Hi guys!

First of all: I don't intend to troll but to constructively criticize.

I have recently upgraded from 1.4 to 2 and I must say I am quite disappointed. For me, as user, Amarok 2 is a regression. It has less features than 1.4.
For example, I can't delete files in my collection (from the hard disk) or list useful information in the playlist such as style, folder, etc.

The way I see it, Amarok has moved from being a promising music collection manager to a nice music player. Nice, but just a music player.

I hope you will reconsider the collection management side in future developments. Meanwhile, I'll have to look for something else to meet my needs.

But, since it's free... thanks anyway!
 

Appreciated, although if you check some of the other recent threads you'll see that many of your issues are already fixed, or are being worked on at present. Do give Amarok another try when you're ready!

Thanks for the reply.
I'll look for those solutions that you mention. Now that I am used to Amarok, I wouldn't like to move to other software unless I have to.

Cheers.

I have been reading some postings in the forum now...
Looks like your are putting together a good piece of software but, guys... don't you think you released Amarok 2 too soon?

Personally, (and after trying 2.0 and 2.0.90) I am going to try to go back to 1.4 (don't know how to do that yet) and wait until the features are built up in Amarok 2.
Thanks.

I have to add my voice to the number of people who are disappointed with Amarok 2.0.2. 

The UI is, for me, too awkward and cluttered. 

The large buttons are annoying at best; contribute to the cluttered look at worse. 

There is a podcast feature, but no way to move downloaded podcasts to an MP3 player (major step backwards). 

My entire music database (along with ratings, play count, etc.) were wiped out and have to be rebuilt (major, MAJOR annoyance).

The configuration options is limited to the point of being almost worthless, namely the playback.

No visualizations.

Lack of MP3 player configuration controls.

Overall, this is an example of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" being ignored.  I prefer the 1.4 UI over the 2.0.2 version.  I hate to do this, but I must give the 2.0.2 UI a fail.

AMAROK 2 is a futuristic project which I believe. I think that most people are upset because 1.4 was removed from their respective Distro repositories in favour of the version 2 . I myself had to install 1.4 from a PPA when I upgraded to Ubuntu Janty.

However, the issue is about the size of the music collection. People with a very large music collection probably find  1.4 more helpful . I hope that the new Amarok 2 can catch up in due time. Until then I will be using 1.4.

I have to agree with my predecessors. Amarok 2 is a step back. The user interface may be easier. This is a question of taste.

My taste: It reminds me of those websites you come across every once in awhile; the ones that are so thoroughly covered in ads to point where you have to make a serious effort to find any meaningful content. The left panel is extremely crippled and poorly designed. The center panel is such a kludge it might as well be useless. The layout of the progress and volume bars is pretty stupid.

I don't understand why there are less functions. No collection support to external databases anymore? The Collection organizing was splendid. And now?

Amarok loses its "competitive edge'". Amarok 1.4 works pretty much exactly how I want it to right now. I will switch to Rhytmbox. At first comes functions. Form follows function! And the form of Amarok 2 is out of the question. Do as you like. You did a great job with amarok, but this release is a nightmare of an audio player.

Amarok 2 is great. Greater in many ways than Amarok 1.4. And since it's a complete rewrite with future extensions in mind, it will be huge ! And never forget it is FLOSS, so it has to be attractive and appealing for developers if we want Amarok not to die.
Sure, there are things I prefer the way they were in Amarok 1.4, but I will do my mind with Amarok 2 in no time.

Despite this, I stuck with Amarok 1.4 for 2 reasons:
* The major one : suggested songs (as in 1.4, that is Amarok plays MY songs on MY computer not last.fm ones, and no need for an account and certainly not for a pay account. I tried last.fm in Amarok 2.1 and didn't figure how to retrieve the same functionality. And I just can't start thinking to tag my 10k collection to use the new smart playlist, nor remember to tag every new mp3 I get)
* The minor one : musicbrainz (so useful... but I can use another software if it don't came back)

I'm sorry - first and probably last post.

I just wanted to sync a few tunes with my ipod. I'm not that stupid, but Amarok has me baffled.

Fundamental mistakes are being made.

