Is Amarok currently open for design input?

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Friday 08 August 2014 17:46:11 Myriam Schweingruber wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
> 
Hi Myriam,
 
> view of the Amarok Team, but I am slightly pissed right now, so please take
> all this with a big pinch of salt:
> 
> First of all: how about actually starting to ask us before starting a
> brainstorm with ideas? In German there is a saying: "das Pferd von hinten
> aufzäumen"... Sorry if this sounds a tad negative, but I would have
> expected for people to actually get in touch with us before starting any of
> that, not start it without even thinking of the Amarok Team and all the
> sudden get aware that maybe, maybe we should ask the Amarok people? Is it
> common in the design field to redesign stuff without even asking? Really,
> seems a rather strange behavior to me, but I am not a designer, and I had
> my share of designers with lack of sense of reality over the last 40
> years...

um, okay, I just realized that I should have provided more context. Blame it 
on organizational blindness, but I forgot for a moment that people outside of 
the VDG community don't necessarily know how things work there.
Our forum is very open, there is some work specifically initiated by the core 
team, but anyone can start a thread about anything, and any ideas are welcome.

We let people run wild first with any ideas, and only start channeling work if 
there is a realistic chance that changes would be implemented.

The thread I mentioned was just started by a random guy who thought that the 
Amarok UI could be improved and offered his ideas up for discussion. We could 
not have asked the Amarok team first unless we could see into the future.

> The question is not whether we are open to mock-ups, but what all these
> styles have in common is actually almost all are a step back to what we
> already had in Amarok 1.x, so far I don't really see many new ideas... Also
> we do NOT want to look like application A or B, Amarok has its own
> identity, so copying a GUI from other applications is not exactly very
> compelling...
> I just wait for the first to actually mention Clementine as a starting
> point (reminder: Clementine actually IS Amarok 1.4, just look at the code,
> it is still full of old cruft we got rid of in Amarok 2.x...) to stop
> looking at that whole thread altogether... some screenshots are actually
> nothing else than just that *sigh* So there I say: stop, no, we are NOT
> going back, we have been there already and there was a really good reason
> to abandon that path, else we wouldn't have done it...
> 
> So maybe all these people who come up with "new" ideas should first have a
> look at what was already there, instead of pretending to "invent something
> new"...  Seriously, do they all really think we have no ideas whatsoever?
> Looks like, so apparently none of these people only have the slightest idea
> what changing a GUI involves, how Amarok looked in the past, and where we
> come from.
> 
> We have pressing things on our plate, namely the transition to Qt 5, I
> would say this is much more important than anything else right NOW. We plan
> on working on the Qt 5 transition in Randa, just a questions of
> availability of the developers.
> 
> The ideas are certainly not what is currently lacking... We even have a big
> and shiny playlist overhaul that is ready in the starting blocks, what we
> need are the people who are around long enough to do the actual work. There
> is enough material in the wiki, btw, how about take these as starting ideas
> and come up with something that is actually doable and then be around and
> help do the work?
> 
> As for your idea of a Qt Quick UI, erm... same problem as above: is Qt
> Quick really up to this? It certainly was not last time we talked about
> this (at the last Randa meeting, incidentally, as well as during the last
> two Akademies) It was actually pretty far away from being usable. Mind you,
> I am not a developer, but that is what we came up at the last big
> brainstorms, and the manpower situation did not really improve. Feel free
> to correct me if I am wrong and Qt Quick really made a big step ahead, but
> last time we actually were prepared to do the work the framework was simply
> not there (yet?).
> 
> Frankly, I am a bit weary with all these "idea givers" who are quick with
> words and then go away as fast as they came, because when they realize it
> is actually a lot of work on the plate, none actually has the necessary
> time to stay around... So yes, come with ideas, but please, also be
> available to implement those! So far I can count at least a dozen people
> who did exactly that in the past: "oh, there is work involved? Sorry, don't
> have time for that..." , and we have had several people who came up with
> big promises and then all we got out of them was hot air, and sometimes not
> even that. Just remember the Context View overhaul that was supposed to be
> done, or the Tomahawk integration, both guys made big promises and then
> just disappeared, pocketing Google money along the way and having produced
> nothing usable whatsoever... Just ask Domme how much disappointment we have
> gone through...
> 
> In short: before starting to give mouthwatering ideas about how Amarok
> "could" look, be prepared to actually stay and do the work with us! Then we
> can start talking seriously!

I'll see how this thread here goes. If it turns out that the Amarok team 
generally isn't looking for design ideas (the reasons wouldn't really matter) 
now or any time soon, I'll tell that to the people in that thread so they 
won't waste any more of there energy creating ideas that have no chance of 
ever getting implemented, regardless of their quality.
If the Amarok team would be welcoming ideas in a certain direction but just 
doesn't like the scope or actual content of the ideas in that thread I 
mentioned (there are other ideas in other threads as well, I'll just have to 
dig them up), then that's a different story and popping into those threads and 
telling people what you guys are looking for would be all that's needed to 
guide the discussion.
 
> Again: this is my personal opinion, I might be totally wrong and will shut
> up if you can prove me wrong, but right now I have a  "déjà-vu"...

I can see your frustration and I'm sorry for the misunderstanding I might have 
caused (and hopefully cleared up now).

Cheers,
Thomas