Re: [Usability]rhythmbox interface

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Jorn Baayen">

> > How about a little 'play' icon overlay on the playlist icon in the
> > sidebar?  The white border shows you which one you're browsing, the
> > (green) play triangle icon shows you which one is being played.
> 
> Yeah, same thing as making the text bold (Which will probably the thing to
> do if we stick with the sidebar, which I'll then replace with a plain
> list)

That might be worthwhile, as long as it's an obvious drop target. Please
keep the sexy big icons though. ;-)

> > (I was basing this on the real thing, not the mockups. The third box
> > appears to be a list of tracks that would play in order. Covered in
> > another email anyway.)
> 
> Ooh, you mean just the list of songs? Yeah, it defines the order of play.
> But you cannot specify another song to play after it, of a different
> artist for example.

True, but only if you've changed the list by choosing artist/album from the
top two boxes. If you just have a big long list (most of the playlists will
probably stay like that), you can reorder however you want.

Hrm. Perhaps a queue of sorts would be better... Another 'special' playlist
called 'Queue' (or a nicer word, preferably)? That kinda farts up the custom
playlists though. Forget that, very nutty.

My usage patterns pretty much amount to "play album in order", "shuffle my
entire library", "play selection of tracks" and "shuffle selection of
tracks"... So what I described in my earlier email would suffice for me.

The Rhythmbox interface neatly simplifies that specification, too - it
already handles "album" and "artist" as special "selections of tracks".

Anyway, I reckon what you've got kicks arse already, so perhaps stabilise
and release, then shift on to UI innovation once it's in user's hands and
you have a better idea of the drawbacks and usage cases.

Yes, me saying "release" is predictable, I know. :-)

- Jeff

-- 
                 "No shit, sherlock holmes com " - Mr. Bad