Suggestion for Collection Dialog Workflow

[Mark Kretschmann]

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 1:39 PM, tK <thomaskolar90 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently ran into a problem building my collection and was
> encouraged to send a suggestion for an improvement on the Amarok IRC
> channel.
>
> My problem was that I didn't find out how to build my collection in
> the first place. Opening the Collection dialog (Settings->Configure
> Amarok...->Collection), I selected the folder I wanted to import, but
> didn't know how to proceed.
> The correct procedure is to press "Apply". In my opinion, this is
> inconsistent, as I would usually expect that to set configuration
> options and apply the changes, but not to have a "special" effect of
> that magnitude. I would have expected a seperate button labeled "Build
> collection" or something to that effect. Indeed I tried rescan and
> import, which of course didn't work.
>
> So, in short, my suggestion is to add a button - maybe right next to
> "Rescan Collection" and "Import Collection" - labelled "Build
> Collection" that builds the collection from the files selected.

The fundamental problem with this dialog is this this, it just occurred to me:

The settings dialog is for setting options. Stuff like "[x] On/Off",
etc. That's also what most pages in this dialog do. With one
exception: The Collection page. We have a mix of two paradigms here: A
few settings that work instantly, and two _actions_ that start a
process that potentially takes hours. They don't really belong there.

I think that's causing confusion, no matter what the exact wording is.

-- 
Mark Kretschmann
Amarok Developer
www.kde.org - amarok.kde.org