Re: [Muine] A few suggestions

[Lars Weber <lars digiterror net>]

Am Donnerstag, den 17.02.2005, 15:48 +0200 schrieb Jorn Baayen:
> >         == Library Button Behaviour ==
> >         
> >         It's not only inconsistent but I guess also confusing for new
> >         users that one of the Buttons in the library dialogs ("Play")
> >         closes the window whereas the other ("Queue") doesn't.  It would
> >         seem better to me to either change both buttons to close the
> >         window (and then also change the "Close" button to "Cancel") or
> >         to change both not to (and then maybe scrap the "Close" button
> >         altogether).
> 
> This one has come up a lot, but:
> 
> - It doesn't make sense to click "play" (or "play next") twice.. and
> therefore it is the kind of action you would expect to close the
> dialog.

While it's not common for users to hit play twice I think it's quite
common for them to want to start playing something and to then to select
other items to play later (using "Queue").

> - "Queue" on the other hand is a "playlist building" kind of action,
> when queueing most people queue a few objects, not just one. Having to
> go into the window over and over again would be a bit of a pain. This
> argues against having the dialog close on queue.

Yes, that's true.  For this reason I'd prefer to have both buttons not
close the window instead of having both buttons close it.

> >         Of course, browsing would necessarily make the dialogs more
> >         difficult to understand and this brings up the complicated
> >         question of where the ideal balance is between functionality and
> >         ease of use.  Personally I consider basic browse functionality a
> >         pretty important feature that I'd expect to be a help to quite a
> >         large percentage of the targeted Muine user base.  Therefore I
> >         think it justifies a slightly more complicated interface.  The
> >         following is an example for an interface that I'd say fullfills
> >         the "slightly" requirement:
> >         
> >         http://www.brokenbits.de/lars/cruft/MuineLibAll.png
> 
> This is pretty good.. but the amount of widgets and their alignment
> dazzles me a bit. But I think we might be able to come up with something
> refining this idea a bit ..
> 
> One tiny improvement - I guess - would be moving the "By artist" thing
> to be under the list, so that things would line up a bit better.

I personally don't see a problem with the current alignment.  Given that
the browser-selection and the button row are two separate entities I'd
even say that aligning both of them would be misleading and therefore
counter-productive.

> Some brainstorming for alternatives:
> - Using a combo box instead of the list. Or a combo box-like thing,
> popping down a scrollable list.

I wouldn't like this because it would make the browser much more
cumbersome to use.

> >         == Multiple-Enque Bug ==
> >         
> >         There's currently a problem when I hit the Queue button in
> >         either of the two library dialogs: the second time I pressed the
> >         button it doesn't add the next item even though it get's
> >         automatically selected before the button is pressed the first
> >         time.
> 
> Works for me.. what version are you using?

0.6.3 from Debian unstable.

> (Btw it would be great if you could move this one to bugzilla, then we
> can have the feature/UI discussion in this thread, and have the bugs
> handled off in bugzilla. I look at all muine bugs in bugzilla when I get
> the bugmail, so I can promise you it won't get lost ;) )

Done.

> >         == Problem with some (bogus?) .ogg files ==
> >         
> >         [This is perhaps a GStreamer issue, but I'll mention it anyway.]
> >         There are a few .ogg files on my system that Muine just skips
> >         whenever I add them to the playlist.  file reports the following
> >         for those files:
> >         
> >         Ogg data, Vorbis audio, stereo, 44100 Hz, ~0 bps, created by:
>                                                     ==
> 
> Smells like a broken file or something. Is there an ID3 tag on it maybe?

Not sure how I would go about to check whether there's an ID3 tag or
not.

What I forgot to mention: the files can be played without noticeable
problems using ogg123.

Regards,
Lars