Hi,

a very recent SVN commit added cover art to the collection browser. Now you get the album cover in front of each album displayed in the collection browser.
I would like to discuss this feature here.
I am aware that some people requested that feature, however, my opinion is that it is eating up far too much space and in the end I see no reason to have this feature anyway (at least I would appreciate to be able to turn it off).
How do other people think about this?

Do not get me wrong, I am not bashing this idea (not at all, I really appreciate new and innovative ideas being added to Amarok). I just want to collect some feedback here which could lead to interesting insights or new suggestions.

(For those not using the lastest SVN, I added a screenshot as an attachment)

We've made it smaller; image size is currently 50px.


PS: Nice Oldfield collection

Much better now, but I am still not sure about it. I would still prefer to turn it off (in the config) for the moment.
In terms of eye-candiness, I think it is actually a good idea to have the cover art in the collection browser, but maybe in another way, maybe by redesigning the whole collection browser (might go well with a different layout for Amarok as we saw it in an early 1.4 version)

I can see that shrinken the cover even more makes no sense, then you cannot see anything anymore. What bugs me is that there's the "big" cover and right next to it the Album name and a lot of white space above and below it. This could be possibly solved by moving the tracks just below the album title, thus using this space better. (I am speculating here, maybe this looks aweful).

marcel wrote:I can see that shrinken the cover even more makes no sense, then you cannot see anything anymore. What bugs me is that there's the "big" cover and right next to it the Album name and a lot of white space above and below it. This could be possibly solved by moving the tracks just below the album title, thus using this space better. (I am speculating here, maybe this looks aweful).

I like the idea of the covers in the collection browser, but agree, the white space should be used. Either for the tracks (which might **** up the layout on albums with lots of tracks) or with some metadata (length comes to mind). But that might slow it down too much?

I like the eye candy. But there are some big problems (IMHO) with this feature:
- Users with low resolution
- Slow computer and many albums? Try to Browse By Albums...
- You have to scroll more

Well, there's some problems. I like the idea to be able to browse your album covers, but it should be optional to show album covers in the Collection Browser.

A little bit ff topic: I think it would be better with a vertical "Cover" browser which would appear above the playlist. Cover Flow anyone?

I agree with you opinion hans. As there were layout changes planned for Amarok 2.0 and probably also the way the collection can be accessed, this feature looks like fitting for a "new Amarok" and a little less for the current one.

Anyway, it seems like this feature is still under developement and there was just a change in todays svn commit:

SVN r613546:
Only display cover images in the Collection Browser when the album is expanded.
Experimental. Less pretty, but at least it doesn't cause lag.

SVN r613546:
Only display cover images in the Collection Browser when the album is expanded.
Experimental. Less pretty, but at least it doesn't cause lag.

Yes, lag disappear. But so does the purpose of this feature, at least for me; to be able to browse by album cover.
I agree with you marcel that this feature would be most fitting for Amarok 2.0. But I also do understand that this is experimental and think the devs are doing a good job, these post are supposed to sound like "THIS FEATURE SUCKS REMOVE IT NOW FFS", it's more to give my opion and maybe try to give tips for improvements.

hans chen wrote:But I also do understand that this is experimental and think the devs are doing a good job, these post are supposed to sound like "THIS FEATURE SUCKS REMOVE IT NOW FFS", it's more to give my opion and maybe try to give tips for improvements.

Oh, totally. I hope I made clear in my original post that I just wanted to discuss this feature, I have no intend in cursing it. I also think that the devs are doing an awesome job, but feedback is also a valuable contribution to a project.

hans chen wrote:A little bit ff topic: I think it would be better with a vertical "Cover" browser which would appear above the playlist. Cover Flow anyone?

I agree, yes.

As one of those who requested this feature I think I should post my opinion here...

First of all, I didn't test it, as I use the Smart-Package-Manger and install Amarok from the guru-reps and no SVN-Version...
But I think it really is a good feature, I look through my record-collection, by viewing the covers and not reading the titles... I really like this feature, but I agree, that it would be very useful to be able to turn the Cover-View off in the collection browser, or to add a separated cover-browser like Cover-Flow...
Anyway... I am very glad to see, that It actually works to request a feature, and the (almighty, god-like, all hail to the...)Developers actually implement it (if it makes sense)... I am still amazed by the power of open-source and GNU/Linux....

Keep amaroKing!

Hi all, I wanted to know how to disable this feature, since it slows down searching in the collection browser.

Thanks a lot!

You cannot disable it without changing the source code.
Make sure you are using the latest amarok version 1.4.5, as there have been some performance improvements compared to earlier (svn) versions regarding this feature

I'm using gentoo's 1.4.5. It's not just that amarok is slower while displaying results for collection searches, but also that the results are more difficult to read and it's a bit painful to skim through the results. Is it hard to disable this feature in the source code? What version should I go back to avoid this?

Thanks again!

This was introduced in 1.4.5

Make sure you delete your Amarok-config on downgrading.
~/.kde/share/apps/amarok and ~/.kde/share/config/amarokrc

Note: You will loose your configuration and all your stats!

FYI I've discovered that by denying read access to .kde/share/apps/amarok/albumcovers amarok no longer displays covers in the collection browser, but searching is still slow .