Queue UI again (was Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Last.fm Integration Patch #5)

[Jonathan Matthew <jonathan kaolin hn org>]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 03:54:17PM -0500, John Drouhard wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 08:44:45 +0200
> Ruben Vermeersch <ruben Lambda1 be> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 08:12 +1000, Jonathan Matthew wrote:
> > 
> > The whole "I want it as a big box" vs "I want it as a playlist" thing?
> > Instead of permanently hiding the Now Playing playlist, why not only
> > hide it when "Show queue" has been selected (thus you can easily
> > toggle between both UIs). But that's something for another thread :-)
> > 
> 
> Why make it a playlist, when you can just add another pane to the
> sidebar that has a list of songs in it as the queue. Like so:

> [tabdamage elided]

http://j.kaolin.hn.org/rhythmbox-queue-with-details.png
(screenshot does not imply I currently have working code - this is
several months old, from the arch --merge branch)

This is the approach I preferred last time.  There are two main
arguments against it:

- it clutters the UI
- it gets awkward to use when you queue up more songs than can be shown
  in the sidebar

and my only response to both of those is "yes, but I don't mind".
I think the only way we'll resolve this is by allowing you to switch
between the two.

> That way, people can just drag songs from the music browser into the
> queue list and it will be appended to the bottom.
> 
> Rhythmbox will then check to see if there are any songs in the queue
> after a song finishes, or after a user presses the skip button. If
> there is, it will then play the next song in the queue, and continue
> downwards until there are no more, then go back to playing music
> normally.

This is exactly how it works, and I don't think anyone's arguing 
about this part of it.

> Sorry about my ASCII art, but it's hard for me to explain what I meant
> in words.
> 
> Oh, and maybe this idea has already been brought up before, I haven't
> been on the list for very long.

The idea has been around for a while.  It's good to know that the 
queue-as-source vs queue-as-sidebar thing doesn't only exist in the
heads of people who've been told that those are the only choices.

-jonathan