Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Structure in genres

[Stefan Monnier <monnier iro umontreal ca>]

>> >> I wish the "genre" had some structure.  I.e. instead of a linear list
>> >> of genres, I'd like to see it be a tree (well, rather a DAG), so
>> >> "Progressive Rock" could be found under "Rock" and "Chamber Music"
>> >> would appear within "Classical".
>> 
>> > What if we made the search more intelligent instead?  So Rhythmbox might
>> > show results for Chamber Music if you searched for Classical.
>> 
>> I use the browser rather than the search box, so improving the search
>> wouldn't help me much.

> Hm, ok, but I guess that leads me to wonder if you *would* use the
> search box if it returned more useful results for you.  I mean, probably
> hundreds of millions people use Google and find what they're looking for
> every day, we should be able to match that in the significantly more
> limited domain of a few thousand music songs.

I'm not saying the search is useless, but when browsing is manageable it's
an alternative that can be much better for some uses.  E.g. when you're not
quite sure what you're looking for.  That's what dmoz is all about, isn't it?

> I'm not sure what else to do; clearly we're not going to embed Graphviz
> for a directed graph of genres in the list...

I was thinking of an interface showing a tree, like the one used in file and
option browsers (typically with a little triangle on the left of each
entry).  The fact that it's actually a DAG can be "hidden" by simply
replicating the subgraphs so as to expand the DAG into a tree.


        Stefan