Future UI Discussion

[Nikolaj Hald Nielsen]

> Ok, now the heresy part:
> I don't think it would be a bad idea for Amarok to go the all-purpose
> media player way, I see this as a natural and logical next
> evolutionary step. After all, we already have a video plasmoid, why
> limit it to basic video support for music videos?
> So multiple collections (or a collection with multiple media type
> labels, whatever) would be a must, as seen in the first picture of M2.
> This concept could be integrated in Lee's mockup, I'm not sure to what
> extent.
> However, I find the layout with two tab bars in M2 a little confusing,
> I would like to see a better solution, maybe with nested horizontal
> tab bars or a hybrid tab bar+menus integrated in the tab-bar approach
> (stinks of WMP though).

I _really_ do not want us to go down this path. Basically, I think
video playback is a totally different domain that audio playback. For
a video player, you want the video to take up as much space as
possible and you want to have no distractions at all, while for an
audio player it makes sense to show context information, analyses and
so on.

I think that we have more than enough on our plate to keep us busy for
the next many years improving Amarok 2 as an audio only player, and I
think that the loss of focus (both  in terms of user interface and
development time) we would suffer from trying to become a video player
as well would turn Amarok into a  so-so audio and video player instead
o a kick ass audio only player.

On a personal note, I really do not have any where near enough videos
to even bother using any kind of manager for them.

- Nikolaj