I have generally enjoyed the updates to amarok, I appreciate the new functionality of the middle panel, but with the upgrade to amarok 2.20, I was disappointed to see the tabs on the left hand side to switch from files to internet, etc gone. It was replaced by a weird mac-ish click thing. Return the tabs please! or give us the option at least!

Won't happen, sorry. There was a huge consensus that using the "Breadcrumb" navigation style has huge usability advantages. The tabs had all sorts of usability problems.

Sorry, but just try to get used to it

No you are WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! For a new user the lack of side tabs means you have to click on a very small icon in a very cluttered interface to find the features which used to be clearly laid out as side tabs! For an expirenced user this means extra mouse clicks to navigate! My playlists in particular are burried much deeper than nessecary.
In addition, the context pane needs to be moved back to a side tab, it takes up too much space. I have yet to get it to do anything useful except display the current track when playing streams. This is actually a step backwards from 1.4 which would give a playlist history. I can only stand the amarok 2 interface because I figured out how to unlock the layout and hide the context pane under the browsers pane- which creates a bottom tab.
By the way- kaffeine has stuck with side tabs.

itlarson1: please calm down.

I too prefer tabs from 1.4 and I'm still getting used to the new layout. There are a few things I find for reducing mouse clicks that may help you though.

The bookmark manager now also allows you to create bookmarks for any breadcrumb item. I think this is only available in git at the moment. This lets you change to a different view fairly quickly. I'm planning to submit patches to let you assign keyboard shortcuts to those bookmarks. This would be like the default CTRL+1/2/3/etc in 1.4, which I used all the time.

Also, you can assign a shortcut to open the bookmark manager, so you won't have to click on the "very small icon" if you don't want to.

The bookmarks thing is a mystery to me. I see the bookmarks manager in the top menu, but can't figure out what it is supposed to do.

"The tabs had all sorts of usability problems."

i am really curious about those problems.. could you mention one.. or two? i can't think of a single case where the tab would be something other than fast and practical...

it now takes two clicks or one and a double click to get from "local music" to "files" and i have to clic on very small buttons .. i think the other functions will get forgotten soon as they are not visible anymore ^^

thx in advance...

I too am mystified as to how tabs could be anything but a convenience.

There are some relevant points raised in

http://www.cscheng.info/usability/wp-co ... report.pdf

It is a bit old though.

oke.. i found something in there about the tabs.. it says.. the tabs are small and therefore hard to hit.. lol and the even smaller breadcrump is the solution?

make a "home" button beside the play rewind forward and pause buttons as big as they are!
i think you could call it a solution then.


it also says the vertical text is hard to read.. users learn to interprete the icons (and its faster than text) the tabs had icons.. so no problem IMHO
...now there is no text at all.. only a button with a house.. thats not exactly a solution for a reading text problem.. or is it?

yeah whatever.. i will get used to it.. but i do not support the affectation of the developers for very very very small buttons that pop up a kontext menu.. they are getting more ond more every release..

As the above post shows, the logic of the anti tab movement is flawed.

i would like to say something for the case an amarok developer reads this...

i love amarok and i would not use another applikation to manage my music.. please keep up the good work and don't take the written words personal...
it's just my opinion about the differet steps your app is going through and for me the version with tabs was very good and made amarok different to other apps in a good way...

Actually I sort of just became part of the dev team. In the future I want to introduce some changes to help with this issue (probably not tabs because I guess if they wanted it it would be implmented by now). Right now 2.2.1 is just around the corner so there won't be anything major going into that release. It'd be great if you can be a little bit patient and work with us on this.

It took a while, but I think I've more-or-less gotten used to the breadcrumb interface...

But I still think the tabs (vertical and all) were easier to use (especially for a casual user). I find myself often clicking on the wrong spot of the breadcrumb trail.

I tried using bookmarks also, but there are a couple of things that make them less useful for me: that they are hidden in a drop-down underneath the 'star', and that they all have the same icon 'a little green flag'.

If I could drag those bookmarks on to a toolbar/widget of some kind, and also assign them their own icons, I think it would be even *better* than the old tabs, as I could position them as I like and only include the ones that I use often. That's my humble opinion, anyway...

Hotkeys sound cool too (I might give them a try if/when they appear, if I can manage to cram a few more key combinations into my brain

Breadcrumbs instead of tabs remind me of the new coke fiasco, something well thought out and which seemed to work in a controlled environment but completely failed because all those smart people designing it didn't take in account some important real world variables... well at least it worked on paper...

aapgorilla wrote:Breadcrumbs instead of tabs remind me of the new coke fiasco, something well thought out and which seemed to work in a controlled environment but completely failed because all those smart people designing it didn't take in account some important real world variables... well at least it worked on paper...

@aapgorilla:

You should know how it works: Honor our .
In other words. also honor the work the developers have put into their product. They have put hard work into it. Talking about not being tested on real life variables is disrespectful (and not true at all, they test their software).
Sometimes decisions unfortunately don't fit into everyone's liking, but still, for giving feedback it is absolutely necessary to be constructive.

You failed at that point.

You didn't tell us what these exact "real life variables missing" where.

Software can only be as good as its feedback, that means, if you want to improve this product, discuss and give feedback in a reliable way.