For the past couple of months, I have been quite busy testing and writing a preview on the upcoming Meta<Browser /> 2.0 application that has been under rapid development.  All I will say is that I have been continuously awed by what I have seen.

Check here on Friday for an extremely detailed look at where this application is and what it is capable of.

Click image for high-res screenshot

Craig Thomas (craigt on the Media Browser forums and creator of the Chocolate theme, as well as other plugins) has announced a new theme in the works…Simplicity.  You can see a couple of screenshots of it on his site.

Be sure to click on the Simplicity link at the top of the page to get to the screenshots and current progress page.

It looks pretty nice, but then again, I’ve always been a fan of less-is-more.

I’ve just uploaded an update to the ImagesByName actors.  It includes 292 new actor images and is about 10MB in size.  You can get it in the Downloads section.  Mirror will be available soon.

I also want to say that the ImagesByName Subfolder Project on the Media Browser forums may soon be hosted here.  They have been doing a terrific job as of late creating, collecting and organizing images for all ImagesByName subfolders.  However, it appears that my modest little actors package is the one that gets most of the link-backs from the more popular sites, so I decided to reach out to them in hopes of hosting their packages here where they may get a much wider audience (while giving you many more options).

Check back often as things materialize on that front…I may have to create a new dedicated page for that project if it gets off the ground.

I have just finished uploading my latest update.  It is available in the downloads section.

It’s pretty small (5.3MB) with only 116 images.  I didn’t really keep track of how many are new and reworks.  I’d imagine it’s about 75 new with the rest being reworks.

So a few days ago I hinted on about the Big Refactor branch of the Media Browser project and then bombed out when a later SVN update seemingly removed everything that I had previously seen.  Well, I didn’t look very closely, but it didn’t go anywhere…they just incorporated into the XML to be turned on or off and had changed it all to “off” by default.

So, after compiling another build this morning and actually building an MSI with it instead of using the devinstall batch, I decided to see what I could do with this build…and it’s pretty freakin’ awesome.

There’s really not a whole lot that has changed once you get into the core of Media Browser…the settings, views and whatnots are pretty much unchanged.  I know that everything that makes it work has been redone to make it quicker and more stable, but I’m not getting into any of that.  What I’m going to show is the new root page.

So, let’s go start to finish with the screens.  I didn’t get a chance to let all of my images cache, so some of the screens will be somewhat incomplete, but I wanted to get these to you all since you’ve been waiting patiently.

First, we have the ProgramData folder which you’ll notice is a bit different.  Not everything in there comes with the new build because I didn’t do a cleanup before running the MSI.

Now you’ll see the entire Cache folder has been slightly changed/added to:

Looking at the XML, you’ll see some new additions.  The root page…

…weather and sync views!

OK, OK…enough with the technical stuff, I know.  Here’s the new root page (remember, not all of my images had loaded yet, so don’t go thinking the posters don’t work because they do!).  I’m loving the display of the latest added shows!  Notice the weather display at the bottom right!

The rest of the screens are just shots of a few different views and whatnot.  I haven’t done any comparisons or looked very closely, so I can’t say for certain if much, or anything, has changed from what you’re using now.  Enjoy!

Default detail view with actors page:

Vanilla Cover Flow view:

Vanilla detail view:

Vanilla Strip view (I think this is new, but I don’t use Vanilla themes, so I’m not sure.  You just scroll left and right).

Vanilla settings/config:

Well, that’s all I have for now.  There is also a new popup menu if you hit play on a folder containing multiple shows, but I could not produce this since I’m remoting in and there is no keyboard shortcut for it.  Basically, you go to a folder containing multiple shows, hit the “Play” button and you will get a popup menu to play random episodes or all (it actually may work for single titles so you can go directly to playing without entering the details screen).  Another very nice addition.

I have to say, I’ve been testing Media Browser ever since they resumed development when it was still Video Browser and I never dreamed it would get to where it is now.  I’m continually amazed at what these guys have done and continue to do.

Thank you Media Browser team and hope all your fans enjoy this sneak peek at what is to come!