Just compiled the Amarok 2.2 beta1. There are a lot of improvement compared to 2.1.1 but still have a long way to go compared to 1.4.10, the best music player ever.

Previously during the early days of 2.0, there was an "Old School" style layout but later as the development progresses it disappeared entirely.

I wonder if it is possible for the "Old School" layout to be brought back on the Amarok 2.2 playlist window as an option.

The current 2.x playlist layout is a mess and it was seems adopted from Kopete Contact List layout. Because of its origin IMO it was designed only for 4 element maximum. Beyond that, it won't scale especially if you try to create Amarok 1.4.x style playlist layout.

For those brave soul, try to create an inline layout (speadsheet style) with 7 element. Example; Title, Artist, Year, Album, Genre, Bitrate & Length. Your head will spin on figuring out how to justify each element just for them to show up properly on the playlist window. Even if it is 6 or 5 element it is very hard to justify the proper alignment.

BTW, what is the numerical % value on the width (under the Configuration window of element)??? Percentage of what???

The 2.0 playlist layout look nice only if you have ideal case collection of music or album oriented collection complete with tags.

Right now it is very hard to browse your music collection under Amarok version 2. Please don't confuse the file browsing that is available under the Browser window.

In lieu of the "Old School" layout if it is not possible to be resurrected on 2.x, it would be nice if a Tag browsing mode is included under file browser that display tag content in a spreadsheet style in a separate window pane.

Actually, it is the other way around. The Kopete Contact List layout is implemented based on what what was in Amarok first.

The % value is the percentage width of the row than an item will occupy if set ot a non 0 value. Any items with 0% will try share equally any space not taken up by items with a non 0 percentage width (if all items have 0% width, each will get exactly the same amount of space)

Using this percentage it is, in my opinion, quite doable to create something that very closely resembles the old 1.4 playlist. Whether that style of "excel like" playlist is really optimal is another discussion entirely.