Google Summer of Code: Amarok CD Stack Collection View

[Andreas Schäfer]

On 20:32 Sun 23 Mar     , Ian Monroe wrote:
> Well I'm disappointed that you don't plan on using OpenGL. The
> prototype is pretty ugly, but it's also a prototype. I don't know much
> about OpenGL though, so perhaps having so much text in opengl isn't
> feasible. Decent looking text seems like a pretty basic feature
> though...

I'd use OpenGL for animations, IMHO this is where it makes sense. I
agree that the uglyness of the prototype isn't much of an argument,
but for me those issues with the text rendering were a real show
stopper. I guess it could be dealt with (you "only" have to make sure
that the texture you put the text on is rendered 1:1 pixel-wise on the
display). But I'm not sure whether this is even possible with all
devices, so I did change my proposal to make sure, something usable
would result.

I could also imagine making a full OpenGL view, but only with the covers
flying around(via OpenGL) and the text loosely in front of the covers
(2D). That could be done pretty quickly later on.

Sorry if this proposal is disappointing for you. I agree that your
sketch looks very nice, but after seeing the potential implementation
issues, I though I'd better be honest and didn't promise you guys
something which I couldn't really guarantee. 

Actually a fully OpenGL based collection view would be implemented
pretty quickly. (You just have to create a box mesh for each and print
the textures (covers and artist/album name) on it) Scrolling is done
via coordinate transformation, and so is rotation etc. I did already
build this, all that was missing was a nice(er) animation and some
mouse event handling, but as said: I didn't have much trust in the
font rendering.

If OpenGL CD boxes are so important for you, I can happily rearrange
my proposal, but I'd then leave out some stuff to make more room for
fiddling with font rendering and lighting and such. ^^ Would be fun to
learn as well.

> I don't like the file filter idea. The date filter we have now makes
> more sense. If I want to browse by directory, I use the file browser.

Well, obviously I do quite like it ;-) The date filter is useful, but
it is a very different use case. The reason why you can rely on solely
on the file browser is, that your collection is very tidy. Many users
-- assuming that I'm not the only one ^^ -- only have a rather rough
order. I did often miss this functionality.

Thanks!
-Andreas


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Andreas Schäfer
Cluster and Metacomputing Working Group
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany
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