The simple things we do a lot are hard to do.

You are relying on UI interactions that are not intuitive. If they were intuitive I would have found them during the last half hour.

If a new user can't point Amarok to a hierarchy of tagged MP3s, plug in an ipod and get some tunes on without having to start reading your forum then your UI design is a failure.

I have to agree with everyone above about the new amarok 2.

It is a step back for me as well, and I have since updated to v1.4 for the following reasons:
The user interface is non-intuitive, and bulky.
A couple of points about user interfaces:
1. They are often the only means of interaction with the user. They must be responsive, and must function independent of how many flaws exist in the underlying engine(s).
2. A user interface must be intuitive. Not many developers want the need to consult a man page just to play music. For the time wasted, a compensated programmer could have bought a radio (in lost time and lost opportunity).
3. A user interface for a mature product must as well not alienate its existing fan-base with undesirable and cumbersome features without a tolerable means of restoring the familiar.

The buttons are large and cumbersome, occupying significant real estate that other features could use.
I have no known method of disabling the center pane, a real annoyance for me. I want to listen to music, not stare at art work.
The playlist pane, has no columns to allow me to sort, and no filter mechanism (or at least it wasn't intuitive enough to present itself).
I was unable to sync with my mobile mp3 player intuitively, I gave up after a half four.
I also was using mysql as a backing store for my amarok music data and such, and could find no means to migrate my collection (in mysql) to Amarok 2, nor any means to even use mysql in Amarok 2. Very disappointing for an existing amarok user.

I expected, as with any maturing software package, that I could fix these things with settings and configuration.
I was as well disappointed there. The options page not helpful, and many of the features of prior releases were gone.
As with any maturing package, I was expecting to be able to undo some of the new defaults and
fix the annoyances I was having. To my dsappointment, I was also unable to correct these issues, and was unable to find many of the features that I was expecting to have from prior versions.

I can understand why this has occurred if Amarok 2 is a significant rewrite.
And as such, the developers had a choice to make.
But, here is clear motivation for the proper choice: The previous version was loved by many because of what it was, did, and could provide. Why break that?
Throwing out a new release that does not build upon the feature foundation of prior codebase spells disaster for any software. This is historically proven with every failed shrink-wrap rewrite.
I understand rewrite release methodology: attempt to deliberate fit, practicality, and timeliness of features for inclusion that are required to maintain users in hopes of including feedback in the next release.

But, I think this release failed by not including suitable feedback from prior versions by equating features to code.
The mentaility being: If I rewrite a codebase, I also rewrite the features it must satisfy.

As previously state, since trying amarok 2, I have migrated to Amarok 1.4. I love it. It works great.
And, I will continue to use it as it satisfies my needs until the latest amarok installment has realigned with its pedigree.

Thank you for your time.

Lee White

I also agree with all comments that have preceded me. Amarok 1.4, despite some gitchiness at times was an amazing program. It played music well; it could loop my music effortlessly; it had a intuitive organization method (some hate the excel spreadsheet look, but it is so useful and intuitive that even a someone who is extremely computer illiterate can operate it); It was even able to intelligently organize the music in your library. As well as all these functions, it also had some pretty visualizations to boot. The new Amarok is bulky and not even as full featured as 1.4. My initial question when I first installed it was "Why the extra large play buttons?". I thought it was a glitch, but I soon found that it was not. Then, I found that the huge panel in the middle of the page could not be removed or made smaller. Very odd seeing as it does not perform an exceedingly useful function. Finally, even though it is trivial, where are those visualization? No where.

So my question is, why can't we have an Amarok 2 that is just a sleek, extremely customizable, and efficient version of Amarok 1.4 with even more features? One feature I have always thought would be amazing is a Now Playing screen like windows media player that includes visualizations as an embedded part. Rhythmbox has something similar, but you can't alter your playlist while seeing the visualization. Overall, Amarok 2 is a letdown compared to Amarok 1.4.

Please read this essay by our developer Seb Ruiz on Amarok 2 development. It explains our motivations and future plans for Amarok 2 very well and should solve many misconceptions:


http://www.sebruiz.net/364

To my greatest sadness, I fully agree with LeeWhite's comments.

