Hi,

Firstly - thanks to the Amarok developers for creating the most functional music player for unix and KDE.  Music players are one of a set of "must have" applications so the importance of this project should not be underestimated!  I'm going to be controversial also and say thank you for settling on a single database: this should allow developers more time to focus on the music player - which has got to be a win for everyone!

I have recently started playing with linux distros that package KDE4.1.  This has given me my first exposure to A2.  With that in mind here are my first impressions.  The focus is on usability and not on bugs.  I am not privy to the development plan / track of A2 so please view these comments as first impressions - which is what they are.  However first impressions are often important!

1. The look is better: big obvious and dynamic play etc buttons are firendly and give an instant understanding of what this application is (makes amarok easy to find on your desktop).  The play buttons were hard to find in A1.

2. Working out how to use the program (create playlists etc) is actually relatively hard (by that I mean it is not intuitively obvious).  For example

a. the files panel sends confusing messages about how amarok works: are you meant to add tracks via the files interface or the collection interface?  IMHO file management doesn't belong in A2.  At the moment you seem to have to add tracks to the collection via the settings dialog which is not as accessible... Am I missing something?

b. The collection window is cramped and difficult to navigate as everything is closed up by default.  IMHO the collection should be have lots more visual cues by default in order to allow easy and fast visual appraisal of the collection and construction of playlists.

3. The applet window (I think that's what it is) in the center creates an uncomfortable disconnect between the collection and playlist views.  For example dragging from the collection (far left) to the playlist (far right) is awkward and the lack of adjacency between collection and playlist even makes the result of double-clicking in the collection window less visible: you need to go looking for it.  In general this new window takes up a lot of space and doesn't seem to have a function to justify its "pride of place".

4. This may be a subtle point and I mean no offense by it but it seems that the UI components in amarok are more focused on the independent "technology" they bring (file browsing, collection view, playlist view etc) and not enough on how they will be used within the application as a whole.  For example, shoutcast is included in the "internet" panel but it eventually behaves as a collection.


For context, music players in our house are dominantly run in one of two modes: playlist construction, playlist playback.  A third mode, moible device management is also in there (which at least performs synchronisation with one or more playlists), as is music import which has sub-categories of ripping, purchase, podcast subscription etc.  A final and increasingly unimportant mode is export to a CD/DVD. 


Anyway,  Thanks again.  I hope some of my feedback may be of use in the ongoing development of this wonderful app.

Thanks for the feedback. We'll definitely keep some of these points in mind as Amarok 2 evolves. Expect greater things after 2.0 release.

Hello,

I especially hope you'll keep point #3 in mind. Though you state that by any means amarok2 will work like that, I suppose most of the people using amarok2 will claim this point as well.

Greetings,
Karsten

The middle column is really what bugs me the most. On Amarok 1.4 the focus is on the playlist and the current track info, lyrics, wikipedia and everything else is secondary, and that's how i think it should be. I don't want to keep seeing the wikipedia article for the artist i'm listening to, but i do want to have the track info, albums by that artist and other info available on the same page. I know you can switch between the widgets but that doesn't work so nicely. Usability aside, i really appreciate the work done on the better last.fm integration for example.

Will I (or anyone who knows Qt) be able to develop themes/skins for amarok that change the general layout, thus bringing back the old interface for those who want it while using all the other improvements? I'm thinking of the new Qt css-like style sheets [1], but any way to do that by writing a plugin would be ok and i would certainly be willing to do so once amarok takes more of its final form (I'm not sure how much can change from beta 2 to the final release).

[1] http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/stylesheet.html

andre_orwell wrote:2. Working out how to use the program (create playlists etc) is actually relatively hard (by that I mean it is not intuitively obvious).  For example

a. the files panel sends confusing messages about how amarok works: are you meant to add tracks via the files interface or the collection interface?  IMHO file management doesn't belong in A2.  At the moment you seem to have to add tracks to the collection via the settings dialog which is not as accessible... Am I missing something?

Agree that is  shouldn't be the default, but I use the file view continuously, since my music is sorted into folders based on genre, already...And the tags aren't that good. In that case, you NEED file view.

andre_orwell wrote:3. The applet window (I think that's what it is) in the center creates an uncomfortable disconnect between the collection and playlist views.  For example dragging from the collection (far left) to the playlist (far right) is awkward and the lack of adjacency between collection and playlist even makes the result of double-clicking in the collection window less visible: you need to go looking for it.  In general this new window takes up a lot of space and doesn't seem to have a function to justify its "pride of place".

Let me just register my agreement with this. There are way to many things that the applet window does, and there's really no relation between them at all, so far as I can see, other than that they're things that aren't elsewhere.