Amarok Statusbars

[Seb Ruiz]

Hi Devs,
Today I've been doing a bit of work on the Statusbars in Amarok 2.

I split the current single statusbar into two - one under the context
view and another under the playlist. IMO, this means that we can
better differentiate and place relevant information. Playlist
information (such as length, track count and size) will no longer be
placed under the context view. Conversely, a statusbar under context
gives us more space to put the progress bars and more general
information like last.fm submissions and what not.

One potential problem is the effect for users which collapse the
context view entirely, but I suppose we could jimmy up a solution
which just moves the context status to the playlist (In this case I
presume there would be much more space under the playlist).

Throughout Amarok 1.x development I was also not satisfied with the
popup messages which we had. If anybody has been using Dolphin in kde4
you might notice the custom statusbar which is used. I really like it.
Simple and efficient. The message solution which they have is clever
and pretty. It is noticeable without being intrusive. It's one major
drawback that I can see is the inability to handle multiple operations
(progress bars) or multiple popup messages. I imagine that we could
somehow work around this to create a hybrid between the Amarok and
Dolphin statusbars.

I started to integrate the Dolphin statusbar message into ours, but
the Amarok statusbar is very very complex. More than I think needs to
be. It may be a good idea to totally rip out the current statusbar and
start again with a more minimalist perspective that Dolphin uses.

I'd like to know what you think about the whole situation. Does
anybody have any objects to ripping out the statusbar and starting
again, or perhaps a different idea on what the statusbar should or
shouldn't be.

Cheers

-- 
Seb Ruiz

http://www.sebruiz.net/