Hello everyone. I\'ve already posted this topic as a wishlist item at bugs.kde.org, but I would like to get feedback from others on this forum because I think more people are paying attention to the discussions here.

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95128

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Well, at least now I know how you are supposed to do it now! Still, I don\'t think the interface is very intuitive. When I want to create a new playlist, I automatically start looking for a \"New Playlist\" button. I wouldn\'t have thought to look for a button called \"Clear\" when I want a new playlist.

You see, I\'m used always having my entire collection listed in the main view on the right. This is what I use (and I would think most people use) to filter and find the specific songs with the search bar. I don\'t think you should have to clear that out just to create a new blank playlist on the left pane. Maybe this would be a better way to explain it.

Current way to create playlist in Amarok:
1. Press the \"Clear\" button to clear out the view of your collection in the main view.
2. Right-click the playlist marked \"Current Playlist\" and click \"Save\".
3. Give new Playlist a name.
4. Double click the \"All Collection\" Smart playlist and wait about 10-15 minutes while Amarok reloads your collection into the main view again.
5. Use the filter search bar at the top to find the songs you want, and then drag them over to your new blank playlist on the left.

Proposed way to create new playlist in Amarok:
1. Press the \"New Playlist\" button.
2. Give the new playlist a name.
3. Use the filter search bar to find the songs you want, and then drag them over to your new blank playlist on the left.

Which of the above methods do you see as being more efficient and intuitive?

Why dont you do it like this:
-Add tracks from your collection to your current playlist (with that I mean the big white area to the right where the tracks you are playing is located). I think you called it \"Main view\".
-Move to the playlist view
-Right-click the playlist marked \"Current Playlist\" and click \"Save\".
-Give new Playlist a name.
That playlist should then contain all the tracks you are currently playing

Hello. The reason why, is because using the collection view doesn\'t work as well as the playlist view for zero\'ing in on the tracks I want. It\'s much too painstaking. The collection view only lets me find tracks according to Artist, Album, and Track Name. But as I said in my wish, this is often not the criteria used to create a playlist.

For example, if I wanted to make a playlist of \"victor wooten bass tunes\", I can\'t just simply search for \"Victor Wooten\" as an artist, because he plays as a sideman on dozens of albums and does not show up in the \"Artist\" portion of the tag. Browsing by only Artist, Album, and Track Name becomes very kludgy when making more interesting playlists. These are the kinds of playlists I want to create with Amarok, not boring things like \"the album Kind of Blue\".

But, if I could use the playlist view as in my example, I can use the Filter bar to zero in on the tunes I want by searching the comment field for \"victor wooten - bass\".

I guess I could submit a request to be able to search ALL tag info with the filter toolbar in the collection view. If I change the collection view to \"Flat\" mode, and then have the ability to filter all the tag info, then it looks like I would be able to achieve the same effect.

Man, I would really love to see a music app like Amarok finally let me create custom fields in the idv3 tags of my ogg files and search by them. Gosh, how I would LOVE to be able to keep track and query things like record label, producer, recording location, who is playing what instruments, song tempo, or anything else my heart desires. But alas, I\'ve already submitted this idea too, and nobody seems to be very interested.

The main point of my post was that you can make a playlist of the current playing tracks. So why dont you just use the smart playlist to create a smart playlist of all the tracks where victor wooten plays the bass (by filtering on the comment like you said). I am not wery good to explain what I mean, so if you did not understand 100% what I meant, try to do this:
1)Press the \"Clear\" button the clear the current playlist.
2)Go the the Playlist view and create a new smart playlist.
3)Name it something, like Test.
3)Set it as Comment - Contains and add \"victor wooten - bass\" there. Press \"OK\".
4)Dragg that playlist, Test, to the area to the right in the main window. Where all the songs you are playing are located. You cleared that area in stage 1.
5)Move to the Playlist sidewindows, and right click on \"Current Playlist\" and chose Save. Name it something, like Test.
That playlist, Test should contain all the songs where victor wooten plays the bass. Offcourse, why should you want to create a new playlist of it when you could just use the smartplaylist? It would update itself automaticly when you add new songs witch fits.

Why didn\'t I do it that way. Well, I\'ll tell you why.

Because....I\'M STUPID!

No, I didn\'t notice all the filtering capabilities of the smart playlists.
Thank you. It\'s definitely true that coming from JuK, things are done differently,
and it takes a while to get use to the way Amarok does it. All the capabilities
are there, just gotta get used to the way Amarok is designed I guess.

I agree that the playlist creation process is VERY confusing. I really want to like amaroK, but it took me almost 15 minutes to create a new playlist and I only figured it out then after reading this post. (I\'m still not completely sure how to do it.)

I realize that amaroK is not itunes, but it took about 2 seconds to figure out that I should click the big + to create a new playlist on itunes. Maybe a \"new playlist\" button in amaroK isn\'t such a bad idea. I can then just drag songs onto the title of the playlist. Dead simple. Much better than whatever the process is now.

Other than that, I\'m pretty happy with amaroK. Much better than XMMS.

Keep up the good work and remember than simpler is generally better. Keep the interface simple and we\'ll all be happy.

I just realized what\'s so confusing about the playlist process. It\'s the fact that the location where songs are displayed is not consistent. Sometimes songs are displayed in the right pane (such as when looking at a playlist), but other times songs are displayed in the left pane (as when creating a playlist). This is extremely confusing.

It\'s much more intuitive to click something in the left pane and have songs always appear in the right pane. For instance, the left pane sometimes shows a list of albums. It\'s intuitive to expect to click on the name of the album and have the right pane show songs that are in that album (this doesn\'t work; I tried). Likewise, it is intuitive to click the name of a playlist in the left panel and expect a list of songs in the right pane. There ought to be an item somewhere in the left panel that shows all songs (I realize there\'s a collection button, but this is inconsistent with the album and playlist display.)

If you keep things as simple and CONSISTENT as possible, the interface will be much easier to use. Not to belabor the point, but this is why itunes is so simple to use. It\'s very consistent. It\'s so consistent, that it\'s actually limited in the number of choices the user has, but it\'s easy to use.

I really don\'t intend to sound like I\'m complaining, because I\'m not. But I\'ve just started using amaroK tonight, so I\'m going through the painful process of learning to use amaroK. I\'m also committed to helping create a really great music player for linux. My comments are probably typical of the experience of many other people that are using amaroK for the first time.

The most recent irritation I\'ve noticed, is that if I\'m putting together a playlist and I drag a song to the right pane and double click it (so I can listen while I finish putting together my play list ) the left pane jumps to show a whole bunch of info about the song and I lose my place in the collection. This is bad behavior for the program. If I want info on the currently playing item, I\'ll click the \"currently playing button\" if I can find it (it isn\'t always displayed, just sometimes; more bad behavior).

I\'ll keep playing with this beast and see what else jumps out at me as confusing.

Again, you\'ve got a great piece of software here, the interface is just a little confusing for new folks. Remember, be consistent and don\'t have the interface do things that are unexpected.

Last post for tonight I promise.

I just realized that I\'m using version 1.1.1 from debian testing and that there is a slightly newer version available. I\'ll try to install that later and see if any of my concerns above have been addressed. From the screenshots, I see that some tabs have been added to the left pane, but it\'s not clear if the playlist creation confusion has been remedied.

One other suggestion (perhaps I should be submitting all of my ideas to the KDE bug list??). How about a \"repeat\" button to have a playlist loop continuously?

Thanks again for the great software. It\'s just a little confusing...