New Dynamic playlist pros and cons and suggestions

Alexey Shildyakov ashl1future at gmail.com
Sat Aug 13 12:14:16 UTC 2011


Old Dynamic playlists:
Pros:
+ Big design. All is good visible.
+ No addition windows. Change the values immediately.
+ More tradition KDE design
Cons:
- No limit to Proportion. Proportion summary might be greater than 100%.
- No sophisticated conditions.

New Dynamic playlists:
Pros:
+ Sophisticated conditions - almost you want.
+ Limit to Proportion. The sum of proportions is always 100%
Cons:
- Addition windows to edit values
- A little design. It's difficult to look at this and understand the
percentages.
- No percentage is shown.
- Unusable automatic change of proportion.

Thinking:
Lets think about new dynamic playlist disadvatages.
1. Addition windows to edit values
The reason it was implemented that DP become more configurable. So it is normal.
2. A little design.
Design is for you opinion, but it's really difficult for understanding.
3. No percentage for proportion is shown. It's difficult to look at
little design and understand the percentages.
It's bad because there is no way to understand numerical values of
proportions. The values should be shown in normal view and in window
while changing.
4. Unusable automatic change of proportion.
The problem the user don't understand how another proportions will be
changed when he change one. And for me it problem when I add new
proportion or change one - then I must change percentage for all
proportions. It's difficult and spend much time.

I suggest the user non-editable bar which show the deficiency and
excess of summary proportions percentage. The bar width is the same as
the width of another real editable bars but the virtual length is
depend on number of proportions in the same level. For example if 3
proportions are presetned, the minumum is -300% and maximum is +100%.
If every proportion has 100%, then  this bar has -300%. If every
proportion has 0%, this bar has 100%. The bar have the middle value
0%. So think this bar should be called "Proportion deficiency".
This bar must be presented in every where proportion might be.
The slider is automatically moves inside the bar and represent
deficiency or excess with showed +-percentage label. So, the user can
choose any value for any proportion when user add new or change one
value as he want to be. The button OK in window should be disabled if
this bar has non zero value. So, the user must manually change the
proportions that sum of them will be 100% so this bar has 0% and the
slider be in the middle.
The helpers is editable proportion percentage textbox and button "MAX"
that add maximum possible deficiency to the current proportion the sum
of proportions to be 100%. Usually user want to decrease proportions
manually but may want to fill remaining deficiency to up to 100%.

Suggestions to improve usability:
- Use in edit view (in window) big design as in old dynamic playlist.
- Show percentage in normal view. The possible place is before the
left of labels and right of bar for each proportion.
- Show percentage in editing view in window at the right of bar as in
old dynamic playlists.
- Provide functionality when user can change the proportion by writing
numeric value in textbox. Think the textbox should be the textbox
described in previous paragraph.
- Add button "max" at the right of editable percentage textbox to get
rid of proportions deficient.

Why this is bug?
and not wish? The reason I set it to Minor bug is that the situation
was bad yesterday, is bad today and might be bad in the future. It's
difficult to use current Dynamic playlist. Think, this is good place
to discussing about Dynamic playlists and solve the problem once and
for all and won't change it from one to another releases.

Dear developers and users, what do you think about these suggestions?

--
Best Regards, Shildyakov Alexey Vladimirovich


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