What is the Library Explorer?

[TT-ReBORN]

What Is Library Explorer?

Library Explorer is a rich, artwork-focused browsing panel built into Georgia-ReBORN. Instead of navigating your music collection through a flat list, it opens an immersive, dedicated interface the moment you double-click an artist or album in the library. Think of it as stepping "inside" your library - you get a full-screen-style panel with artwork, metadata, track lists, and a suite of tools for exploring and interacting with your music, all without ever leaving the player.

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How to Open and Close It

Opening: Double-click any artist or album node in the standard Library grid or tree view. In grid view, double-clicking an artist opens the Artist View; double-clicking an album opens the Album View directly. In tree view mode, the same logic applies - double-clicking an artist node goes to Artist View, and double-clicking an album node goes to Album View.

Closing: Press Escape at any time to close the Explorer and return to the normal library. There is a close button (×) visible on mouse hover at the top right edge in the panel itself. For quick close, you can use the mouse wheel when the cursor is outside the album/track viewport area.

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The Five Views

Library Explorer has five distinct views. You can switch between them freely using the tab bar at the bottom of the panel.

1. Album View (Default)

This is the first thing you see when opening an album. It shows the full tracklist alongside the album's artwork.

Each track row displays its title, duration, and an optional statistic of your choice (play count, rating, bitrate, etc.). Tracks highlight on hover, and the currently playing track is visually marked.

Interacting with tracks:

• Double-click a track to play it immediately.
• Single-click to select it.
• Shift+click to select a continuous range of tracks.
• Ctrl+click to add or remove individual tracks from your selection without affecting the others.
• Click the album title in the header to select all tracks at once.
• Click the release year in the header to filter the library to that year.
• Right-click any selection to open the full foobar2000 context menu (with all standard operations like Send to Playlist, Properties, etc.).
• Enter on a focused track plays it.
• Arrow keys (Up/Down) move focus through the track list; holding Shift while pressing arrow keys extends the selection.

You can also drag selected tracks directly from the track list onto a playlist panel.

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2. Artist View

Artist View shows a grid of album thumbnails for the currently viewed artist, each annotated with a release year overlay (or shown as a text label below, depending on your settings).

The header displays a discography summary: total number of albums, total track count, and the year range of the artist's output. Clicking the artist name or their country flag in the header filters the library to that artist or country respectively.

Interacting:

• Click any album thumbnail to open that album in Album View.
• Enter on a focused thumbnail opens it.
• Arrow keys (Left/Right/Up/Down) navigate through the grid; the layout adapts to the number of columns available.
• Shift+arrow extends the selection across the grid.

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3. Details View

Details View provides a deep-dive into the metadata of individual tracks. All available tag fields for the focused track are shown as a clean key/value list.

When you have multiple tracks selected, the view switches to showing aggregated data - totals and averages across the entire selection (e.g. total duration, average bitrate, combined play count).

Navigating between tracks:

• Use the Previous (‹) and Next (›) buttons at the top of the view.
• Use Left/Right arrow keys to step through tracks.
• Use the mouse wheel to scroll through the metadata list.
• Up/Down arrow keys move selection through the individual metadata rows.
• Clicking the album title in this view switches to an aggregated summary of the full album.
• Pressing Enter opens the standard foobar2000 Properties dialog for the focused track.

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4. Similar Artists View

This view fetches artists similar to the one you are currently exploring, and displays them as a thumbnail grid with similarity scores.

Two data sources are available - Last.fm and ListenBrainz - and you can switch between them on the fly using the source toggle in the header. A second toggle lets you switch between showing only artists present in your local library, or showing external results (artists from the web who may not be in your collection).

Customization: You can manually edit and save a custom list of similar artists per artist. This overrides the online data and gives you full control over who appears. Use the Edit tab button to modify the list.

Interacting:

• Click any artist thumbnail to navigate to their Artist View.
• Enter on a focused item opens that artist.
• Arrow keys and Shift+arrow work the same as in Artist View.

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5. Missing Releases View

Missing Releases compares the artist's full online discography (sourced from Discogs, Last.fm, or MusicBrainz, depending on your configured source) against your local library, then shows a grid of albums you don't own, complete with release year overlays and download icons where artwork is available.

The data source is switchable. Like Similar Artists, this list can be manually edited and saved per artist, so you can remove false positives or add entries that aren't detected automatically.

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The Tab Bar

At the very bottom of the Explorer panel sits a context-aware tab bar. It adapts to the available width: when there is enough space, tabs show both icons and text labels; in compact layouts, tabs shrink to icon-only mode with tooltips appearing on hover.

