[Rhythmbox-devel] Putting an idea out there: 'Linking' tracks together into a series

[Matthew McGowan <matthew joseph mcgowan gmail com>]

Apologies if such a feature has been requested already.  I did my best 
checking through the list of enhancements.  However, at the time of 
writing bugzilla.gnome.org was retrieving pages very slowly for me, so i 
couldn't easily browse for similar requests.  

This is a copy n paste of a bug/enhancement i opened:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509324

***

I propose rhythmbox have the ability to 'link' songs together.   

Suppose the user determines two tracks from a particular album should 
always play into each other in a particular order, seamlessly, and 
without fade.  RB should allow in such a situation for these tracks to 
be linked together in an order in accord with their track numbers.  
Furthermore, suppose playback is shuffled, and suppose a track belonging 
to a linked set (a 'series'), but is not the first track of the series, 
is shuffled upon.  In this situation RB should instead begin play-back 
from the first track in the series.   
(Did the above make any sense?)

For those familiar with Photoshop, consider this the audio playback 
equivalent of photoshop's 'link' function, found in the layer management 
window of said program.
http://www.bartelme.at/journal/archive/photoshop_cs2_layer_management/

How do we know which songs in a series should be linked/played first, 
second, third, ... last.

Of the top of my head, the best way to approach the ordering of the 
series could be thus;

The most obvious is to check the artist, album and then track number, 
given the artist and album are identical, RB should assume that the 
track order is the order in which the series of linked tracks should be 
played.  My presumption is that most users would accept this as the 
logical way to approach this issue.

However, if track info is not available we could either fall back to the 
filename and sort alphanumerically.  Another way could be to determine 
the order based on the order of the tracks as they were selected for 
linking.  So, suppose the user holds Ctrl and selects three tracks for 
linking, clicking on each track individually.  The track selected first 
would play first in the series, the track selected second would play 
second, and the track selected thirdly would play last.  A selection 
made by Shift-clicking could be ordered based on the 'direction' the 
block of tracks were selected in (1->x/top->bottom or x<-1/bottom->top).

May i reiterate that if during shuffled playback, one of the tracks 
within the series was shuffled upon, RB should default to playing the 
first track in the series of linked tracks.  Though perhaps this could 
be optional.

UI-wise, borrowing from Photoshop, when a track belonging to a series is 
clicked upon, the selected track and those tracks also belonging to the 
same series of linked tracks could reveal a 'link' icon located within 
the track-name column.  The icon could be aligned to the left margin of 
the column.  The link icon should exist above the track title, and a 
minimum column width should be enforced(?).  A number could also 
accompany the link icon, indicating the order in which the series of 
linked tracks is played(I tend to think this adds too much visual 
clutter?).

EDIT: subsequent to committing the enhancement to bugzilla, i realized 
the link order numbering, could just mimic the way the play queue 
displays its playback order.

One final stream of thought.  Perhaps when a linked track is shuffled 
upon, the series could auto-append to the song queue.  This would give 
the user the opportunity to cancel the series being played should they 
desire.  RB would  in turn finish the track it is currently playing, 
then ignore the fact it belongs to a series, and continue to follow the 
current set of track selection rules.  Similarly, if a track belonging 
to a series is queued, the entire series could be auto-appended to the 
song queue in the series-defined order.

Here's a bit of a mock-up.  It doesn't include all of my suggestions, 
such as accompanying numbers indicating playback order, or the fact 
series get added to the song queue.  Its simply an illustration of the 
basic notion of what track-linking is.  Reminder links only appear when 
a track belonging to a series is selected, ala Photoshop.

http://lh4.google.com/matthew.joseph.mcgowan/R4sujZS3hWI/AAAAAAAAB4M/vgGGdCjBAiI/Screenshot.jpg



Thoughts?