On Friday 10 December 2004 03:17 pm, Colin Guthrie wrote: > WARNING: Big Email Alert! > > I've not had the time to re-read this email as much as I would have > liked, so apologies if I describe things unclearly at times!! > > Isaac Richards wrote: > > I really don't understand how the current interface makes selecting a > > specific album difficult. > > I sps you could say that I should have cleared my playlist first, but > I've got some tunes playing in the background and I just kinda browsing > and not really doing anything in particular and WHOOP! Yeah I've got to > hear that album right now (probably Darkside of the Moon ;)).
Why would you be browsing the playlist if you had no intention of changing things in the first place? If you _had_ thought about changing the current queue, why not just clear it to start off with? It wouldn't be hard to add a keybinding to clear the current queue, though, or just use the play button there to indicate 'play now'. > I guess you could say that I should show the full tree on the playing > screen and browse about that way but I may have started off casually > making up a playlist or something and changed my mind. > > I'm not complaining about what's there, I was just sympathising with > someone else who finds it slightly lacking, and winding up to actually > doing something about it!! > > For what it's worth I've tried to do precisly what you ask, which was to > provide some ideas on how to improve the current system: > > How about combining the playlist selection and the player screens more > seamlessly... > Effectivly set the "show enitre music tree" option as fixed ON. I like them separate. Listening is a different task then selecting, to me. > Alter the split tree in the player such that when you go "far right" it > grows to full size and fill the available width for a more attractive view. > > Going left once from here will cause the list to split vertically as it > does currently. That's not consistant. > Pressing the info button at any point would "popup" a little statistic > about that entry, e.g. If it's an artist, how many tracks by that > artist, total length, how many albums by that artist. etc. It could > perhaps even bring up an album browser at this point? Back in the list, > if the highlighted entry is an album then try and correlate the track > metadata and files in the album's folder to bring up cover art etc. and > perhaps a tracklisting with times or something maybe auto scrolling past > slowly?? I don't see how that'd help playback selection at all, but, a good idea.. > A "menu" key pressed at any time would give you a popup like the one > that appears when pressing "i" on the "Active Play Queue" entry in the > playlist editor as it stands currently. This would give you buttons to > save the active play queue as a playlist, clear the active play queue etc. Don't see the point of that - getting to the active play queue item is fast enough. > The tree that appears here would have to include the CD/DVD drive and > any saved playlists as these are only currently available through the > playlist editor. > > > Allow fast switching of modes in this tree. e.g. from > artist,splitartist,genres etc. Perhaps have them all available as > different paths of the "All My Music" root node? I don't really know the > memory implications of this? Probably not too much if the tree class can > support nodes in mutliple locations, probably 4x if it can't! If it > can't could it be impoved?? If not this way then definatly by a couple > of key presses, e.g, "menu" -> popup -> first option is a select which > alters which view you want -> enter takes you back into your tree, and > if possible on the same element you were on before you switched views. Fairly easily done. > The ability to define on a per playlist basis, which layout to use use, > e.g. splitartist, artist, genre etc. Too complicated, UI wise. > > Phew! > > > > OK those are my suggestions for improving the current setup. Now for a > small suggestion for a new feature. > > * Regexp based auto playlists. The ability to define a playlist that can > use all the different metadata components along with a regexp to match > certain tracks. This could be automatically built at startup or when the > "scan for new music" thing runs (e.g. on demand or after ripping a CD). At one time, someone was working on sql-based rules for playlists, but never finished. This wouldn't be very useable from a remote, though. Isaac _______________________________________________ mythtv-dev mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev
