tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post4278334785323382283..comments2013-04-30T11:35:41.786-06:00Comments on openSUSE Revolution: Revolution Music PlayerAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08972808216546510969noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-9896190613450246372011-01-18T11:48:12.489-07:002011-01-18T11:48:12.489-07:00I am a manager on the kde forums.I am a manager on the kde forums.toddrme2178https://www.blogger.com/profile/03684472911091668339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-20818391295770963822011-01-16T11:56:18.091-07:002011-01-16T11:56:18.091-07:00I liked it. It looks like it's the first step ...I liked it. It looks like it's the first step of what I was trying to show here on this posting, simplicity. But it looks like it does not have the widget capabilities that Amarok has.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972808216546510969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-50998898892331366302011-01-16T07:55:32.141-07:002011-01-16T07:55:32.141-07:00Ever tried YaRock ?
http://qt-apps.org/content/sh...Ever tried YaRock ?<br /><br />http://qt-apps.org/content/show.php/YaRock?content=129372<br /><br />CheersAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-43063657969676270862011-01-14T10:29:42.265-07:002011-01-14T10:29:42.265-07:00@Andy spoke my mind and I have nothing to add. As ...@Andy spoke my mind and I have nothing to add. As much as I love amarok I can't help feeling the UI is a nightmare. Beside too many things trying to grab my attention, and duplicate information all over the place. It is also not easy or straight forward to do simple things like creating a playlist. or adding a track to a "playlist". also sending a file to a connected device from a playlist is *almost* impossible(cus I have not figure out how it can be done) I mean its not that this things can't be done. Just that it takes so much travel to get them done. Amarok is the best Music player out there. But it needs to do alot to make some of its powerful features exposed and available to the user. Also the UI could be much more simpler and less noisy out of the box. Just IMHO.bigbrovarhttp://.bigbrovar.aoizora.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-37169416063572994772011-01-14T09:08:10.176-07:002011-01-14T09:08:10.176-07:00Try Clementine or MPD along with ncmpcpp.
You can...Try Clementine or MPD along with ncmpcpp.<br /><br />You can configure MPD to use PulseAudio, install MPDris (now playing applets, Ayatana sound indicator) and configure ncmpcpp to send notifications using notify-send (looks nice in KDE4 as Plasma supports it; you can use basic HTML).<br /><br />This is just a workaround for Amarok's big and unsuable interface.<br /><br />GNOME's equivalent of Amarok is currently Banshee, which is the same or even more powerful, but its interface is much simpler and comfortable and not that ass-painful as Amarok's one.Jakub Rusinekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01592024232821923999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-55583238148226171102011-01-13T22:53:33.278-07:002011-01-13T22:53:33.278-07:00Yeah, I have posted on it a couple of times. I lik...Yeah, I have posted on it a couple of times. I like it. Just that my ideas didn't get tons of attention. I like my blog too to post ideas :D Hey Todd, what teams are you part of?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972808216546510969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-75963376177646276652011-01-13T21:34:47.099-07:002011-01-13T21:34:47.099-07:00Fair enough.
Are you aware KDE has a specially-de...Fair enough.<br /><br />Are you aware KDE has a specially-designed forum specifically for feature suggestions and mock-ups like this?<br /><br />http://forum.kde.org/brainstorm.php<br /><br />I think you are more likely to get good feedback there than on an openSUSE-specific blog aggregater.toddrme2178https://www.blogger.com/profile/03684472911091668339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-91069543088015719042011-01-13T20:46:25.633-07:002011-01-13T20:46:25.633-07:00Yeah, sorry. I think I need to edit that comment. ...Yeah, sorry. I think I need to edit that comment. I mixed up the jargon so it did not come out very clear. Sorry toddrme2178. And yes, I understand it if Amarok does not include all of "my" suggestions. It is a development process anyway. That is not what I meant to say, rather I meant to say that when I tried to suggest they did not seem very open to change. They had a clear goal with their interface and, at that time, they only wanted someone who could tweak the buttons and colors. So I decided to leave it alone, but alas, Amarok 3 should be popping up here soon, so it's time for ideas. That's what I am trying to exploit.<br /><br />At the same time, please bear in mind that I am not asking people to "work extra," I am just letting my mind think freely on what, I think, could be a possible Amarok interface. Whether they take it or not is not my responsibility. How they react to this mockups is up to them. I am only conceptualizing ideas, that's all.<br /><br />Again, the Amarok team is amazing. Great code, great thinking. I like them tons. That's why Amarok is the best music player out there.<br /><br />AndyAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972808216546510969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-38960493635802936962011-01-13T13:50:01.900-07:002011-01-13T13:50:01.900-07:00"The motion always starts with part of the lo..."The motion always starts with part of the local collection, the internet and other areas where one gets the music. Ultimately, what Amarok will do with the playlist is just to play it. How much change will I want from the currently playing music?"<br /><br />I almost never touch the collection. I have my list of songs, and I play them. I sometimes change the playlist, but working with the collection itself is very rare for me. That is why I generally have the collection hidden entirely.<br /><br />If your focus is on the collection, you can already reorganize the panels to give it more emphasis. But even if your focus is on the collection, most of the time you are listening to the music. So I think focusing on what you are listening to is appropriate.<br /><br />"While your playlist is playing, you are left to work with the right as you please,"<br /><br />But, as I said, I think the idea was that you would rarely need to work with the collection, people spend much more time playing music than making major changes to what is playing.<br /><br />"It just seems too much travelling for so many items."<br /><br />The traveling is often less the way Amarok has it set up.<br /><br />"Surely, there could be a fullscreen mode for Amarok as well as an independent widget."