from the playlist. Disabled if there are no duplicates.

keyboard shortcuts

Not everything in Urman has shortcuts but the plan is to make Urman as keyboard-friendly as possible.