[Rhythmbox-devel] Thanks, comments and suggestions for priority development

[Luke Morton <morton internode on net>]

Hi,

Firstly, let me say thank you very much for your excellent work.  I am
currently into my second foray into the world of Linux, and this attempt
is going much smoother than the last -- largely due to the efforts of
teams such as yourselves.

Comments:

Rhythmbox is an excellent music manager.  The simple fact that I can now
manage my music needs through an integrated (Gnome GUI) application is
(to my mind) a godsend -- and it certainly beats the hell out of WMP
and/or Winamp.

Suggestions -- Priority:

Randomisation (I'm Australian so there's on 'z'):

1. The randomisation feature irritates me.  When I select my entire
music catalog, I don't expect to hear the same song twice in a single
sitting (i.e. on time through the playlist) -- and certainly not
separated by only one song, as was the case whilst listening tonight.  A
while ago I logged a bugreport for this, but I managed to destroy my
Linux install beyond my ability to repair before I got to follow it up.

2. The lack of ability to edit ID3 tags is a pain.  I realise there are
applications suited to this task, for example easytag, but I firmly
believe music management software such as rhythmbox should be able to
handle this seemingly simple task.  Unfortunately, as I understand it,
there are issues with ID3 tagging due to the way gstreamer works.
However, from what I can gather, these issues are not insurmountable and
(to my mind) should take priority in the development of Rhythymbox.

I have some experience coding C-type languages (C++, Java, PHP) and am
willing to help if I can, although my knowledge of the above is quite
limited and I think I'd be of little help beyond simple debugging and
testing.  I am, however, keen to contribute something back to the OSS
community so if you are short of testers, debuggers or (in the worst
case scenario) developers I am willing to offer what little I can give.

Suggestions (Possibly silly and certainly not a priority)

1. Whilst many would regard it as pointless I'd like to see a
randomisation feature for radio stations.  I'm a fickle individual, and
can bore quickly from repetitiveness.  I came home today, put the radio
on (Rhythmbox of course), but found myself switching stations after
every song.  I'd very much appreciate it if there were a feature that
automatically selected a different station from my list at the end of
each track that reached completion.  I know that station tracks aren't
synced, but missing the beginning of tracks didn't bother me tonight ;)

Addendum to 1. Realistically, this isn't a fault of Rythmbox.  It's a
fault of net-radio programming.  In a perfect world I'd be able to get
my radio station of choice (Australia's Triple J) via a shoutcast
stream.  But since they're monkeys and I haven't yet gotten around to
petitioning them to offer other forms of streaming besides WMA and Real,
this silly feature would (for me) be a quirky yet welcome addition.

Final notes:

Aside from my limited aforementioned coding experience I do have a
reasonable amount of experience developing websites, and am relatively
proficient with The GIMP.  So if you are ever in need of graphics or a
web-developer I'm certainly more than willing to help.

Luke Morton.

P.S.  Examples of my work are available upon request, although I'd
request they be kept confidential (i.e. not posted to mailing lists).