renaming Playlist for clarity and developer sanity

[Bart Cerneels]

> 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.
> >
2007/10/2, Ian Monroe <ian at monroe.nu>:
> 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.
Sure, playlist is the natural name for it, but in Amarok code it
creates confusion and fuzzyness. Hence an alternative name as a
reminder of the difference.
>
> 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.

It's not just static track list file that are populating the
PlaylistBrowser, although those are certainly amongst them. Other
categories are Podcasts, Smart Playlists, Favorite streams, Suggested
streams, etc

> >
> > 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.
>
I'm pretty sure about the quotes, but that is not the point. The
*focus* of Amarok is not on the playlist, the fact that Amarok is
better at it than JuK (which I doubt) would have to do with manpower.

Bart