At its stock settings, Columns UI will look similar to this: The UI has several distinctive sections - the frame, including titlebar, the toolbars, the sidebar, the playlist view, the status bar, and the systray icon. You can navigate through the UI by using the TAB key, and the SHIFT-TAB keys.

The toolbar are is where frequently used actions are located. the standard toolbars are:

• Menubar
  The main menu items are located here. By default, these will include actions such as calling up preferences, maniulating the playlist, controlling playback, and component-related actions.
• Playback buttons
  For easy access, you can control playback from this toolbar. Hover the mouse over the button to display a tooltip indicating its action.
• Seekbar
  Allows you to seek through the track by dragging the “thumb”. The displayed tooltip indicated the seek position. Hold the SHIFT key whilst dragging to seek in real-time.
• Playback order dropdown
  Displays the current playback order, and allows you to change the playback order.
• Spectrum analyser
  A simple visualisation. Right click on it to change its colours.

The sidebar is where you will find various panels to provide enhanced functionality. Double clicking on the separator between the sidebar and the playlist will hide or show the sidebar. Double clicking on a panel caption will hide or show that panel. Right click on a panel caption, or on an empty area, to select which panels to display. The standard panels are:

• Playlist switcher
  Displays your playlists, with the active playlist selected.
  • Left click on a playlist
    Switches to that playlist.
  • Right click on a playlist
    Brings up the context menu containing actions for that playlist, and all of the tracks in that playlist.
  • Middle or double clicking or left button dragging
    Performs various tasks depending on your settings. See configuration section for more details.
  • Dropping files on a playlist with left button
    Switches to that playlist, and adds the tracks to that playlist.
  • Dropping files on an empty area with left button
    Sends files to a new playlist.
  • Dropping files with right button
    Shows context menu allowing you to send the items to the playlist under the mouse, or to a new playlist.
    The colours of this panel can also be adjusted in preferences, as many other settings covered in the preferences section of this document.

The playlist is the main area of the UI where your songs are listed.

• Double click a track
  Plays that track.
• Right click track(s)
  Shows the context menu for the track(s) .
• Hold Ctrl and drag with left mouse button
  Starts a drag and drop operation with the selection.
• Drag with right mouse button
  Starts a drag and drop operation with the selection.

There are various methods of manipulating the selection. For the enhanced selection model, these are as follows:

• Left click a track
  Selects it exclusively.
• Hold ctrl and left click a track
  Toggles the track's selected state.
• Drag a selected track with left button
  Moves selection vertically.
• Drag an unselected track with left button
  Creates a new selection.
• Hold Ctrl and Shift and left click a track
  Moves selected tracks to the point you clicked.
• Up or Down arrow keys
  Exclusively selects and focuses the item above or below the focused item.
• PgUp or PgDn keys
  Exclusively selects and focuses the first or last item in the next or previous page.
• Home or End keys
  Exclusively selects and focuses the first or last item in the playlist.
• Hold Shift and press Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/Home/End
  Performs as Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/Home/End, but additionally selects all items from originally focused item to the new one.
• Hold Ctrl and press Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/Home/End
  Performs as Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/Home/End, but only movse the focus to te new item.
• Hold Ctrl and Shift and and press Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/Home/End
  Moves selected items to the position of the item that would be selected if only Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/Home/End was pressed.
• Space
  Toggles the focused item's selection state.

Another area of the playlist you can see is the columns titles.

• Click a column title
  Sorts by that column, in reverse order if already sorted by that column.
• Drag column title
  Moves the column to the locatin you drag the title to.

When not in auto-sizing columns mode, these actions are also available:

• Drag a column title divider
  Resizes that column.
• Double click on a column divider
  Makes that column resize to the minimum possible width so that all its items are visible.

If mouse activated inline metafield editing is enabled, you can left-click on a selected track to enter inline-metafield editing mode. The F2 key also enters this mode, when the playlist has the keyboard focus.

In this mode, the following actions are available:

• Pressing ESCAPE will exit this mode, cancelling any changes to the current field.
• Pressing ENTER will save changes and exit this mode.
• Pressing TAB will save changes and advance to the next field.
• Holding CTRL and pressing TAB will save changes and move to the preceding field.
• Holding CTRL and pressing ENTER will insert a newline.
• Pressing UP or DOWN will navigate up or down a line within the field.
• Clicking anywhere outside of the edit field will save changes and exit this mode.

Metafield assignments are done in the columns configuration page.

• For items with multiples values for the same metafield, currently only the first value will be edited. This may be overcome in the future by using a separating character such as \.
• There is currently no multi-item edit mode.

The status bar displays various information in its three panels.

• The left panel displays information about the playing track during playback.
  Double clicking on it will perform an action, which by default is to select the playing item.
• The second panel displays the total length of the selected track.
  Double clicking on this section selects all tracs in the playlist.
• The last section displays the current volume.
  Left or right clicking on it displays a popup volume control.

• Right clicking on sections other than the volume one brings up the context menu for the playing track, if any.

You can hide any of these sections in the Systray and Status bar preferences page.

By default Columns UI will display an icon in the systray/notification area. Clicking on this icon will show or hide the main window. Right clicking it will bring up the System menu, and the now-playing track's context menu depending on your settings.