Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Tagging support idea

[Matthew McGowan <matthew joseph mcgowan gmail com>]

Andrew Conkling wrote:
> I had an idea regarding tagging support 
> (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=324540) and wanted to get 
> some feedback before I started hacking. (Well, hopefully. Read on.)
>
> Since the core support is already added, we have some UI work to do. I 
> was thinking maybe the UI could be implemented as a (Python) plugin. 
> It'd be a bit more agile, could hook into all the core parts... and I 
> could help work on it. :P
>
> It'd be pretty easy to work on some of the existing ideas--automatic 
> playlists, the properties dialog, and the context menu.


I am not sure how exposing tag support is going, but i was wondering 
about ways to implement in the rb GUI and thought i'd have a stab.

Here's what I've come up with regard to rb gui:

http://lh3.google.com/matthew.joseph.mcgowan/R6_fm74ApCI/AAAAAAAAB5o/MgLF3R_EtKg/taglist-1.jpg&imgmax=640

Borrowing the idea from Thunderbird, those files that have tags receive 
a green light whilst those that do not have tags receive a gray blob.  
Personally  I am not sure how much value there is in exposing in the 
main library the tags users have assigned to files, imo it would just 
add unnecessary clutter.  That said i am not 100% happy with my 
approach, but cannot think of ways to display tag info in a gui-economic 
way that does not require horizontal scrollbars.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/viewPhoto?uname=matthew.joseph.mcgowan&aid=5147336492195480833&iid=5165593166207820850

Within the right-click contextual menu we add a menu item 'Edit Tags". 

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/viewPhoto?uname=matthew.joseph.mcgowan&aid=5147336492195480833&iid=5165593183387690050

This takes us to a 'Tags" tab within the 'Properties' dialogue.  This 
displays a text box where we can add/edit tags.  I've used comma 
separation to distinguish between separate tags because thats what i am 
familiar with from other apps/websites that support tagging (i think 
tracker does this?).  The text box could have a scrollbar for those 
users that desire to list _many_ tags.  Also, I have a popular tags 
display at the bottom, this displays frequently used tags, similar to 
what del.icio.us does.  By clicking upon these frequently used tags they 
are auto-added to the current selections tag-list.  Also, considering 
limited space we could be smart and rank frequently used tags relative 
to the artist(s), genre(s) or album(s).  So, "tag xyz is frequently used 
with this particular artist/album/genre, so we'll list it earlier for 
convenience."

Some other simple possibilities:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/viewPhoto?uname=matthew.joseph.mcgowan&aid=5147336492195480833&iid=5165593200567559250

Auto-playlists based on tags.

http://lh6.google.com/matthew.joseph.mcgowan/R6_frr4ApGI/AAAAAAAAB6I/q3LMi6huvVc/rb-search-include-tagsearch.jpg

and...  include a tag filter with the main search.


Other approaches to be considered:

http://lh4.google.com/matthew.joseph.mcgowan/R6_lFL4ApHI/AAAAAAAAB7A/Ozo8B1sk2mg/Screenshot-2.jpg

The last.fm player has a list of tags in its sidebar beneath a 
collapsible heading.  Something to think about?



Regards,
Matthew