Amarok article: last.fm - when do I need a profile, how is last.fm used for dynamic playlists?

[Martin Steigerwald]

Hello!

After some hours of using last.fm I am not completely clear when I would 
need a last.fm profile. The informations in Amarok GUIs are a bit 
contradicting.

In the settings it first tells me that I need to have a profile in order 
to use last.fm in Amarok.

But then below in the section with last.fm services it is written that I 
do not need a last.fm profile for the display of similar tracks in the 
context browser. And then there are two services I can enable (roughly 
translated from german version):

1) Send played tracks and update the profile this way

2) Get similar artists

Both are grayed out immediately when I delete my last.fm username from the 
settings. Now I did not yet quite crasp the difference between the 
display of similar tracks in the context browser and the service 2 "Get 
similar artists". I thought both mean the same. Graying out service 2 
seems inconsistent to me, since also the german documentation tells me 
that I do not need a last.fm profile in order to use that service.

When I disable both services in the settings I do neither see "Similar 
artists" and "Recommended tracks" in the context browser anymore.

I would like to receive some clarification on this, as here apparently 
Amarok doesn't behave as documented. I can create a bug report once it is 
clear whether we really have a bug here or I misunderstood something.


My second question is about dynamic playlists and last.fm. I think I read 
that Amarok uses last.fm for getting similar artists in order to 
recommend suitable tracks when using a playlist. What does it transfer to 
last.fm, how does last.fm use it and do I need a profile to use this 
feature? Dynamic playlists already worked very well before I created a 
last.fm profile today, so either it doesn't need last.fm or it uses it 
without needing a profile. How is that stuff working? I still think its 
using last.fm, but does not need a profile.

Regards,
-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/amarok/attachments/20070913/21b6247c/attachment.sig>