[Rhythmbox-devel] UI discussion

[Mathrick <mnews2 wp pl>]

I'm a little bit late in discussion, but anyway, here are my remarks:

All of UI mockups seemed to more-or-less ditch sidepane, which is very
bad idea for me. Easy access to all my playlists is invaluable thing in
current RB UI, since my use case is almost exclusively through
playlists. Library and search function are auxiliary to primary goal,
that is creation of playlists, hence each click more to access playlist
means reduced convenience for me. Incidentally, that seems to be the
exact opposite of way many people use RB (library + search, no lists).
I'm also heavy user of tray[1] icon, so my most typical usage is:

- select playlist on startup, hide RB
- when current playlist ends, pop up maximized RB window, scan quickly
through available playlists, check one or two, select next one for
playing, hide RB again
- lather, rinse, repeat

For this, current UI is about perfect, I'd only wish for a way of
playlists categorization (I hear iTunes has something like that, but
haven't used it enough to know for sure).

Regarding iTunes UI patent: That sucks. That sucks incredibly. I'm
really tempted to say "fuck it all", we've come to stage when it's
genuinely impossible to create _anything_ without infringing someone's
patent. I really hope SW patents will never make it here in EU, for
which we must work hard to bring clue into politicians' heads. OTOH,
doesn't US have any limitations saying it's prohibited to patent
mathematical ideas? Last I checked algorithms were part of math, that
would cover at least that, and possibly software in general. Not to
mention that all patents are evil, but that's broader issue.

[1] I'm more and more inclined into thinking about this area as tray,
not notification area. It's perfect as a way of keeping some apps (I'd
call them "burst oriented UI" apps) behaved. They are used in short
"bursts" (like selecting next playlist), when they take full user's
attention for short moment, and then are sent to background, as
invisible as possible. The only better way would be to hide them
completely, and read user's mind to know when he needs them, but alas,
it's not possible yet ;). Of course, low priority / importance
notification fit tray too, but I strongly oppose idea of claiming it for
that exclusively. And Evo notifying by tray only was total lossage IMHO.

-- 
Maciej Katafiasz <mnews2 wp pl>

RIAA: "You will be assimilated. Resistance Is Anti-American"