Like him, I gave Amarok 2 a try for several days, when upgrading from Mandriva 2008 Spring/KDE 3.5/Amarok 1.4 to Mandriva 2009 Spring/KDE 4.2/Amarok 2(.0.2 I think).

Like him, I tried to find the same features with A2 as I did with A1

And like him, I was painfully let down by the functionnal and ergonomic regression :
- The buttons and layout waste LOADS of space, especially the play buttons

- The play buttons cannot be relocated from their impractical top-left position to the bottom-right... just next to the system tray icon. Currently, when I click on the tray icon to maximize A2 and want to play/pause.skip the track, I need to move my mouse pointer to the OPPOSITE corner to click the button. Or right-click on the tray icon, then left-click on play/pause/skip. Or use keyboard shorcuts.
But all those solutions are LESS user-friendly than A1, where you could play/pause/skip a track with two left clicks with minimum mouse pointer movement inbetween.

- The center may display some useful info for some people, but like LeeWhite said, Amarok is first a music PLAYER, not a WP-browser/picture viewer/lyrics reader/coffee machine/lawnmower. While I don't suggest these features to be removed, I however ask WHY can't this central pane be optionnal or movable ? A1 did a fine job with its side-tabs : I used mostly the context viewer with track info, and sometimes the collection browser, and they were all kept clean and tidy on their side of the screen, and could even dis/appear with a SINGLE click !

What's more, as someone already commented, what's the logic with, from left to right, Collection (all tracks)/Track info (one track)/Playlist (several tracks) ? Wouldn't be more spontaneously logic to have Collection/playlist/track panes in that order ?

- The playlist itself : I though A1's "spreadsheet playlist" was its KILLER feature ! As LeeWhite said, is SO intuitive that ANYBODY (including my mother :-P ) could sort the list with one sligne click on a column header ! And those could be added/masked with as little as 2/3 clicks on them !
And YES, I did read the blog about the playlist display editor. But IMO, A1 did a good job enough that I've never found myself thinking "I wish I could display the playlist differently !". To be honest, after this feature has been integrated, maybe I'll think "How did I manage to live without it ?", but it seems rather unlikely. And what's more, I see no way sorting could be made SIMPLER (read : more intuitive) than clicking on a column header.

- compilations/samplers management is flawed. While not critical and hopefully to be corrected soon, it adds to this global regression feel.

- collection management via playlist is another killer feature of A1 : being able to reorganize (and especially MOVE and OVERWRITE) some or all my files by selecting them and setting up "Organize collection" saved me HOURS of tagging/renaming files. A2 can still (luckily ?) do it, but I not (yet) flawlessly, IIRC.

- Drag'n'drop in and out of the playlist is another feature that made me praise A1.


Now, there are also some features that I don't use and won't really comment upon :
- I don't really used playlists, but what I've read about "intelligent fuzzy playlist" can make me start use them.
- I don't listen to podacasts.
- I only very seldom listen to radio streams.
- I only exceptionally need lyrics.

But I've kept the good points for the end to conclude with a smile :
- native implementation of ReplayGain (instead of being an optional script) is something I've wished for ever since I discovered RG ! I haven't given it a try, but reading this in the changelog made my heart warm !

- optional modules/sctipts management/configuration is EASIER and MORE INTUITIVE in A2 than A1.
I guess that's the best place where I've yet seen a real improvement between A1 and A2.


To sum up : while I do understand the regression in features due to the complete rewrite of A2, the fact they'll eventually come back and the "release early, release often" dev philosophy, I still think A2 lacks critical features while "gadgets" are already in ; and is not yet mature enough to deserve a real "2.0" name. The same goes for KDE 4 IMO, but that's another story (although highly similar)...

But what made me return to A1 is the utter interface DOWNgrade, because I see no way in which it behaves more intuitively/simply/easily than A1, and that's all what interfaces are about.
(As a side note : I work daily with a powerful but ergonomically awful ERP software, and I've learnt that even the best features are useless if the interface is not simple, intuitive and user-friendly, because they'll be used so seldom or reluctantly...

I do hope this feedback will help (if only a tiny amount) make A2 the best media player... again !