[Imazed]

My objective is to build a music player to play my large collection of Flac files and be able to select songs by artist, contributing artists, composer, conductor etc..
A few years ago I downloaded XBMC and tried it on my laptop - so slow it was unusable.
A few months later I tried the Raspberry Pi version and had a similar result.
I have just downloaded Version 13.2 “Gotham” and installed it on my Lenovo G580 laptop running Windows 8, it does run and plays my Flac files. So far so good.
Now either I am very dumb, or XBMC is intended for something else but I cannot see the point.
Yes, it does play my files but I can see no way to search for genres, play random selections, search any of the embedded tags etc. So far as I can tell there is nothing here which I cannot achieve with file explorer and any media player.
I see so many reviews suggesting that XBMC is the best media player that I feel I am missing something - can someone tell me what? Before I just give up completely.
If I am just being dumb, then perhaps someone will point me to instructions to use this program to its full extent.
Thanks

[pkscout]

Did you scan the music into the library? It sounds like you're just using the file view. See if this helps you along any.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Adding_music_to_the_library

[PH-SYM]

Most people use it as a movie- or TVshow player and it's great imho in that respect. Regarding playing music, I grant you that it is a bit disappointing. However, I haven't seen any other media player that does this well. They all disappoint in that aspect.
If you want to play music when you're sitting in front of your PC, you are much better off using something like Musicbee, Foobar or even Winamp. XBMC is better suited if you are sitting in your living room using your TV to navigate through your music library.

Some of your questions does seem to indicate that you have missed some options in XMBC though. In the library you can browse through genre's or use a search function. You can use (smart)playlists to further finetune your music selection.

...and indeed make sure you use library view to navigate your music. If you haven't that explains a lot of your comments.

[Imazed]

Thanks for the tip. My system looks different to the wiki illustrations but I think I have just found a way to force the index. I had assumed that just pointing XBMC at my music folder would initiate a scan. I will post again once I have the system up and running. Looks like I am dumb!

[Imazed]

PH-SYM said "XBMC is better suited if you are sitting in your living room using your TV to navigate through your music library."
That is exactly what I want to do. Thanks for your suggestion about smart playlists - again The wiki illustrations don't match what I see but I will work through all options and set some play lists up.

A supplementary question - will XBMC find ALL my tags or is there a limited list? If the latter where do I find the list? Once again I have looked at the wiki but it a bit different to what I experience e.g. wiki states "XBMC" cannot find embedded album art in Flac but all album covers display fine on my system

[PH-SYM]

File tags gives you some explanation of what tags are used but I haven't been able to find a list of all MP3, Vorbis or APE tags used.
XBMC uses the ALBUMARTIST field to organise albums per Artist but if that is missing it uses the ARTIST field instead. GENRE, STYLES, YEAR, RATING and COMMENT fields are also used. Other fields like COMPOSER are unfortunately not covered.

[Imazed]

Once again thank you for the helpful information.
I have everything working now so am beginning to see the value of XBMC.
I will now work through File tags and the rest of the Wiki.
I reckon this topic is now closed so thanks once again for your help