Review Request: Initial work on the flexible controller of the Plasma Media Center

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

> On 2010-03-26 10:04:12, Marco Martin wrote:
> > still can't comment on how it looks, i hope to have time to try it today.
> > in general i agree it should behave quite differently with diffrent type of medis, but i would also like being able to browse in a folder and being able to see anything it could contain, regardless if it's audio/video/pictures whatever, so it wouldn't be a type in particular..
> > 
> > also i feel that defining a set of "modes" this way it can be quite rigid. i can see in the future people wanting to write plugins to make it do radically different types of things. i would like for instance being able to browse launchers of applications to be able to have a "games" section for instance and i think it would be possible only by keeping things as more generic as possible.
> > 
> > when i'll have played a bit with it i will have clearer ideas perhaps. however i do think the general idea is correct, a rigid set of "modes" is a bit too much however
> 
> Shantanu Tushar Jha wrote:
>     Ok, so a flexible collection of modes will be fine I guess?
>     As per the use case you suggested, we can have a plugin to add a new mode. Though we'll need some discussion on IRC over this. See you there :)
> 
> Marco Martin wrote:
>     ok, trying the patch i can see what it's trying to do and i like it, it basically boils down to:
>     for some media type a particular control may or may not be neede (with maybe some behavioural differences in single controls) so what i think would be rocking is:
>     -as is obvious and was aleady been done 2 modes: browsing and playing, would be basically if something is being played or not and react by showning or hiding controls by default)
>     
>     when browsing:
>     see what are the mimetypes disaplayed in the folder, if the focus of the current item changes, change the displayed controls accordingly.
>     when playing change the controls according to the currently played mime type.
>     
>     so what is available is mmetype dependent, a plugin could want to register an association mimetype->what i want, so a picture won't have play/stop buttons and the playlist would be visible by default only for music...
>     
>     if we will be able to play different mimetypes at once (the example of photos+music) the available stuff will be the sum of all the available controls for each mimetype.
>     
>     similarly we could define a way to allow a mimetype to be played together another one (always examples of music+photos)
>     
>     it's still a very abstract idea but hope t kinda gives it ;)
> 
> Shantanu Tushar Jha wrote:
>     > see what are the mimetypes disaplayed in the folder, if the focus of the current item changes, change the displayed controls accordingly.
>     > when playing change the controls according to the currently played mime type.
>     
>     We'd need to have capabilities to organize Music by Artist, Album etc, so we won't be restricted to folders always.
>     
>     > so what is available is mmetype dependent, a plugin could want to register an association mimetype->what i want, so a picture won't have play/stop buttons and the playlist would be visible by default only for music...
>     
>     A playlist will be not shown in the browsing mode anyway. And just to make sure the point isn't missed, no pictures in playlist, its ugly.
>     
>     > if we will be able to play different mimetypes at once (the example of photos+music) the available stuff will be the sum of all the available controls for each mimetype.
>     
>     Wouldn't there be loads of controls then? Well actually the idea of different modes is to simplify the UI and to make it the workflow more concerned with one "activity" (not the Plasma one ;) at a time.
>     
>     For example, I open the MC, goto the music mode and play my favorite playlist, switch to Pictures mode and enjoy my slideshow while the music plays in the background :)
>     
>     So what I suggest is to keep modes for playing, and let a plugin add a new mode, just like we add a new wallpaper plugin in Plasma, for example. Then we can have another plugin for, say, Games as you said in the previous post.

Hi Marco,
I, Alessandro and Christophe had a discussion on IRC over this, and I'd like to summarize what we discussed and the conclusions we made -

* The general use case for a media center is mode specific (and keeps the workflow organized), so we keep the modes idea, but one which will be  flexible.
* For example, the Pictures mode will be a File Browser plugin which displays the Pictures, we can have similar plugins for local videos, youtube videos, a music plugin which organizes files into Artists, Albums etc
* Regarding what you said, we concluded that we might have a "All Media" mode in which all media can be browsed. In this way, we can continue to implement the mimetype approach you were talking about.
* In general, the plugin-for-mode approach will allow community written modes which one can download from, say kde-look.org and plug into the MC. This will be a great experience :)

Please feel free to comment in case we didn't get you properly, or you've some suggestions :)


- Shantanu


-----------------------------------------------------------
This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
http://reviewboard.kde.org/r/3396/#review4684
-----------------------------------------------------------


On 2010-03-25 19:01:32, Christophe Olinger wrote:
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
> http://reviewboard.kde.org/r/3396/
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> (Updated 2010-03-25 19:01:32)
> 
> 
> Review request for Plasma.
> 
> 
> Summary
> -------
> 
> This patch extends the controller applet by having 6 different layout modes which are adapted to what the media center is currently used for, i.e. browsing pictures, playing videos, etc. It sends a signal to the containment with the current mode. The containment then relayouts the other applets and configures them for the current Mode. These modes are defined as enum in the libs.
> *The browser no longer has any controls. Those are now in the controller.
> *The controller also has a show/hide playlist button and a toggle autohide button for itself.
> *The different modes do not have sensible functions yet. I also need to work on configuring the applets for each mode, like telling the browser to hide, or the player to show.
> *The controller is not really beautiful. I want animations for show(hide icons. I want the modeswitch button in a "drawer" perhaps. The toggle buttons need effects.
> 
> 
> Diffs
> -----
> 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/applets/mediabrowser/abstractmediaitemview.cpp 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/applets/mediabrowser/mediabrowser.h 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/applets/mediabrowser/mediabrowser.cpp 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/applets/mediacontroller/controller.h 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/applets/mediacontroller/controller.cpp 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/containments/mediacontainment/mediacontainment.h 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/containments/mediacontainment/mediacontainment.cpp 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/containments/mediacontainment/medialayout.h 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/containments/mediacontainment/medialayout.cpp 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/libs/mediacenter/browser.cpp 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/libs/mediacenter/mediacenter.h 1107457 
>   /trunk/playground/base/plasma/MediaCenterComponents/shells/plasmediacenter/mainwindow.cpp 1107457 
> 
> Diff: http://reviewboard.kde.org/r/3396/diff
> 
> 
> Testing
> -------
> 
> I tested the controller itself. The actual effect on the other applets when changing modes still needs work.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Christophe
> 
>