renaming Playlist for clarity and developer sanity

[Ian Monroe]

Ok why we should keep calling it a playlist:
*cause thats what it is
*that's what people call it and will call it
*what folks are used to thinking it as
None of these are really reasons why it can't change in the code though.

Your correct that there is a problem. nhn putting PlaylistHandler in
the playlist/ directory is an example of the kind of confusion the
name causes.PlaylistHandler should be in / since its functionality is
common to the playlistbrowser and the playlist. Which kind of freaked
me out originally since I thought Nikolaj had somehow coupled
playlist-file handling with the Playlist:: classes, though he hadn't
really.

Coming from the opposite direction, my thought was to keep the
Playlist name the same and refer to the static track lists files as
just like TrackList.

On 10/2/07, Bart Cerneels <bart.cerneels at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> It is my opinion that by calling the nice piece of UI design on the
> right side of the mainwindow "The Playlist" we are not doing ourselves
> a favor. It distracts from it actual purpose and confuses users and
> developers alike.
>
> I'm gonna start a discussion here that I hope will clarify the
> use-case of the "The Playlist" and lead to either a renaming of either
> Playlist:: namespace or all the rest involved with Meta::Playlist.
>
> A Meta::Playlist in Amarok is not just a list of Tracks, it has
> additional metadata like name, etc. This metaclass is used to populate
> the PlaylistBrowser where Meta::Playlists can be added, deleted,
> metadata edited, tracks appended, tracks removed, etc. For loading and
> accessing Meta::Playlists ordered by category I created a class called
> PlaylistManager.
>
> AFAIK editing Meta::Playlists is not possible nor desired in "The
> Playlist". Also, "The Playlist" can hold tracks from many
> Meta::Playlists, there is no 1-1 mapping with any item in the
> PlaylistBrowser. Calling it "The Playlist" however suggests this 1-1
> connection with the PlaylistBrowser is real.
>
> What "The Playlist" is in my mind is a queue of upcoming tracks, see
> the obvious difference with Meta::Playlist, no metadata. The queue can
> be reordered without affecting the Meta::Playlist you
> added/dragged/appended into it.
>
> Although "The Playlist" and PlaylistManager could share a lot of code
> ir PlaylistModel could just use a special Meta::Playlist registered
> with PlaylistManager.
>
> All of this makes me suggest that we rename "The Playlist" to "The
> TrackQueue" or "The PlayQueue", at least in the code. What is
> represented by an i18ned string to the user can remane the same, but I
> would recommend we change that as well to prevent users to mistake the
> TrackQueue as a Playlist editor.
>
> Remember: "Amarok is about big collections, not big Playlists"
> and "If you want a playlisteditor use Juk" --markey

Amarok is very playlist-oriented though... you either misremember
markey or he was on crack, Amarok is much better at playlist control
then JuK.