The available tab actions are:

Tab	What it does
Add	Appends the selected tracks (or all tracks if none are selected) to the active playlist
Artist	Navigates to Artist View for the current artist
Details	Opens the Details metadata view for the focused/selected tracks
Edit	Opens the editor for the Similar Artists or Missing Releases list
Links	Opens external links for the selected track (e.g. streaming services, artist pages)
Missing	Switches to Missing Releases View
Now	Jumps directly to the currently playing album (only shown when it differs from the displayed album)
Similar	Switches to Similar Artists View
Sort	Changes the sort field and direction for the current view
Stats	Changes which statistic is shown alongside each item in the current view

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Statistics Display

Any view can display a live statistic next to each item. Stats are selected independently per view, so your Album View can show play counts while your Artist View shows ratings.

Available statistics include: Play Count, Rating, Bitrate, File Size, Duration, Track Count, Popularity, Queue Position, Date Added, First Played, and Last Played.

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The Artwork Panel

A large artwork panel sits alongside the main column. It is not a passive decoration - it actively responds to your navigation:

• In Album View, it shows the album artwork.
• In Artist View and Similar Artists, it shows artist images.
• When multiple images are available (e.g. several artist photos), they cycle automatically on a configurable timer. You can also scroll through them manually with the mouse wheel when hovering over the artwork.
• If artwork is missing, a download icon appears in place of the image. Clicking it triggers your configured artwork downloader to fetch the missing artwork.
• Images support three scaling modes - Cropped, Proportional, or Stretched - configurable separately for album art and artist images.

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Compact Mode

When the Explorer panel is too narrow to display both the artwork panel and the content column side by side, it automatically switches to Compact Mode. In this layout the artwork panel is hidden and the full available width is given to the track list or album grid. No functionality is lost - you simply get more space for content on smaller panels.

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Keyboard Navigation Summary

Key	Action
Escape	Close Library Explorer
Enter	Play focused track / open focused album or artist / open Properties in Details View
Up / Down arrows	Move focus through track list or metadata rows
Left / Right arrows	Navigate between albums/columns in grid views; step between tracks in Details View
Shift + Arrow	Extend the current selection
Mouse wheel (on content)	Scroll the track list, grid, or metadata
Mouse wheel (on artwork)	Cycle through available images

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Theme Integration

Library Explorer is fully integrated with Georgia-ReBORN's theming system. Every visual element - backgrounds, text colors, selection highlights, side markers, and the scrollbar - inherits and dynamically updates based on the active color theme, style settings, and album art color extraction. When you switch themes or the album art changes, the Explorer's entire color palette updates in real time to match.

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Tree View Integration

Library Explorer works in both the standard Library grid view and the tree view. In tree view mode, double-clicking an artist node opens Artist View and double-clicking an album node opens Album View, seamlessly extending the existing library navigation without replacing it.

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Settings & Options

Library Explorer settings are accessible in two ways:

• Menu bar: Top Menu → Options → Library → Explorer
• Quick access: Right-click anywhere inside the Library panel → Library options menu → Explorer

Settings are organized into the following sub-menus.

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Artwork

Controls how images are scaled inside the Explorer panel.

Album image scaling - Sets the scaling mode for the large album artwork shown in Album View.

• Cropped - Fills the artwork area, cropping the edges to fit.
• Stretched - Stretches the image to fill the entire area, ignoring aspect ratio.
• Proportional - Scales the image to fit within the artwork area while preserving its aspect ratio.

Album thumb scaling - Same scaling options as above, applied to the smaller album thumbnails shown in the Artist View grid.

Artist image scaling - Sets the scaling mode for the large artist image shown in Artist View and Similar Artists View.

• Cropped / Stretched / Proportional - Same behaviour as the album artwork options above.

Artist thumb scaling - Same scaling options as above, applied to artist thumbnail images in the Similar Artists grid.

Full theme color change on new artwork - When enabled, the entire Georgia-ReBORN color theme (not just the Explorer panel) updates its palette based on the artwork of the album currently displayed in the Explorer, even if that album is not the one currently playing. A confirmation prompt is shown when enabling this option since it affects the global theme appearance.

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Controls

Keep playlist when playing - When enabled, double-clicking a track to play it does not modify or replace the active playlist. The track begins playing without any changes to your current queue. When disabled, playing a track from the Explorer replaces the active playlist with the Explorer's current tracklist.

Close on outside mouse wheel - When enabled, scrolling the mouse wheel while the cursor is positioned outside the track/album viewport area (for example, over the panel border or the sidebar) closes the Explorer. This provides a quick gesture-based way to dismiss the panel.

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Display

Display explorer in tree view - When enabled, the Explorer panel adopts a tree-style layout instead of the default grid layout, mirroring the appearance of the Library's own tree view mode.

