Magnatune Integration: First Impressions

[Nikolaj Hald Nielsen]

Hi!

Thanks for the feedback, we really appreciate it!

I will try to answer all your questions and comments. Please note that
we just released Amarok 1.4.5 in whch a number of Magnatune related
bugs were resolved.

> First the kudos. I'm really enjoying Amarok and getting a lot of
> value from it. (Can I say how happy I was to find that Amarok worked
> without complaint even though all the music files in my 'collection'
> directory are set read-only?) Since I was already a Magnatune fan,
> I'm also getting value from the Magnatune integration. Thanks to all.

Well, whats to say other than thanks again! :-)


> I just made my first purchase via the integration; here's my
> initial feedback. (This is in Amarok 1.4.4.)
>
> 1) Tab order in the 'purchase' dialog is broken. (Tab out of the
> 'email' box and you'll see what I mean.)

This seems to have been fixed in 1.4.5.

>
> 2) The purchase dialog says "The amount you choose to pay
> will be split 50/50 between the artist and Magnatune.com".
> But I'm pretty sure that I saw somewhere recently that
> puchases made via Amarok result in a contribution back to the
> Amarok project. So the user will have the reasonable question
> "does the Amarok part come out of the artist's part,
> Magnatune's part, or both?" And you may not want to get
> into explaining all that in a dialog box. Which is fine,
> but since money is such a twitchy issue, I think it's better
> to be silent on the issue than to have incomplete or
> incorrect info. You _really_ don't want people coming back
> to you later saying "hey, you deceived me about where my
> money was going!"

The Purchase dialog in 1.4.5 has a bit more information, but just to
be clear. The purchase amount is split 50% to the artist, 40% to
Magnatune and 10% to the Amarok project. So the artist does get the
full 50%. I agree (and this point has been raised many times before)
that we could have expressed this information better in 1.4.4.

>
> 3) In the 'download' dialog, there is a text part that
> includes your password for re-downloading the music later
> as well as some "share the music" text from Magnatune.
> But as soon as you start the download, all that text is
> lost. It would be better if it were retained somehow;
> maybe a text file in the download location.

Actually this information is stored by Amarok (even the 1.4.4 version,
even though it can only be used by 1.4.5 in the
~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/magnatune.com/purchases directory), and in
the newly released 1.4.5 version there is an integrated re-download
manager that lets you download any previous purchases made through
Amarok. Also, all information needed to download you purchases is sent
to your email as well. And, as an extra service, if you go to the
Magnatune.com site and enter your email address, you will be able to
re download any of your purchases as well.

>
> Uh oh. Just went to check my inbox and it looks like this
> purchase was charged twice. I did bring up the 'purchase
> album' dialog after completing the purchase (to help with
> writing this email), but I did _not_ click the 'purchase'
> button in that dialog again. So this may be a bug. (The
> CC info was still there when I re-opened the dialog; I
> exited Amarok and restarted, and the CC info was cleared.)

Unfortunately, this was a major bug with 1.4.4. that has also been
fixed in 1.4.5. Under certain circumstances, the purchase request is
actually sent twice. Magnatune has implemented a filter that _should_
ensure that only one payment is made but it does not seem to work
every time, so to be sure you should contact john at nagnatune.com who
will make you a refund if you have actually been charged twice (which
he will be able to tell). (Otherwise he will most likely get in touch
with you, Magnatune has been really forthcoming in helping limit the
impact of this issue.

>
> Let me know if I should open bugs for any of the above.
> All in all, though, super work so far. Thanks!

I think all the bugs you mentioned have been corrected as of Amarok
1.4.5, so my advice would be to upgrade to this release. If any of
your issues still persists with 1.4.5 please do file them at
bugs.kde.org

Rock on! :-)

- Nikolaj