Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Right side bar for Rhythmbox

["James \"Doc\" Livingston" <doclivingston gmail com>]

On Sat, 2007-06-02 at 10:03 +0200, Adolfo Gonz�z Bl�uez wrote:
> I would like to know if is there any chance to get a right side bar for
> RB, like the one on left, so plugins can put their stuff there.
> 
> In this sidebar you can get the Queue playlist [1], the lyrics [2],
> album related information, and future plugins, like a Wikipedia plugin,
> web stuff, and whatever you imagine.

Adding a right sidebar is fairly simple. If we want one, we should
figure out how we want it to work.

What do people think of the idea of a sidebar which you can change the
content of, with one thing being displayed at a time? I've personally
never found it that great, but several apps do it (in varying forms) and
it does let you fit a number of things in a small space.


Another question would what we use to change the content - some things
use a combo-box, others tabs with icons (gedit), or sideways tabs
(Amarok). A combo box takes slightly longer to change things, rather
than a single click, but is probably better because it would be hard to
design good icons for everything, and the vertical writing of sideways
tabs is harder to read  for the majority of people with a LTR or RTL
language.


> I know this have been discussed before, but in those times where the
> screens are getting bigger, the space is not anymore a problem.

More important than getting bigger (where I am at least, they haven't
been getting bigger recently) is the fact that an increasing number of
screens are coming in "widescreen" rather than "normal" (4:3). Although
they may not be much bigger, they have more horizontal screen space.

If you don't have a huge number of columns turned on, there is probably
some extra space we could use for something. So, I agree.


> I've attached 2 mockups. The right bar should have a combobox to select
> what info you want to see in it (wikipedia, lyrics, album info, queue
> playlist...)

One idea I had a while back was that we could make these things special
widgets which you could move around, similar to the "toolbar editor"
some apps have. That way you could have things below the source list, in
the right "switching" sidebar, move the art next to the song title and
the like.

However there are all sorts of interesting UI issues with doing this
kind of thing, and it is somewhat complicated to implement (especially
implement correctly). But it sounded like an interesting idea.


Cheers,

-- 
"Give a man a match and he's warm for a day.
 Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
    -- Terry Pratchett.