I also hope that there will be an easy way to hide the middle bar. I realy don't need it and it only consumes space. I also wish for a movable and customizeable control bar.

I like Amarok, the 1.4er was the best music player I ever used but I can not understand why the answer for every wish for Amarok 2 is: "We understand your wishes, but we do not want to do so". It simply makes no sense to ignore wishes of a number of users if the Devs should not be the only ones using Amarok 2.

I am not going to open up the "User wishes vs. developer vision" discussion again here. Suffice to say that we do listen to all requests but reserve the right to disagree. Also, our top priority has been to get the foundations solid, and this has meant pushing back some things that are high on the users wishlist. Some of these will start to make an appearance in the next batch of releases.

In any case, in 2.1.0 (and in the soon to be released 2.1.0 beta2) there is a config option to completely hide the context view. It is not exposed in the UI yet (because of string freeze) but it can be set in the amarokrc file. It should be added to the UI for 2.1.1. For 2.2 we are exploring some more radical ways of letting users customize the layout, but we have not decided on what to actually implement yet.

Freespirit wrote:For 2.2 we are exploring some more radical ways of letting users customize the layout

That sounds good Then 2.2 will be the first version of Amarok 2 I may use for a longer time than some experiment days.

Thanks devs. You really do get my respect for the efforts you put in, even as we in userland request stuff (read: **** and moan sometimes!). Neither developers nor users can exist without each other in a thriving community, so a big group hug is in order.

FWIW, the collection scanning seems fixed in tonight's SVN build, and I'm no longer getting crashes on dragging between the collection browser and the playlist when the middle pane is collapsed.

Mark Kretschmann wrote:I do not like the concept of what I like to call "LEGO" applications, where the user shuffles around elements of the interface until the application works.

It would be nice if at least the applets for the middle pane worked like dolphin's panels. I've become a fan of lego apps since I first used dolphin.

Well, look at his:
http://imagebin.ca/view/T_TLaij.html

There is a lot of space wasted at all. Would be great if i could define the size of the apps in the middle so the album-app would show more albums.

I have to say I found this topic because I wanted to git rid of the middle pane myself.  I tried many players and amarok 1.4 was my favorite because it put so much focus on the playlist, keeps the Collection/Library next to it, and made it easy.  Itunes, etc. makes playlist/collection management a pain. 

I want to thanks those that shared the dragging trick, works like a charm.  I will be doing this from now on until the team makes the whole area removable.

Here is my issue with the middle widget area, it takes up way too much real estate, like I said above, I value my collection being next to my playlist and playlists should have the most real estate.  The widget area is good eye candy, but practically useless for those who want to manage collection, make a playlist, play it, and get it out of sight to get other work done.

I realize the amarok team has spent a lot of time on the widget area, and they feel it's important.  And there are users who appreciate it too.  But I see widgets much like Iphone apps.  Studies show that people download Iphone apps and play with them a few times, and hardly use them again ever.  Lots of "ooh ahh" initial magic but very little long term utility.  So I wonder how long user's attention will focus on the middle widget section while they are actually using amarok day to day.

I kinda hope developers will spend more time with the usability and utility of the playlist/collection area rather than the widget area.

I just upgraded to KDE4.2 and I was slightly disappointed with that middle pane (I couldn't get rid of even all the cues suggesting that I could - widgets and all, you know), until I found this thread.
Developers might think one thing, but in reality it is more important of what users think. To have an open mind is great character.
Honestly to say I was using Amarok because of KDE integration and nice and clean player (1.4 was).
Today I have upgraded and was disappointed, It is 2.0.2, so maybe it is little bit outdated. It has got worse functionality then 1.4, where is the equalizer gone?
I would kept using 1.4 but it is not in repos anymore....
I would love to move all the panels around... Developers, please understand that not all people are the same, and there is need of customization, I use KDE just because I can change stuff to my liking.
The first thing I did with Amarok is disable all widgets, plugins and scripts. Unfortunately I am not C++ programmer (I do little bit perl, bash and C but at amateur level), other wise I would modify it to my liking.
I am looking for a fast player with good play-list management and customization. Amarok is lacking on customization, but I would like it to be an ultimate music player.

In other words stop painting every car in black.

I would modify it to my liking.
I am looking for a fast player with good play-list management and customization. Amarok is lacking on customization, but I would like it to be an ultimate music player.

Sounds like you want Foobar2000 (0.83 version) - does it run on WINE I wonder....

Me like the middle pane, but for people who don't like it: it's already possible to hide it in the svn-version.



So just be patient.

Okay so people were saying it'd be an option in amarokrc . . . what's the exact entry? I certainly don't see anything in mine (2.2.0) and in fact in the GIT version I pulled (which admittedly was from October, since it's the most recent version on the Project Neon PPA that has built properly, but that's still long after imported-karoshi's June post) the checkbox is gone again! So what gives?

Honestly the way I use Amarok (especially on my netbook) the middle pane is far more of a hindrance than a tool. Yes, I know the devs love it, and more power to you guys, but the main reason I use KDE instead of GNOME is the idea in GNOME-land that the defaults should be good enough for everybody. Hell, it's the Lego-like approach to things which is the #2 reason I switched over to Linux! (The #1 reason, obviously, is the reliability).

And if there now really isn't a way to remove the middle pane (the dragging trick isn't working for me...a "bug" that's now been fixed?) then I have to ask in all seriousness why the middle pane couldn't have been replaced by something that includes both it and the collection, because IMHO that worked perfectly fine in Amarok 1.4.x. I understand the compulsion to do something bigger and better but sometimes you get things right the first time around and the folks that were on board back in the KDE 3.5 days made Amarok amazing. There are definitely improvements in Amarok2, and I'd love to use it all the time but not at the cost of some of the UI and features that have been lost along the way.

I'm perfectly okay with the devs setting defaults I disagree with, hell I'm even okay with making it quite difficult to change these UI aspects . . . but don't lock me out entirely! In fact if the ability was breifly in the SVN/GIT/whatever code but has now been removed, can you point me to which revision it was last in? I'm perfectly willing to try and re-compile Amarok from source code and try to patch it myself if that's what it takes to get the mix of new snazziness and old UI functionality.

You should upgrade to 2.2.1 or 2.2.2-Beta.

All distros should have at least 2.2.1 by now. For (K)ubuntu:


http://www.kubuntu.org/news/amarok-2.2.1

Right click on menu bar
Select Unlock Layout
Right click on menu bar
Select checked "Context" entry to uncheck and disable.

thank you for your time.