Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] The Queue, Playlists, & The Library (follow up to Interface Ideas)

[Rene Valois <rene localgod net>]

I really like your ideas, they make sense to me.

Some notes...

If double clicking a song in the browser adds it to the Play Queue, I
think there should be some sort of feedback that the song "went there".
You wouldn't want users clicking on a song, have it start playing, and
leave the user wondering, "Hey, where'd it go?"

(Maybe the Queue could have a little play button on it while it's
playing something)

Also, how are playlists represented in this model? Might be confusing to
have playlists listed along with the Queue if double clicking them adds
them to the Queue.. Or maybe not ;P

I'm a really, really big fan of double-clicking to add to Queue though..
WAAAY more convenient than drag-and-drop to a playlist. However, I think
it's better to have the default action to be clearing the Queue and
playing the song immediately. Consider this scenario:

A New User double-clicks on a song, and it begins playing (because the
Queue is empty). New User then double-clicks on another song expecting
the same behaviour, but instead, the first song continues playing
(because the second song was put in the Queue after the currently
playing song).

Maybe CTRL+Click could Enqueue? Or even better, middle-click (a-la
Firefox)?

Cheers,
Rene

On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 14:47 +0100, Charles Goodwin wrote:
> The thread 'Interface Ideas' was fascinating, with many opinions on how
> to bounce between playlists, queues, and the library.  However, most
> approaches had flaws which were pointed out in detail.
> 
> There is a simpler solution.  Please read past the summary.
> 
> Summary :-
> 
> Keep it _really_ simple - only ever play from the queue. Remove the
> ability to play directly from the library or playlists, instead having
> them interact with the queue.
> 
> Reasoning :-
> 
> Confusion between the ways to play music makes current stable behaviour
> unintuitive, and problems in the development version sound compounded
> given the addition of a queue.  See appendix for more analysis of this.
> 
> Rather than have these 3 separate, conflicting notions of how the music
> is enqueued (leading to confusion) instead just have one set of enqueued
> music - that in the queue.  This removes conflict and confusion.
> 
> In the library, default double-clicking on a song to enqueueing that
> song, with context menu entries for 'Play Now', 'Enqueue Album', 'Play
> Album Now' and anything else that seems relevant (Enqueue/Play Artist,
> etc?).  The library should be a tool for browsing and selecting music,
> not playing it.
> 
> For playlists, default double-click behaviour should be to change the
> queue to clicked-upon playlist ('Play Playlist Now'), with a context
> menu entry for 'Enqueue Playlist'.  Playlists should be a way for
> storing potential queues, rather than being separately instantiable
> queues.
> 
> Represent a playlist in the queue as an expandable sub-component of the
> queue, so that multiple playlists and songs can be enqueued without
> clutter, yet you can insert songs into playlists (which could show up as
> 'modified' with an ability to save the modifications).
> 
> By only ever having one source - the queue - of playing music, all
> confusion is removed and it becomes a matter of working out how to
> efficiently put music into the queue rather than working out what is
> currently happening.
> 
> As a footnote, a queue should not remove already played tracks by
> default.  This voids the 'repeat all' behaviour (an expected feature).
> Perhaps it would be worthwhile adding a devouring queue as an option or
> an alternative to a static queue?
> 
> Anyway, I hope that all sounded intuitive and useful.  As a long-term
> user of Rhythmbox I hope I've successfully conveyed what I'd think is a
> solution to the behavioural issues of Rhythmbox.
> 
> - Charlie
> 
> 
> 
> Appendix :-
> 
> The library is for browsing music.  The fact that Rhythmbox currently
> plays the library happily as a playlist is coincidental.  Really, it
> should not allow this.  It brings about a confusing relationship between
> playlists and the library (and consequently, in the development version,
> the queue).
> 
> An example; playing Artist A while looking at Artist B.  If a song ends
> I'm not paying attention, Rhythmbox will start a song by Artist B when
> really I wanted to be listening to Artist A.
> 
> However, this is contrary to how it behaves if I switch to a view of a
> playlist whilst playing from the library.  Rhythmbox will continue to
> play from the library unless I explicitly select a song in a playlist.
> 
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