Muine, Albums, Playlists (was Re: [Muine] ...)

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_ freenet de>]

On Sun, May 09, 2004 at 02:09:02AM +0200, Jorn Baayen wrote:
> On Sat, 2004-05-08 at 19:28 -0400, Colin Walters wrote:
> > On Sat, 2004-05-08 at 14:19, Jorn Baayen wrote:

> > Oh I'm not saying it's bad or anything - just that it's a bit more
> > indirect.  When you launch Rhythmbox your albums are right there
> > visible.  It's not necessarily clear that clicking "Play Album" will let
> > you pick from your collection and then play.  (By the way, you should
> > add an ellipsis there to help make clear there's more to the action).
> 
> If it's not immediately clear, the user will figure out as soon as he
> clicks that button, and then remember forever after. And I think that
> even *if* the user is puzzled by the lack of direct album presentation,
> he will soon start to reach for the "Play album" button see what it is
> about. But I don't think new users necessarily expect everything to be
> right there in the main window immediately, that's only an expectation
> created by using Rhythmbox/iTunes. (And WinAMP/XMMS to some extent, for
> people not using multiple playlists anyway)


I think that especialy in the context of a more and more document/object 
centric environment like Gnome, selection->action should be choosen over 
the other way around (whenever it makes sense). Starting with the action 
requires establishing a mode with options to procede or cancel. Meaning 
additional complexity.

"Play Album" is a misleading caption anyway. It's more a "Show Album 
Dialog".

An album should be a playlist, with just the additional info that it's 
meant to represent an album, not some custom selection. Playlists should 
support title, info and cover, of course.

With regards to play/pause and queuing, playlists should be no different 
to single tracks. Do not split up the interface, when such simple and 
painless generalization is possible.


But in the end file management and meta-information should be dealt 
with on system, not app level (consitency, users not having to think 
about apps ...).
Therefore it would be great to have an extended folder concept for 
representing playlists.
Playlist = folder +  info + sequence (used as default for sorting).
For playing a playlist just doubleclick on its icon. The 
context menu could have a "Add to Queue" or maybe "Play after Current" 
entry.

The extended folder concept would also work for image albums / 
slideshows.


---
Thorsten Wilms