Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Preferences feature request

["Martin Karlsson" <martin rb karlsson gmail com>]

On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Jonathan Matthew <notverysmart gmail com> wrote:

On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 1:31 AM, Martin Karlsson
<martin rb karlsson gmail com> wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> I have searched the mailing list archives for a similar request to which I
> am about to present, but have not found any.
>
> My request, in short, concerns the ability to configure Rhythmbox to, when
> queueing songs, proceed playing songs from the position of the last queued
> song in the playlist, rather than from the position of the song manually
> played before making a play queue.
>
> Since this may sound a bit confusing, here is a more in depth description of
> the problem.
>
> The circumstances are the following: Rhythmbox is in the "non-shuffle-mode",
> my playlist consists out of eight songs -- A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H --
> appearing in the playlist in that exact order.
>
> I double click on song B and Rhythmbox starts to play song B. I then add
> songs F, E and G to the play queue in that order. When Rhytmbox has finished
> played B, F, E and G it then jumps back in the playlist and plays the song
> after B (which is C).
>
> The last scentence describes the behaviour in Rhythmbox that I would want to
> be able to configure. I would want Rhythmbox to be able to continue from the
> last played song (G), rather than the last one manually played (B).

The behaviour you're asking for sounds pretty sensible. The current
behaviour is just whatever happened; I didn't really think about how
the queue should interact with the regular play order, other than that
any entries in the play queue should be played before the next entry
from the play order.

That said, this isn't the sort of thing we should be adding
preferences for. It's difficult to explain what it means in a short
sentence, and once it has been explained, it's difficult for a user to
form any opinion on which behaviour they'd prefer.

Personally, I have no idea which one I'd want (as I said, I never
really thought about it before); I suspect that I've simply grown
accustomed to the current behaviour, and if it changed, it'd only take
me a little while to adjust. Most of the time, I'm just playing from
my library with shuffle turned on, so it probably wouldn't make any
difference to me at all.

In this case, I think the solution is to just pick the behaviour that
makes the most sense. Why is it that you want the behaviour you're
asking for? How are you using the play queue and the regular play
order that makes this a better option?

I am going to try to answer your questions. The main reason why I would like Rhythmbox to behave like I requested is probably because that is the way Foobar 2000 bahaved back in the days when I used MS Windows (shivers) -- it is what I am used to. 

I often, like you, queues songs and have Rhythmbox running with shuffle turned on. However, when I have guest coming over, the music have to be more carefully picked. I often then run Rhythmbox using regular play order (so that I have control over everything that gets played), and make up a rather large play queue which usually ends with the first song of an album that should be played if the play queue should end.

This is of course possible with todays behaviour, even though one would have to undergo the rather unintuitive procedure of playing the song before the first song of the album I want to be played when the play queue ends, before I play the queue. Hmm, that was a rather messy scentence.

I actually does not know which behaviour makes the most sense -- that Rhythmbox continues after the last played song (regardless of whether it was manually played or queued), or picks up after the last manually played song. I suspect that the first one is more flexible, and maybe for certain people more intuitive. On the contrary, there is probably people thinking that the second behaviour is sensible too.

My opinion, however, is that Rhythmbox (if the play queue is empty) should contunue after the last played song (manually or queued), since it gives the user more control over the application.