Track Specific Elements

Up-to-date with version 3.0.5973

This page covers layout elements that provide information or artwork related to a specific track. By default, Track Information and Lyrics are stacked together in the Right Sidebar. Other elements need to be turned on via Panels Configuration. If a panel has any available options, there will be a menu item for "Customize Panel..." that will open Preferences or another options window.

Sidebar Elements[]

Any of these elements can be shown in any of the Left Sidebar, Left Main Panel, Right Main Panel, or Right Sidebar. Track Information, Lyrics, and Artist Biography can also be shown in the Floating Window.

Tabbed elements with toggle button

Except for Artist Biography and Artist Picture, the track displayed can be either the currently Playing Track or the currently Selected Track(s).

You can always change which one to show using the menu at the top left of the panel.
If you have panels displayed as tabs (see Panels Configuration), there will also be a button at the top right that you can use to toggle Playing/Selected.
If panels are not displayed in tabs, the panel header bar will show [Selected] if you're displaying the selected tracks. If it doesn't say [Selected], you can assume the Playing Track is shown.
By default each panel toggles separately. If you would like for all panels to use the same setting for Playing/Selected, you can tick "synchronize playing/selected tracks across all panels" in Layout (1).

Track Information[]

(Called Details if there is limited space.) The Track Information panel draws its information from the tags and file properties of a specific track. You can display almost any info imaginable, as long as it's stored in the file or the MusicBee database.

If you are displaying Selected Tracks and have more than one track selected, the only info shown here will be that which matches for all tracks. For instance, if you had an entire album selected, you would probably be able to see Album, Album Artist, and Track Count, but not Title or Track #. (This is not true for the artwork: only artwork from the first selected track will be shown.)

Track Information options — Track Information settings

Layout[]

The first option in the Track Information settings is how you want the fields positioned relative to the album art:

Do Not Display Artwork
Show Artwork Above Fields
Show Artwork Left of Fields
Show Artwork Right of Fields
Show Artwork Below Fields (Default)

Next to the layout options, you can tell MusicBee what size you'd like the album art to be:

fit to panel: (Default) will size the artwork to fit the width of the panel
___ px: set a fixed width for the artwork

Fields[]

Underneath the layout settings, you will find 7 rows for configuring tag data. Each row has several sub-settings.

prompt

This is for any sort of lead-in you want for the line (for instance, naming the fields, like "Artist:").

fields

Allows you to configure what is displayed in each line. You can use Templates here, which provides a huge amount of flexibility. You can show multiple tags in one line, different tags for different types of music, and so on.

split multi-value tags into rows

Tick this to have MusicBee show one tag value per line, rather than cutting off or wrapping lines. Ignores max. row span, and causes the Display Artist tag to be ignored, showing the actual artist/performer/etc values instead.

contrast

Lets you set an opacity (% of foreground color vs background color) for each line.

use custom font

Allows you to customize the font of individual lines.

max. row span

Dictates how many rows a particular line/field can take up before being truncated with "...". A field will only take up as many rows as necessary; it won't leave blank rows.

Special Fields

You can choose to display certain Special Fields by ticking the boxes:

show track rating
and last.fm "Love" status
show file url
show track properties (Default: ticked)

Artist and Album link to

As long as the <Artist> or <Album> tag is by itself on a line (no formulas or extra characters used), it will be turned into an active link that you can click, pointing to either:

library filter: searches your library for that artist or album
artist information: (Default) shows artist or album in Recommendations node

Web Links[]

There are four built-in links that appear in the context menu when you right click on the Track Information panel:

[ http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], targeting the Artist
[ http://www.last.fm/ last.fm], targeting the Artist
[ http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube], targeting the Artist
[ http://www.songfacts.com/ Songfacts], targeting the Title

You can configure up to six more links in Internet Preferences. If you have the Web Browser Plugin enabled, MusicBee will open the links there; otherwise it will use your default browser.

show web links

Web Links in panel

If you tick the boxes, these links will be displayed directly in the Track Info panel.

artist profile on Wikipedia
artist news on Google News
music blogs [about the artist] on Hypem.com

Lyrics[]

Main article: Lyrics

MusicBee can display synchronized or unsynchronized lyrics. If a file is marked as having no lyrics, it will display "No Lyrics". If lyrics are missing, it will query the web services configured in Tags (2) using Artist and Title.

Lyrics Settings

custom font

This will customize the font for the whole panel.

use custom color for highlighted text

Colors the active line of synchronised lyrics.

Artist Biography[]

(Called Bio if there is limited space.) Displays the artist's biography from last.fm. Not available for Selected Tracks.

Album Cover and Artist Picture[]

Main article: Album Covers and Artist Pictures

The Album Cover panel will use the album cover (and any other artwork) associated with a track according to the settings in Tags (1). If no cover is found, it will query the web services configured in Tags (2) using Album Artist and Album. It will fit the cover to the size of the panel (both height and width), so if the panel is very tall or very wide there will probably be excess space.

The Artist Picture panel draws images from fanart.tv, htbackdrops.org, theaudiodb.com, and last.fm (in that order). It will rotate images about once a minute. MusicBee attempts to intelligently fit images to the shape of the panel, but results can vary. Not available for Selected Tracks.

Now Playing Bar[]

Track Information in the Now Playing Bar

The Now Playing Bar is sort of a combination of all of the sidebar track elements, except it shows only the Playing Track and is displayed across the bottom of the Main Panel.

By default, it shows the Artist Biography. The only difference from the sidebar version is that it includes an artist picture.

You can show Track Information here, instead. It uses the same settings as the Track Info panel, except that the artwork is always at the left and fits the panel size, and the only links available are the ones in the context menu (be careful of changing settings here if you don't want to change the standalone Track Info panel). Optionally, you can show Lyrics and an Artist Picture in this panel as well (turned on by default).

Another option is to show an embedded Theater Mode in this panel. A few are included for you; others are available for download, or you can design your own.

Layout

Panel Options	The Anatomy of MusicBee · Library Navigation · Track Information · Visualizations
Main Panel Views	Tracks · Album and Tracks · Album Covers · Artists · Custom Views
Other	Tabs Bar · Main Menu · Status Bar · Layout Preferences