Display tab icons only - When enabled, the tab bar at the bottom of the Explorer shows only icons, with no text labels. Useful for narrow panel layouts where saving horizontal space matters. Tooltips still appear on hover to identify each tab.

Display tab icon NowPlaying - When enabled, a dedicated Now Playing icon is shown in the tab bar, giving quick one-click access to jump to the currently playing album. When disabled, the Now Playing tab is hidden even if the displayed album differs from the one currently playing.

Display link icon in grid - When enabled, a small external link icon is overlaid on each album or artist thumbnail in the grid, giving quick access to configured external links (streaming services, artist pages, etc.) directly from the grid without opening the Links tab. Enabling or disabling this option clears the thumbnail cache so icons update immediately.

Album year in grid - Controls how the release year is shown on album thumbnails in the Artist View grid.

• Overlay - The year is displayed as a small badge directly over the artwork thumbnail.
• Text - The year is shown as a text label beneath the thumbnail.
• Disable - No year is shown on thumbnails.

Show track rating grid - When enabled, a small star rating indicator is displayed alongside each track row in Album View, showing the track's current rating at a glance.

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Downloads

Controls automatic downloading of album artwork and artist images. Artwork is downloaded from online sources and stored in a local cache, with optional actions to embed or save the files directly to your music folders.

Album Images

Album image auto-downloads - Controls whether album artwork is downloaded automatically when browsing albums that have no local artwork.

• Enabled - Artwork is fetched automatically in the background as you navigate. A confirmation prompt is shown when first enabling this option.
• Disabled - Artwork is only downloaded manually by clicking the download icon on a missing-art placeholder.

Album image download quality - Sets the quality (and therefore file size) of downloaded album artwork.

• Medium quality (smaller cache) - Downloads a compressed version of the artwork. Suitable for most uses and keeps the cache size manageable.
• Original quality (larger cache) - Downloads the highest resolution available. Produces sharper artwork but uses significantly more disk space.

Album image name saved in album folder - When the post-download action is set to Move to album folder, this setting controls the filename used when saving the downloaded image.

• Cover - Saves the file as cover.jpg.
• Folder - Saves the file as folder.jpg.
• Front - Saves the file as front.jpg.

Album image post-download action - Determines what happens to downloaded album artwork after it is fetched.

• Disabled (from cache) - The image is stored only in the Explorer's local cache. Your music files and folders are not modified.
• Embed into tracks - The downloaded artwork is embedded directly into the audio file tags of all tracks in the album. A confirmation prompt is shown before enabling this option, as it modifies your audio files.
• Move to album folder - The downloaded artwork is copied as an image file into the album's folder on disk. The filename used is determined by the Album image name saved in album folder setting above. A confirmation prompt is shown before enabling this option.

Artist Images

Artist image auto-downloads - Controls whether artist images are downloaded automatically when browsing artists that have no local artist image.

• Enabled - Images are fetched automatically in the background. A confirmation prompt is shown when first enabling.
• Disabled - Images are only fetched manually.

Artist image download count - Sets how many artist images are downloaded and stored per artist. Having multiple images allows the artwork panel to cycle through them.

• 1 image (smaller cache) - Only the top result is downloaded, keeping cache usage minimal.
• 5 / 10 / 15 images - Downloads multiple images for richer cycling.
• 20 images (larger cache) - Downloads the maximum number of results. Produces the most variety but uses the most disk space.

Artist image download quality - Sets the quality of downloaded artist images, with the same Medium and Original options as album artwork above.

Missing Releases & Similar Artists

Missing releases image auto-downloads - When enabled, artwork for albums shown in the Missing Releases View is downloaded automatically. A confirmation prompt is shown when enabling.

Similar artist image auto-downloads - When enabled, artist images for artists shown in the Similar Artists View are downloaded automatically. A confirmation prompt is shown when enabling.

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Missing Releases

Source - Selects the online database used to fetch an artist's full discography when building the Missing Releases list.

• Discogs - Uses the Discogs database, which has broad coverage of physical and digital releases.
• Last.fm - Uses Last.fm's album data, which tends to reflect listener-facing release information.
• MusicBrainz - Uses the MusicBrainz open database, which is particularly thorough for release groups, editions, and release types.

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Popularity

Source - Selects the data source used to calculate and display popularity scores for artists and albums.

• Last.fm - Derives popularity from Last.fm listener and play count data.
• ListenBrainz - Derives popularity from ListenBrainz listen counts, which are contributed by users of the open-source ListenBrainz service.

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Similar Artists

View - Controls which artists are shown in the Similar Artists View.

• Local - Shows only artists that exist in your local library, so every result is something you already own.
• External - Shows all similar artists returned by the online source, including those not in your collection.

