Magnatune Impressions

[Nikolaj Hald Nielsen]

Christie,

Thaks for your feedback. I'll try to answer each point.

On 9/17/06, Christie Harris <dangle.baby at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was a little dubious about this integration - and I'm still not sure I
> *really* like the idea... but this is nicely done.
> Some first impressions/niggles (some of which may already be on the TODO)...
>
> * The font used in the artist/album info window at the bottom is huge! Is that
> hard coded?

This is all done in html, so can be easilly changed. Actually I dont
think I explicitly specify a font at the moment...

>
> * Do magnatune give the length of the tracks? That would be useful info to
> include if they do.

They do. Where would you like this to be shown? The problem is, that
as I understand it, I have no way of passing info beyond a simple url
to the playlist. I would also very much like to be able to pass tracks
names and so on instead of having it use the name the stream returns.

>
> * If I click on what looks like a URL, what's meant to happen?
>

At the moment, nothing. Open for suggestions.


> * Include a link to the artist's page on magnatune. At times there is a lot of
> scrolling to read info in the amarok browser.

Good idea.

>
> * Instead of using the term "Genre", perhaps using magnatune's terminology
> of "Collection" would be an interesting idea?'

I dont think that the xml file I am using contains info about which
collections a given album is included in.

>
> * (this one is for magnatune themselves, possibly) geez, get your genres
> sorted out! If an artist describes their music a certain way... then it would
> be nice if the music was actually classified that way.
> For example: "Wicked boy: a wicked mix of ambient/jungle/trash trance."
> okaaaay... and it's classified under "Rock"?  According to their page on
> magnatune, they're part of the "Hard Electronic" collection.
>
> http://magnatune.com/artists/wickedboy
>
> Or... is the correct info being retrieved/served? I notice the genre info on
> their website doesn't really match what's listed in Amarok. Either way, it
> hinders the magical "discoverability" of the music.
>


Well. Here I have to admit I choose the simple path in order to get
something working. For each album, magnatune provides both a simple
Mp3Genre wich is what I am currently using, and a list of so called
MagnatuneGenres.

For Wicked boys album "The Treatment" for instance, the Mp3Genre is
"Rock" and the MagnatuneGenres are "Electronica,Wakeup". Actually,
since Wicked boy has an album with the Mp3Genre "rock" as well as one
with the Mp3Genre "Electronica" He will be present in both genre views
in the browser.

My problem was (and is) that some albums have a lot of different
MagnatuneGenres and I am not sure how to make this easilly searchable
whereas the Mp3Genres seemd straight forward. Again I am very open to
suggestions!


>
>
> Apart from that, great work!

Thanks, appreciate it! :-)

>
> Cheers, Christie
>


- Nikolaj