<br /><br />Considering the small size of the Amarok team, I think their time would be much better suited polishing the normal windowed interface, and not duplicate the work of people who are working on dedicated full-screen interfaces.toddrme2178https://www.blogger.com/profile/03684472911091668339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-12318463817156659662011-01-13T13:42:24.528-07:002011-01-13T13:42:24.528-07:00"I would love to participate from the Amarok ..."I would love to participate from the Amarok devel team, except last time I tried, the team did not take my suggestions into account."<br /><br />Developers cannot implement every suggestion by every person. Sometimes they haven't had time yet, sometimes they think the improvement is small compared to other changes that need to be made, sometimes the suggestions cause more problems than they fix, sometimes the suggestions don't fit with the direction they want to take the software, sometimes the suggestions are infeasible to implement, sometimes they are just bad ideas. <br /><br />Just because they didn't accept your ideas doesn't mean they are not open to suggestions, there are many other possible reasons.toddrme2178https://www.blogger.com/profile/03684472911091668339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-71795711428479713572011-01-13T13:41:20.467-07:002011-01-13T13:41:20.467-07:00Thank you for taking the time to look at these moc...Thank you for taking the time to look at these mockups. I agree with you that there is an emphasis on the Playlist section of Amarok whereas the collection section is less important.<br /><br />I just imagine myself working with my playlist. The motion always starts with part of the local collection, the internet and other areas where one gets the music. Ultimately, what Amarok will do with the playlist is just to play it. How much change will I want from the currently playing music? I think very little. So, that was my reasoning, I put all the music sources on the left and then the music playing area adjacent to it on the right. While your playlist is playing, you are left to work with the right as you please, or take a look at the lyrics, wikipedia, youtube, or any other widget.<br /><br />I did see the widgets showing in the middle area, but I can't help but get confused with what to do while I am holding the click and the music is on the mouse pointer. It just seems too much travelling for so many items.<br /><br />On the idea of widgets, I believe there is plenty of room for creating widgets that work perfectly with Amarok. Surely, there could be a fullscreen mode for Amarok as well as an independent widget.<br /><br />Thank you for your comments. :DAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972808216546510969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-50582838146045761282011-01-13T13:33:06.268-07:002011-01-13T13:33:06.268-07:00"There are three main panels. Starting from t..."There are three main panels. Starting from the left..."<br /><br />By default, you can move the panels wherever you want. My layout looks nothing like that.<br /><br />"No more than 5 times on the shot you see information about the currently playing track. Maybe that is a little visually excessive."<br /><br />I agree that the statusbar is probably not necessary, and the context view could probably hide the title when the statusbar is in slim mode. On the other hand the playlist very likely is not showing the current track (for instance if your are browsing for another track), and both the context view and the control bar can be set to hide the current track.<br /><br />"Users have to either drag or double click items on the far left which will then load at the far right to start playing atop."<br /><br />That is why amarok has context-sensitive drop targets that appear when you drag tracks to the middle. You never need to drag tracks all the way across. And even that is only a problem in the default layout, mine is different.<br /><br />In your mockup, the focus is in the collection rather than the playlist. But the whole point of Amarok 2 was to focus on the playlist rather than the collection. That was a conscious decision made by the developers.<br /><br />As for the collection area disappearing, that is how I have amarok 2.3 set up on my computer.<br /><br />It looks like your main suggestion is changing the collection browser from a list view to an icon view, and/or allow the same thing for the playlist. This may be a worthwhile option, and has been suggested elsewhere.<br /><br />Otherwise it looks like it is primarily just a reorganization of the panels, which you can already do (although the default layout is possibly open to discussion).<br /><br />There are intellectual property concerns with a coverflow-like effect, and the Amarok developers have already said they don't really want to just copy it wholesale. There has been some work on alternatives.<br /><br />There is someone already working on a plasma media center system, this is probably a more appropriate place for the full-screen interface rather than being part of amarok itself. <br /><br />There are already several plasma widgets for amarok, at least on of which (playwolf) already essentially allows you to minimize it to a widget.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053845016489256894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-64166217479037328912011-01-13T12:58:47.529-07:002011-01-13T12:58:47.529-07:00I do not doubt that the Amarok devel team thought ...I do not doubt that the Amarok devel team thought out the UI decisions it took. They are a great team which delivers a great music player.<br /><br />I would love to participate from the Amarok devel team, except last time I tried, the team did not take my suggestions into account. It seemed like my voice was unheard. So I would first like to know what the willingness to redesign Amarok is? Is the team trying to change the UI? What is their attitude?<br /><br />AndyAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972808216546510969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-63975661614876918872011-01-13T02:15:55.045-07:002011-01-13T02:15:55.045-07:00Hi,
thanks for your ideas for Amarok.
They seem n...Hi,<br /><br />thanks for your ideas for Amarok.<br />They seem nice at first sight but there are problems with them. There are reasons for doing things the way we did.<br />We are aware that the UI has problems and we'd like to improve there. If you want to make a real difference and work out the problems with your suggestions to make them ready for integration in Amarok please send an email to amarok-devel at kde org. It'd be great to work on that.Lydia Pintscherhttp://blog.lydiapintscher.denoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31633408.post-69225302894831380502011-01-13T00:45:40.193-07:002011-01-13T00:45:40.193-07:00Well, yes, Amarok has great features but it seems ...Well, yes, Amarok has great features but it seems nobody spent a thought on usability. Its UI really is a bloody mess and needs a re-design urgently.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com