Source - Selects the online service used to look up similar artists.

• Last.fm - Uses Last.fm's artist similarity data.
• ListenBrainz - Uses ListenBrainz's artist similarity data.

Fetch limit (external) - When View is set to External, this controls the maximum number of similar artists retrieved from the online source.

• Options: 10 / 25 / 50 / 100 / 250. Higher values return more results but may include more loosely related artists.

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Sort

Controls the default sort order for each Explorer view. Each view has its own independent sort direction and sort field.

Album view - Sorts the track list shown inside an open album.

• Direction: Ascending or Descending.
• Sort field: Track Number, Track Title, Track Rating, Playcount, Queue, Added, First Played, Last Played.

Artist view - Sorts the album grid shown when browsing an artist's discography.

• Direction: Ascending or Descending.
• Sort field: Album Title, Album Rating, Playcount, Track Count, Year, Added, First Played, Last Played.

Similar artist view - Sorts the similar artists grid.

• Direction: Ascending or Descending.
• Sort field: Similarity, Artist Name, Playcount, Track Count, Added, First Played, Last Played.

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Stats

Controls which statistic is displayed alongside each item in each view. Stats are set independently per view.

Album view - Stat shown next to each track in the track list.

Artist view - Stat shown on each album thumbnail in the artist's discography grid.

Similar artist view - Stat shown on each artist thumbnail in the Similar Artists grid.

Available statistics for all three views: Bitrate, Duration, Total Size, Rating, Date, Queue, Playcount, Track Count, First Played, Last Played, Added.

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Download the latest version as always from the master.zip here:
https://github.com/TT-ReBORN/Georgia-ReBORN/archive/refs/heads/master.zip

First steps after installation, you need to change your image path in:
Top Menu > File > Preferences > Display > Album art ( section ) > Artist ( tab ):

artist.*
C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\Georgia-ReBORN_x64\profile\cache\artwork\local\artists\%artist%\*
C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\Georgia-ReBORN_x64\profile\cache\biography\biography-cache\art_img\$cut(%artist%,1)\%artist%\*

Change the placeholder path to your foobar path.
Then you can just click on the Library, which has album art grid already displayed and double click on an album.
Play around and read the user guide here.

Enjoy

-TT

[TT-ReBORN]

Its very simple:

In album grid view:
It acts like a standard window explorer where you see in artist view -> the albums, you double click on it and it opens the albums with its tracks. When you are in the album view, it opens the album with its tracks. And there is much more in the Library Explorer to play around, you can click on the hyperlinks and on the tabs. You click on the tracks to play and it acts like a playlist. No need to actually add all albums tracks to the Playlist panel, you can directly play from it. OR you can just click on the "Add" button and it will add the select tracks to the playlist and when nothing is selected it adds the whole album.

In the tree view:
The Library Explorer is just a bonus, as you already discovered, you can deactivate it in Options > Library > Explorer > Display > Display explorer in tree view. When it is active, you can click on the artist name and it will open the Library Explorer's artist view with all albums, when you click on the album name, it will open the Library Explorer's album view, when you click on track titles it will play them in the tree view.

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The most confusing part was, that most users did not correctly understood the behavior of the Library interaction to the Playlist.
Previously when you double-clicked an album, it cleared the current playlist only to add one album to play.
If you like the original behavior, you can restore it: Options>Library>Explorer>Controls>Keep playlist when playing` (deactivate).

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So the best experience would be to use Library Explorer in the grid view:
In the Library > right click for context menu > Change layout to full ( this is actually the default now, the grid view ).
When going back to tree view: Library > right click for context menu > Change layout to normal.

-TT

[TT-ReBORN]

About the behavior of using the Library Explorer:

It works just as the windows explorer when opening directories, i.e albums or artist.
It is quite the opposite of "confusing" for new users, you do not need a playlist to just play the album. You just double click on a track and it plays sequentially from that track to the last track. No need for a play button at all. You do not need to add just ONE album to a playlist, that clears the entire playlist and adds it, just for that one album to play. This is actually the most confusing part for new foobar2000 users. They do not understand the behavior why the entire playlist was cleared and what this special "Library View" playlist is for. In my opinion, playlists exists to add your favorite albums or tracks, store them and keep it. No need for this special temporary "Library View" playlist to just play an album.

You create a new playlist and add stuff with the "Add" tab button to the current playlist. You can select the tracks in the album view via shift and click OR just click on the album group info in the header, and the same when you are in artist view mode, you select the albums or click on the album group info to select all and hit the "Add" tab button.

I keep it exactly as it is, it is the most user friendly in my opinion. You can of course disable "keep playlist when playing" setting but it does not make much sense when you can directly play from the Library Explorer.

-Tom