Hi everybody. Just thought I\'d stop by and share a few thoughts about the Amarok interface.

I\'m a happy Gnome user but have never been happy with Rhythmnbox despite its similarity to iTunes (which I use when I\'m in Windows). I installed all the base KDE libs on my system just to give Amarok a go.

Initially, I like it (though I do miss the iTunes style interface a bit). However there are a few annoying interface quirks that make little sense to me.

First of all - not being able to select something (either a track, an album or a whole artist for example) and just start playing it. Unless I\'m missing something, it seems I have to right click on something and select \"Append to playlist\". What if I want a whole new playlist from my selection? Then I have to first clear the playlist, stop whats playing, right click on something and select \"Append...\" then start playing again. Thats far too much work just to play something. Why not have an option in the context menu \"Play\", which starts playing it immediately and wipes the current playlist?

Secondly, in the rather neat context view, it seems virtually impossible to select an album (such as one listed under favorite or newest albums) and play it. Clicking it expands it and shows the tracks. Right-clicking it does the same, rather annoyingly. It would be much better if right-click brought up a context menu instead of doing the same thing as the left mouse button. Then you would come back to the above issue, with an option to just play it.

Speaking of playing an album, in the tree view, if you double click on something (an artist, or an album) it expands. This seems counter-intuitive - there are plus/minus handles on the tree for expansion already. I would expect double clicking anything - artist, album, track - to queue the selection (overwriting the existing playlist) and start playing it immediately.

Next, the playlist view appears to lack a right-click context menu - it would be nice if you could bring up playlist related functions just by clicking in an empty part of the playlist...having \"Clear playlist\" as part of a right-click menu would certainly make things easier.

It would also be nice to update the rating of of a track by clicking on the stars and dragging them left or right, similar to what you can do in iTunes. The only way I can find of updating the rating is by editing the songs tag information - thats so much hassle that I can hardly see the point in rating my songs.

These are the main issues I\'ve come across so far. Amarok does a better job with usability than a lot of Linux apps, but I still feel it makes some rather silly and common mistakes like a lot of Linux apps.

If I\'ve missed anything that will let me do any of the above, please let me know. Cheers.

Actually, with a bit of further investigation it seems you can add albums or artists to a clean playlist by selecting \"Make Playlist\". That is good, so I change my suggestion to better naming of these function, it doesn\'t make any sense. I\'m not \"making\" anything, I\'m simply adding my selection to a clean playlist.

Also found the clear playlist button in the bottom right corner - the icon doesn\'t really convey its purpose - nothing about it says \"clear playlist\". If a suitable icon cannot be designed, it is best to not use one at all and use a simple button that says \"Clear Playlist\".

Luke Redpath wrote:

Hi everybody. Just thought I\'d stop by and share a few thoughts about the Amarok interface.

I\'m a happy Gnome user but have never been happy with...

Thanks for your comments. It\'s always interesting to hear what people from the dark side think.

It would also be nice to update the rating of of a track by clicking on the stars and dragging them left or right, similar to what you can do in iTunes. The only way I can find of updating the rating is by editing the songs tag information - thats so much hassle that I can hardly see the point in rating my songs.

I\'m not a usability expert, so I am not qualified to respond to the rest of your post, but I can here. In this case you\'re confusing the amaroK scoring system with a user rating system. This is a unique feature that was designed to let amaroK tell you what you like based on your listening habits, not as a user rating system like so many other players like itunes have.

That being said, so many users want to be able to have a static rating system, the devs are discussing how to best implement that in parallel with the scoring system.

Luke Redpath wrote:

...
it seems virtually impossible to select an album (such as one listed under favorite or newest albums) and play it.

Try to left-click on the name, not around it.

Speaking of playing an album, in the tree view, if you double click on something (an artist, or an album) it expands. This seems counter-intuitive - there are plus/minus handles on the tree for expansion already. I would expect double clicking anything - artist, album, track - to queue the selection (overwriting the existing playlist) and start playing it immediately.

I dont agree. It is like folders, if you double click a folder you would like it to open, not open all the files in it. When you double click on a artist name, you would like it to show all the albums, not open all the albums.

mortiferus wrote:

Luke Redpath wrote:

...
it seems virtually impossible to select an album (such as one listed under favorite or newest albums) and play it.

Try to left-click on the name, not around it.

It would make a lot more sense for the whole thing to be a link. Otherwise people are just having to guess.

Maybe. But actualy in the beginning I had the opposite problem that you had. I wanted to see all the tracks in the album, but I did not want to que it. But I always clicked on the name, as it seamed most natural to me, and then it started to play it.
It can not be expanded all the time, it would take to much space with some artists you have many albums of (e.g I have 70 Miles Davis albums), and there needs to be a way to expand just one of them.

Perhaps the best solution would be to have actual controls on the album panel - one for queing, one for viewing tracks.

Luke Redpath wrote:

Perhaps the best solution would be to have actual controls on the album panel - one for queing, one for viewing tracks.

Yea, I agree.