Ranting aside, I felt compelled to register just to add my two bits. I really appreciate the intentions behind a complete rewrite, but feel that the results may not be what you had hoped. It's almost too difficult to provide concise criticism, the list of shortcomings is so long. There are some pleasant new features, but many, many things that made 1.4 fantastic are missing.

Take it as a compliment, 1.4 was just THAT good. I'm switching back to it myself, hoping your efforts some day produce results that compare to 1.4. It my impression too, that 2.x is lacking in many features, terribly buggy, unstable, and missing the rare combination of elegance and sophistication that 1.4 had. Take it as a troll, or not, I'm only being honest because I care.

(post split edit)
Original thread: http://amarok.kde.org/forum/index.php/t ... 323.0.html

asmo wrote:Take it as a compliment, 1.4 was just THAT good.

Thanks, but as its founder, I will let you in on one secret: 1.x is not that good, it's just that you got used to many of its quirks

"...1.x is not that good..."

I am amazed at you saying that!  1.x is BRILLIANT!  IMHO, if you had a 'serious' music collection it was reason enough to switch to Linux from Windows.

I am sure that in the not to distant future 2.x will be something very special (in a good way) but for the moment it is not there.

Mark Kretschmann wrote:

asmo wrote:Take it as a compliment, 1.4 was just THAT good.

Thanks, but as its founder, I will let you in on one secret: 1.x is not that good, it's just that you got used to many of its quirks

I'm sure that under the hood, there is alot you are not happy with. From a user experience, however, 2.x lacks some basic functionality that 1.x had. I'm not talking new hotness kinda features, but bread and butter functionality. For example, being able to drag a song from just about anywhere into a playlist, or double clicking on a playlist without the app crashing. Basic stability and features aside, I personally LIKE the 'excel' style presentation of 1.4. I have a huge music collection, and I need to be able to manipulate large amounts of data efficiently.

I could probably recall a long list of perceived shortcomings if pressed. Compared to 1.x, using 2.x is like being in a stranger's ill equipped garage or kitchen.. you reach for something you expect to be there, but it's not. If you spend some time looking for it, you rarely find it, or discover it was never there all along. The times when you do find it, by the time you do, you still end up hungrier and frustrated.

For discussions sake, how did you prioritize the list of features to implement when you started the rewrite? There are no doubt some cool features in there, particularly the plugin framework. I miss the lyrics grabber from 2.x, and will probably write a script for 1.4 to do the same if I have some spare time. That said, losing the handy lyrics grabber is a small price to pay for everything 1.4 *does* do where 2.x seems to fail me.

I switched from Windows to Linux because of 1.4, that, and Compiz (or Beryl, as it was than known).

It is ironic that I prefer Windows Media Player over Amarok 2.

asmo wrote:

Mark Kretschmann wrote:

asmo wrote:Take it as a compliment, 1.4 was just THAT good.

Thanks, but as its founder, I will let you in on one secret: 1.x is not that good, it's just that you got used to many of its quirks

I'm sure that under the hood, there is alot you are not happy with. From a user experience, however, 2.x lacks some basic functionality that 1.x had. I'm not talking new hotness kinda features, but bread and butter functionality. For example, being able to drag a song from just about anywhere into a playlist, or double clicking on a playlist without the app crashing. Basic stability and features aside, I personally LIKE the 'excel' style presentation of 1.4. I have a huge music collection, and I need to be able to manipulate large amounts of data efficiently.

Understood, but we are quickly "getting there"

Check our blogs at http://amarok.kde.org/planet for the amazing progress we're making with 2.1.