Google Summer of Code: Amarok CD Stack Collection View

[Ian Monroe]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Andreas Schäfer <gentryx at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>  recently I've checked the Amarok website for info on Amarok 2. I
>  didn't find much on version 2, but a lot on your Google Summer of Code
>  ideas. As an every day user of Amarok I immediately caught fire
>  with the first proposal, the "CD Stack Collection View". It is a
>  solution for a problem I stumble across several times a week.
>
>  This mail is meant as a first primer to check what you guys think of
>  my ideas (and maybe me as a candidate (-; ) and to collect ideas. If
>  you like it, I can come up with a detailed proposal later on, maybe
>  with some mock screens.
>
>  First off some questions:
>  - How long do you want the proposal to be?

Your proposal is a good length. It's also a good proposal. :)

One thing that is missing is a timeline for your project. Eg specific
dates with what goals you plan to accomplish by then.

>  - Do you have any other ideas related to the stack view project?
>   Features, comments?

I'd like the cd-stack to possibly be a replacement of the collection
browser, at least for computers that can handle it (though since the
cd stack isn't a tree view that might not work without some finesse).
So really I don't see it as a solution to the "aimless browsing" issue
so much, as just having a collection browser that looks awesome. I'm
actually not really sure about your idea of having flexible CD stacks,
but since you plan on getting the "basic" (haha!) functionality of
something like the mockup first, I don't mind. :)

Personally I have all my music sorted pretty well in the file system,
with genre/sub-genre/artists. So I use the file browser to do my
aimless browsing (or just turn on the dynamic playlist). Having an
easy in-Amarok way to organize your music in such a way would be
useful.

Thanks for your proposal, be sure to submit it on March 24th PST.

Ian


>  The Problem
>  -----------
>
>  At the moment Amarok supports the user poorly when browsing the
>  collection without an exact aim.
>
>  When I got friends around for a party they typically say three things:
>  1. Uhh, Linux? 2. Wow, Amarok rocks!  3. Do you have some
>  Reggae/Ska/you name it in your collection? I can't find any. While the
>  collection view is great for searching specific artists and tracks,
>  the sheer mass of artists makes it hard to gain an overview. The
>  alphabetic order helps little. For instance in my (physical) CD
>  collection I got Karajan close to Bach and Korn close to Bullet for my
>  Valentine. In Amarok it's the other way round.
>
>  My Vision
>  ---------
>
>  Transport the intuitiveness of a real world CD stack to Amarok.
>
>  Everyone can sort his CDs according to his needs. I prefer to sort
>  them by genre, others by age (and rumor has it that some sort them by
>  color of the covers ;-) ). Even if you don't have anything specific in
>  mind you can still rummage in the collection like in a good record
>  store, find something to suit your taste and get an overview of what
>  related stuff is available.
>
>  My basic objective matches closely with the proposal on the Amarok
>  site: A scrollable list of albums, clicking on an album reveals its
>  cover and tracks contained. Tracks and albums can be moved to the
>  playlist via drag & drop. The user could configure whether to show in
>  the list just the albums' titles and artists or all covers.
>
>  Once this basic functionality is implemented, I'd like to add some
>  more features:
>
>  - Make the stack sortable via drag & drop: this way every user can
>   cluster his music to his taste.
>
>  - Multiple stacks: Allow the user to split his giant heap of albums
>   into smaller ones, e.g. "Reggae", "New Stuff", "90s" and so on. A
>   horizontal paddle could be used to switch between stacks.
>
>  - Polish the visuals: explore which visual effects for this view might
>   make Amarok an even more pleasant experience (without making it too
>   flashy).
>
>  While those features sound rather simple to implements, it should be
>  noted that the first would AFAICS require changes to the model, as
>  we'd need way to store the user's ordering of his albums.
>
>  About Me
>  --------
>
>  I'm a computer science PhD student and as such I take pride in saying
>  that coding is not just my profession, but also my passion (-8 My
>  field of work is Cluster & Grid Computing (parallel programming, many,
>  many big machines). I'm most proficient in C++, Ruby and Java, but I
>  can also write some obscure languages (Object Pascal, x86 assembly,
>  Modula 3 ...shudder) if need be. During my studies I specialized in
>  software engineering and I have plenty of experience with design
>  patterns in general and also Model/View/(Controller) specifically.
>  For some of our applications I've created QT based GUIs (both forms
>  and widgets), based on Model/View. I enjoy learning new stuff and I
>  guess it's fair to say that I'm a quick learner.
>
>  What I'd like to Learn About
>  ----------------------------
>
>  - deepen my knowledge of QT (QT4) and the KDE way (code structure,
>   build system etc.)
>  - modern graphics programming (most of my knowledge of this is based
>   on my experiences in the early 90s demo scene -- fire and plasma
>   effects, shade bobs etc. :-) )
>  - user interface programming (e.g. drag & drop)
>
>  Any comments welcome
>
>  Cheers
>  -Andi
>
>
>  --
>  ============================================
>  Andreas Schäfer
>  Cluster and Metacomputing Working Group
>  Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany
>  PGP/GPG key via keyserver
>  I'm a bright... http://www.the-brights.net
>  ============================================
>
>  (\___/)
>  (+'.'+)
>  (")_(")
>  This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny into your
>  signature to help him gain world domination!
>
> _______________________________________________
>  Amarok mailing list
>  Amarok at kde.org
>  https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/amarok
>
>