On Čt, 2002-11-21 at 21:00, Jorn Baayen wrote: > Hi, > > The current Rhythmbox interface isn't very good, and we've been thinking > about improving it, but it's hard. So some input from you guys would > rule. > > Current interface, with it's problems: > ====================================== > To begin with, for the people who have never run rb here is a > screenshot: > http://nl.linux.org/~jorn/Files/ff.png > > As you can see, there is a sidebar, which allows you to switch between > different views. This has a lot of problems: > 1. The interface changes when clicking a button in the sidebar, just > like Evolution. My opinion is that it sucks, badly. I tend to remember > where items are in the menus, and if they get messed up all the time, I > get confused. > 2. The toolbar with the playback controls and the area with the > currently playing information are static; they don't change when > switching between views, and act on the playing view. This is really, > really confusing. Even though I wrote it, I still find myself being > dizzy when using it. (Just hiding these wouldnt work either: because it > still is playing. Or stopping playback is not an option either, since > you may just want to browse your playlists or do some organization.) > 3. It's not obvious how to add songs to groups/playlists. (Right now you > have to dnd songs from the lib to the sidebar button, or use C&P) > 4. Users cannot specify what song to play after the current one. > Playlists are not enough here; if you are playing from the library, you > want to be able to say which song is to play next. > I kinda like the current design. Here's a few notes about it. In a simple player like XMMS, there is only the playlist functionality is you want to listen to multiple songs. In RB there are two. The playlists and something I'd call vplaylist ;) A dynamic list of songs defined by a set of rules. They can be simple - artist, artist+album or a string search, rating search. There should be ways to add songs to the static playlist: I would imagine draging songs to a playlist icon on the sidebar would add them there. Dragging them on the sidebar elswhere would popup a dialog asking for a playlist name. The album list and artist list should feature a context menu with 'add selection to playlist...' with a next level menu list of avaliable playlists. And possibly 'create new playlist from selection' again prompting for a name. This design also pretty much permits adding more modes - i-radios, audioCD. They belong to a music manager/player IMHO. Managing music means ripping AudioCDs, and i-radios as well as uploading playlists to portable players and burning ogg/audioCDs. I think iTunes hit the nail on the head there. I don't think going back to a playlist-only UI is simplifying anything, since you still have a lot of clutter on the display to select songs to add to a playlist. And one thing I like about RB at the moment is creating a dynamic playlist depending on the mood. Having genre as a filtering rule would be cool here too. my 2 cents -- Jakub Steiner <jimmac ximian com> Ximian, Inc.
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