demo program: Amarok Constraint Tree (for dynamic playlists)

[Soren Harward]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 10:14 PM, Daniel Jones <danielcjones at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm also worried about your Constraint::compare function.
[...]
> I haven't completely thought that out, but seems like a potential issue.

I've got a new version which addresses both the fuzzy logic and the
non-independent constraint issues:

http://www.mandy-and-soren.org/misc_files/amarok-constraint-tree-demo-r2.tar.bz2

> My main concern in integrating this into the existing bias editor. We
> could turn the whole thing into a tree view, but I like the inline
> editing widgets. What are your thoughts on this?

I looked at inline editors a little bit, and determined that it's
going to be a lot of work to implement.  My constraint tree view right
now is a minimally modified QTreeView widget, but to get inline
editing, I would have to extensively modify QTreeView.  There are
other things that are higher on my priority list.

I also think that having the large editing widgets crammed into the
tree view makes the whole thing look way too cluttered.  The current
Bias system can get away with a list of inline widgets because the
high-level structure is so simple that the user doesn't have to pay
attention to it: it's just a flat list of Biases.  Same goes for the
old A1.4 smart playlist system.  However, with the constraint tree
system, the overall structure is complicated, so the user has to pay
attention to it.  With the way I have it now, the tree view represents
the overall structure of the constraints, and the separate editing
area represents the parameters for the single selected constraint.  It
keeps each level of the data structure in its own visual area.  Mixing
the two by having inline editing widgets is more information than
needs to be on the screen at one time.  Plus, if you have a
semi-complicated tree, your vertical space gets eaten up a lot more
quickly, and I think scrolling up and down the tree would be really
annoying.

So, long story short: I'm not going to implemet inline editing widgets
unless there's majority demand for them, and even then, they'll
probably be the last thing I get around to doing.

-- 
Soren Harward