Music Player - Needs

Sat Aug 8 18:15:18 BST 2015

So let's keep working at this so we can have a clear vision.

Local library - Honestly, if a modern music player can't show and play the
music you have on the same machine it is running on, I think we really
shouldn't call it modern. :-) To me this is an essential function. It
doesn't need to have uber-fancy, library management functions. But offering
basic functions to browse and play music by Artist, Album, Genre is
essential I think.

Just playing a music file - Since there is little distinction between a
music file and an audio file, I'd be fine with this being a secondary
feature. Easily supported, but perhaps without making it a primary feature
of the design.

Playing streams - With all the off-device sources of music today, it sorta
seems like we can't walk away from this one. I think we would need to flesh
out a little bit more what this music player would bring to the party.
1. Do we try to support the big popular online services? Access and
playback through our UI (which probably means api access) or just provide
an Online Music Bookmarks style feature that opens the online services in
an embedded webpage for these online services?
2. Do we focus on free/open standard style services? Might provide some
kind of principled approach to online streaming. Downside is the perfect
being the enemy of the good.
3. Internet radio style streaming or online music library streaming? I
think we have open standards for the latter, not so much the former.

Any other fundamental ideas for what this music player should or should not
be?

As the discussion progresses, I'll update the vision that was previously
captured here:
https://community.kde.org/KDE_Visual_Design_Group/Music_Player#Music_Player_Vision

Hope this helps,
Andrew

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 8:51 AM Olivier Churlaud <olivier at churlaud.com>
wrote:

> I think there is no further discussion.. Maybe check the forum (*)
>
>  * https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285&t=122273&
>
>
> Le 08/08/2015 16:37, RISHABH GUPTA a écrit :
>
> hello,
>
> Is the discussion taking place on   some other mailing list ?
>
> thanks,
> rishabh
>
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 7:32 PM, Ing. Konrad Renner <
> konrad.renner at kolabnow.com> wrote:
>
>> That sounds like good plan ;-)
>>
>> Am 05.08.2015 3:43 nachm. schrieb Andrew Lake <jamboarder at gmail.com>:
>> >
>> > Good points Teo. I don't think a decision has yet been made, or even a
>> strong bias towards to starting from scratch. In fact I think the bias is
>> toward reusing/building on existing code. What is not yet clear is *which*
>> code base to use in light of the goals of the music player. Having worked
>> on Bangrang, I'd be sincerely and entirely happy if the collective decision
>> is to take advantage of Amarok's code base, or Juk or anything else. What
>> matters is that we ensure that whatever it is built upon is sustainable for
>> the folks involved.
>> >
>> > I'd offer that we probably have enough to go ahead and start refining
>> the vision of what this music player is supposed to be, flesh out any
>> lingering questions about intended functions, then with that done, continue
>> a more detailed discussion about which existing codebase, if any, would
>> best serve those needs.
>> >
>> > Hope this helps,
>> > Andrew
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Aug 5, 2015, 4:13 AM Teo Mrnjavac <teo at kde.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Wednesday, August 05, 2015 12:06:18 Olivier Churlaud wrote:
>> >> > Hi,
>> >> >
>> >> > I read all the ideas that came up on this mailing list. I just want
>> to
>> >> > sum up what I found interesting and the question that it raised for
>> me.
>> >> > I don't explain or say that what I mean is true, but if I have this
>> >> > questions, maybe some other have it..
>> >> >
>> >> > *Local library - Amarok ?*
>> >> > As Myriam  said, Amarok is not dead and is slowly beeing ported to
>> KF5.
>> >> > Amarok was one of the huge assets of KDE and is quite good. IMOH it
>> >> > lacks the possibility to create playlists (but this might be
>> corrected
>> >> > by contributing to the project) and the support of network library. I
>> >> > think that if we want to create a music player that plays the local
>> >> > library, we'll be in conflict with an awesome software, which might
>> need
>> >> > a refresh but this can be done by people interested in Amarok. (And
>> then
>> >> > of course all the Clementine, Rhythmbox.... are already present and
>> >> > quite good).
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> This is exactly what I suggested at the beginning of that thread. To
>> put it
>> >> plainly, Amarok has some issues. For instance, I strongly dislike
>> Amarok's UI,
>> >> even though I'm partly responsible for it. However, there are many hard
>> >> problems that Amarok developers solved very well, after many years of
>> learning
>> >> and work.
>> >>
>> >> I don't fancy myself a veteran, as there are people who have been
>> doing music
>> >> players for much longer, but I do have some years of craftsmanship on
>> Amarok
>> >> and Tomahawk under my belt, and with those bits of experience I'm a bit
>> >> surprised that some developers seem so happy to rush into a full
>> rewrite.
>> >>
>> >> *Good* collection management is hard. *Good* metadata management is
>> really
>> >> hard. Backends have their quirks. Then you need at least some web
>> services,
>> >> for metadata and covers as a minimum, because you can't realistically
>> have a
>> >> modern music player by just whipping the llama's ass like it's 1997.
>> And all
>> >> of that is just the minimum viable functionality to get started,
>> before even
>> >> thinking of delivering a product that adds some extra value on top of
>> what the
>> >> competition does.
>> >>
>> >> Don't want to work on an old codebase? Fine, that's a reason for
>> starting from
>> >> scratch. It's important to have fun when you're a volunteer, and old
>> code is
>> >> often not fun at all. I understand and support that. I like fun.
>> >>
>> >> Don't feel like adapting to years of Amarok team practices and lore?
>> That's
>> >> another reason for starting from scratch. Creative control is fun, and
>> an
>> >> added bonus if you're a volunteer. Sometimes starting anew is the best
>> way to
>> >> get traction. I understand that too.
>> >>
>> >> I'd be happy to see any work being done on awesome music players, even
>> a new
>> >> one from scratch. But even with knowledge of the Amarok codebase and
>> the
>> >> dragons that lie within I find it really hard to believe that building
>> on
>> >> Amarok's strengths and throwing away the bad stuff could be
>> technically harder
>> >> than starting from scratch.
>> >>
>> >> For me in a perfect world this would be a discussion on how to
>> >> reboot/refresh/rebrand Amarok (or Bangarang, JuK, Clementine, ...).
>> It's
>> >> completely fine if the reasons for starting anew aren't technical, but
>> at the
>> >> very least, while preserving the fun, novelty and creative control of
>> starting
>> >> from scratch, I suggest the new developers take a look at what Amarok
>> is doing
>> >> with collections and metadata.
>> >>
>> >> "We want to start from scratch for maximum creative control and fun"
>> is a good
>> >> rationale. Go for it. We need this kind of get-things-done approach in
>> KDE.
>> >>
>> >> "We want to start from scratch because it's technically impossible to
>> build on
>> >> top of Amarok" makes no sense to me.
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> --
>> >> Teo Mrnjavac
>> >> http://teom.org | teo at kde.org
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