Improve the dynamic playlists

[Dan Meltzer]

On Jan 27, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Leo Franchi <lfranchi at kde.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Ludovic DEVEAUX
> <deveaux.ludovic31 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> We are students from Toulouse, France and we are working on Amarok as
>> a university project. One our tasks is to work on the dynamic
>> playlists.
>>
>> We already have studied the main functioning of the feature but we
>> have now some questions.
>>
>> First, which way could we improve the algorithms ? For example, we  
>> can
>> make tests of ga_optimize() to eventually use it in the code. Nikolaj
>> Hald Nielsen told us some algorithms don't work the way they should,
>> can anyone point out what we should focus on ?
>>
>> We would like to gather opinions about the dynamic playlists applet.
>> Do you think it is usable and understandable for most users ? We  
>> think
>> it's a bit too complicated at the moment. With your feedback we could
>> make a proposal for enhancement.
>
> Hi IUP guys,
>
> I see a few ways of tackling this. First of all, how much time do you
> guys want to spend on the dynamic playlist stuff? I think we've talked
> about this  before, but there are quite a few structural limitations
> to how the dynamic playlist system is currently implemented. Polishing
> the system (which is what i've been doing too recently) is OK but
> fundamentally just furthers the half-working system that is there.
>
> We designed an awesome flexible intuitive new dynamic playlist
> framework this summer (see
> http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Development/GCDS_Discussions/Dynamic_Playlists
> ) but I haven't had the time to implement it yet. If you want to
> tackle the problem completely, I would be totally willing to support
> and advice and do what I can to make it happen :) :) :) It is however
> a large task so I don't know if it's something you guys are interested
> in.
>
> As you guys say, you could tweak the bias solver. Enabling ga_optimize
> and tuning it would certainly improve the system. However, I don't
> really know how much improvement it would really  bring--sa_optimize
> and ga_optimize are both only used for optimizing playlists with fuzzy
> biases, and personally IMHO i don't think that's used that much by
> most people. I don't think people will even notice an additional
> genetic optimization algorithm for creating fuzzy dynamic playlists
> (on top of the existing simulated annealing optimizer). So I would
> recommend against trying to enable ga_optimize in the bias
> solver---it's also something that could take up a *lot* of time for
> little gain.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean about the dynamic playlists applet. There
> is no dynamic playlists applet currently....I guess you mean the
> dynamic playlist UI? That could definitely use some work as it can be
> confusing and not really clear to the user.
>
> One of my suggestions, which has been on my personal list for a long
> time, is to extend the dynamic playlist system to work with non-sql
> collection tracks. I mean, allow the dynamic playlists to select songs
> from *any* collection (local songs, magnatune, ampache, mp3tunes,
> whatever). This would allow it to *greatly increase* its ability to
> help you discover new music, especially when put together with some of
> the custom biases that currently exist (like the last.fm or echonest
> similarity biases). So being able to draw tracks from say magnatune,
> or a shared ampache server, would be awesome

This is dependant on writing proper querymakers for other collections-- 
outside of the dynamic playlist code itself
>
> Anyway, feel free to ask me any questions etc. As you most likely have
> figured out the code is a mess and completely over-engineered, and I
> think i'm the only person left who's spent a significant amount of
> time digging through it and writing stuff for it.
>
> leo
>
>
>
> -- 
> ______________________________________________________
> lfranchi at kde.org                       Tufts  University 2010
> leonardo.franchi at tufts.edu         The KDE Project
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