Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Feature-Request: Advanced Filters, Playlist,Advanced Id3 Ver.2 Support

[Lee Willis <lwillis plus net>]

On Fri, 2004-01-16 at 14:07 -0500, Colin Walters wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-01-16 at 11:45, David Mansfield wrote:
> 
> > I will second this (not necessarily the autoplay, although that sounds
> > pretty cool, too).  I don't really like the way the 'play from library'
> > (normal play mode when not playing from a play list) works at all.  If I
> > wanted to play an album, and I found it in the library and started playing
> > it, then browse somewhere else, it will stop playing the album, and start
> > playing somewhere else.
> 
> Yeah.  It's definitely the largest flaw in the Rhythmbox UI, but it's
> one that's been discussed a lot in the past, with no real resolution.
> This has actually sparked at least one other music player I know of:
> 
> http://people.nl.linux.org/~jorn/Muine/
> 
> That said, my biggest concern with this is that I agree it's a problem,
> but I'm worried that some solutions will end up creating different
> problems.
> 
> > Specific Recommendation:  
> > 
> > A permanent special playlist called 'now playing' where each song is
> > deleted after being played. 
> 
> I like the name.

This is how Media Player 9 works under M$ and seems to work quite well
[And it's called "Now playing"]. When browsing the library and you find
something you want to listen to you can either:

(a) Play it
(b) Queue it up

Playing it replaces whatever is in the "Now playing" playlist with your
selection/album/etc

Queueing it up adds it to the end of the playlist. It doesn't however
delete items from the list when they're played (That would break
"Repeat")

> Ok.  My biggest problem with this is discoverability - how should a new
> Rhythmbox user know that this is what's going to happen?  If one has no
> experience with music players at all, I think the current UI is actually
> fairly intuitive - you double-click on a song, a little play icon
> appears, and the music starts playing.  That's it.

I think "Now playing" makes things fairly obvious, as long as it is
specially identifiable in the list of playlists, and maybe if it gets
jumped to when you "Play" 

> Also, should "Now Playing" be used for Radio?  And what about regular
> playlists?

Yes - if you do this then, at least for regular playlists, it means you
can play a particular playlist, but with a few changes, by adding/
removing songs from the "Now Playing" playlist without affecting the
original.

Lee
-- 
Lee Willis                                lee@leewillis.co.uk