Bugs & Thoughts about Amarok 1.4.4

[Niklas Nylund]

Hi,

First of all, thank you for the best music player on Linux! I am a  
longtime lurker on this mailing list and finally got around to write  
this mail, Amarok is good but it could definitely be better. First  
off I got a few bugs, if these are unknown maybe someone could give  
me advice on how to debug them and give you more useful information.  
Using 1.4.4 (Ubuntu packages) I've found the following,

1) Items are not removed from playlist when removed from the collection

2) The UI is unresponsive when,
	- updating collection
	- editing tags (in any fashion)
I suppose these actions are taken care of in a "worker thread" but  
still there are noticeable effects (completely unresponsive UI,  
equalizer stutters etc) on the UI when you edit tags, update the  
collection or add files to the collection ("move files to collection"  
from filetab).

3) The filelist does not always refresh after a delete, sometimes I  
get a blank row and it doesn't disappear before I do a manual refresh

4) I got an album in my collection folder that isn't picked up by the  
collection scanner. Restarting Amarok or rescanning the collection  
doesn't help. How do I debug this?



The remaining issues are more subjective and some people might  
disagree with what I'll write but here goes,

1) Context browser -> lyric tab -> add button. What does this button  
do? No visual feedback or tooltip, my first guess would be that it  
adds the lyric to a local cache but right now I got no idea.

2) Why do I have to choose a lyric script/manager even though there  
is only one option in my install. Amarok should do this choice for me.

3) Playlist tab-> smart playlists, why is there a folder called  
Collection? Why doesn't the default playlists go straight under smart  
playlists? I'd call this UI clutter. Same thing with streams.

4) Dynamic playlists-> random mix and suggested songs should be  
placed somewhere else. I think of these two items as more of "ways to  
listen to my music". Somehow comparable to shuffle and repeat mode.  
These are not "static" playlists, in the sense that when I add them  
they make the main playlist dynamic (i.e. they remove and add songs).  
A better place but
not maybe perfect place for these "actions/modes" would be be the  
Mode menu.

5) It would be nice if Amarok saved the main playlist and other  
options (especially "Group by" setting in collection browser) every  
now and then. I never close Amarok, I use it until it crashes and  
thus also loses my playlist.

6) The collection browser is kind of a mess. There are at least 5 (!)  
different places to change settings. First of "Group by" drop down  
menu, "Entire collection" drop down menu, sorting order, buttons for  
different view modes and finally "Configure folders". Somehow this  
should be easier and more polished, I can't even begin to think of  
how I would explain how the context browser works to a "non- 
technical" person.

7) There are too many ways that feedback is given to the user. Amarok  
gives feedback in at least the following ways,
	- The label/text in the lower left corner
	- A dialog box slides in from the bottom left corner
	- Konquerors dialogs when moving files to the collection
	- Maybe some other way that I can't remember now...
It would be nice if these were more unified and all presented in the  
same fashion to the user.


Please ask me to clarify if needed.


Thank you, keep up the good work!

Niklas Nylund