Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] another queue UI layout

[Thomas Lunde <tlunde gmail com>]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:36:48 +1000, Jonathan Matthew
<jonathan kaolin hn org> wrote:
> One idea that came up a couple of times was displaying the queue where
> the source list currently lives.  Rather than replace the source list,
> which isn't really anything to do with queueing songs, I made them share
> space:
> 
>         http://j.kaolin.hn.org/rhythmbox-left-side-queue.png
> 
> I was initially concerned that the queue wouldn't display enough
> information, but after using it for a while, it seems to be OK.

Perhaps you have already done this, but generating a tooltip with the
full track information when I hover over a particular song in the
queue would allow easy (if a bit slow) access to know which version
(out of >a dozen) of "White Christmas" is in the queue...

_Thanks_ to all involved ($ and code) for implementing the play queue feature!

Hm.  Mostly unrelated, but I just thought of this:  Months ago, there
was talk of displaying album art within the UI.  The location you have
selected for the queue is used in iTunes for this art.  iTunes can
switch between displaying art for the the "Now Playing" track and the
"Currently Selected" track by clicking on the title of this area
(where you have put "Queued Songs").

I don't know if there is still interest in displaying album art? *looks around* 

If there is, this location could still be used, just as a three state
toggle:  Queued Songs / Now Playing art / Currently Selected art.  By
making the area sizeable (in iTunes, it is allow to be grown manually
by the user to a max if roughly 1/4 of the entire UI), this would
allow for more info to be displayed about each of the songs in the
queue and for the art to be shown at a decent size.  One interesting
advantage of limiting the growth of the sizeable art area:  it sort of
hides the fact that most art is stored at a pretty low resolution
(e.g. 300x300 from amazon).  (FYI, as long as I'm rambling, double
clicking the art itself causes a new child window to be spawned which
shows the art at something like 2x or 3x its native size, up to a max
of in-a-window-full-screen.)

And if anyone loves visualizations, take a look at this third party
one for iTunes.  The website really doesn't do it justice, but being
able to manipulate the art (which truely does look like a real CD) is
very cool.  The "CD" spins in and out (starting small at the left,
coming to the fore for the duration of the track and then moves "back"
and smaller and off to the right as the track ends.)  It is way cool:
<http://www.opticalalchemy.com/products.html>  As the "CD" is
displayed, the user can "grab" it with the mouse to control the spin
(LtoR, reverse, stop, speed of the spin). The way the author generated
the "back" of the "CD" is clever, too:  it's an inverse image of the
front, but with blur and a zoom of ~20% or so.  The (optional) auto
generated album track list on the back of the CD is neat.  Ok, now I'm
sounding like an advertisement... but it really did make my jaw drop
the first time I got to play with it.

thomas