Magnatune Impressions

[Christie Harris]

On Sunday 17 September 2006 17:33, Nikolaj Hald Nielsen wrote:
> 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...

using system font sizes would be ideal :)


> > * 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.

displaying it next to the track name, and in the 'length' column would be a 
start, I guess.
I think you should keep the magnatune stream name - it makes it clear what the 
track/artist/magnatune idea is. If people really don't like it, they can 
always BUY the music! ;)


> > * If I click on what looks like a URL, what's meant to happen?
>
> At the moment, nothing. Open for suggestions.

Perhaps either a separate tab (as for wiki stuff in the context browser) or 
open in an external browser.


> > * 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.

OH, found it. yeah, that's what I expected to happen - was thinking trance, 
not electronic, based on the artist description :)

heh, although as we all know, genres are completely arbitrary anyway.

I s'pose offering alternative sorting methods might cover those situations - 
where only the albums in a particular genre are listed under that genre. 
Getting complicated now!


> 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!

maybe using some of the collection browser features?
(note, I'm completely a non-coder, if that wasn't immediately obvious! - this 
is all from a user POV)

Cheers, Christie