Podcasts in PlaylistBrowser vs. ServiceBrowser ( was: Re: Usability: Where to start?)

[Orville Bennett]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


On Feb 20, 2009, at 6:48 AM, Bart Cerneels wrote:

>> *
>> Why are Podcasts in the "Playlists" browser? To me they seem more  
>> like
>> Internet services. The last place I'd look is probably in that
>> browser. I've heard about similar confusion from other users too.
> I object to Podcasts being move to the internet tab.
> My reasons:
> - A podcast channel is similar to a manually created playlist except
> that it gets updated automatically. Similar to smart playlists, which
> are created by a query of the database.
>
> - Just like user created playlists, PodcastChannels can be synced to a
> mediaplayer. The UI elements for syncing will be integrated in the
> PlaylistBrowser.
It makes sense logically, yes. But someone not knowing anything about  
amarok would expect podcasts to be in the internet, not playlist  
section.

>
>
> - The "Internet" label really should say "Internet Services". The OPML
> directory is a service, where one would browse in when looking for a
> new feed to subscribe to. The podcasts the user is subscribed to are
> used daily and should not be hidden in the (already quite) long list
> of services.
But it says internet, and all the services here use the internet, so  
keeping this simple label is fine.

>
>
> - Meta::Playlists (and drerived Meta::PodcastChannels) can be offered
> by many sub-components of Amarok: Collections, Services, MediaDevices,
> Scripts, ... by using the PlaylistProvider system. The PodcastCategory
> in the PlaylistBrowser groups all channels together in one UI specific
> for podcasts. Same thing for the other Categories: UserPlaylists,
> DynamicPlaylists, ...
> I plan to add a "Favorite Streams" category to this list later.
No reason why the podcasts channel couldn't be in the internet browser  
though.
Ideally it should get it's own browser. :-)

>
>
>>
>> *
>> Every newly created playlist in the "My Playlists" section gets the
>> same name "new playlist". The least we could do is automatically
>> number them "New Playlist 1", "New Playlist 2", etc. Or we could ask
>> for a name immediately, via dialog box.
> That code is W.I.P.. Expect that to be fixed before the next freeze.
>
>>
>> *
>> I think the QToolBox widget used in this browser has some general
>> usability issues. E.g. it can be hard to spot the additional tabs at
>> the very bottom of the widget. I've talked this over with some Oxygen
>> developers, and they agreed that this widget is not really optimal.
>>
> We should create a custom widget or a different mode of selecting
> categories. Just a better oxygen theme wouldn't solve the problem for
> other styles.
> I used a QToolBox because it was easy, intending to subclass it to
> make it better suited for the playlistbrowser.
>
> The UI concept is also explained on the wiki:
> http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Proposals/PlaylistBrowserDesign
>
> Bart
> _______________________________________________
> Amarok-devel mailing list
> Amarok-devel at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/amarok-devel

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Darwin)

iEYEARECAAYFAkmgK1cACgkQ2yWVgjgEOKQAMgCeKJMZbpoltG4bxmfe98V1dCHK
eTAAnjFRQJzY9bDA0UfE0oIIQUtspdZk
=Xrb5
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----