Introduction: I would really like Amarok to become much better.

I am still using my own software to manage my albums, with Virtualbox, because it is a Windows software, because no other software, Amarok included, does it.
What is wrong in Amarok? it does not use a very basic and simple idea, that makes everything simple for a user.

As many users, my music collection is made of 33 and 45 RPM, CD and tapes, and legally downloaded music.
My software reflects my music collection:

I have many categorys, each of them contain albums, sorted by artists.

When my software opens, I can only see covers of each album, category by category. IT IS VISUAL !
I just clic on "45RPM" button to see covers of this collection, for example.
If I clic on a cover, in this category, the album opens, I can see a large picture of it, and the color of each title listed tells me if words and / or partitions are availble or not.
A text zone tells me everything about the album, I can add/change this text from here.
If I clic a title, a new tab opens, with words/ picture/partition, while playing this title, with total access to other titles in this album.

What is my very basic and simple idea ?
My albums are automatically added in subfolders by categories. i just have to choose in which category I want to add it
I can move the main folder anywhere, as this is a variable, I just change the configuration path (requested by the softawre that cannot find "A", "B" ,"C" etc categories), and nothing else to do, I can search or do whatever I want in the new location.
This is the fastest way!
This also means many computers at home can access this music collection: I just share this folder, copy the folder containing my sofware on another computer, and it works on the other computer.
I have 26 folders named A to Z containing albums, and other categories too. Artist name starting by A are copied in the "A" folder, and so on.
The first album of "A" category is named "A1", the second is named "A2", and so on.
Each subfolder contains (A1, A2, etc) contain 1 file always named info.dra (automatically created by a summary of informations found in ID3Tags)
And before listing titles, it checks if it finds same title with different extensions (txt for words, jpg or pdf for partition, etc)
For example, if a title is "01 This music.mp3" if "01 This music.txt" exists, the color of the title changes saying words are available. If "01 This music.pdf" exists, it knows a partition is available for this title.
And I do not use any database: I just use index files that contains everything
(1 index subfolder in my software root folder containing 6 indexes files)
As a result, a search request gives almost instant answers.
How are results presented ? a list, and you click on a title, you can see it's album cover, and can instantly enter this album, or clic on another line that answers to your request.
Again, everything is graphical. I only use text when it is necessary.

My software acts as a huge database, but it is not a database, because I do not have anything to fill.
( It manages more than 1000 45rpm, 1200 33rpm, 2000 Cd, 300 tapes and a lot of music payed on the internet.)
It is very fast because it is not a database !!!
My sort function rename folders, and re-generates indexes.
When sorted, I just have a look at stamps to organize my physical collection !!!
This is also a simple idea, but it fastens everything
It takes 1' to index everything while amarok needs more than 15 minutes.
Maybe because Amarok uses a kind of database, and searching text files (my indexes) is faster.

If only Amarok could add these options, I would definetly use it !

Some snapshots to illustrate what i'm saying:

http://infrangible.fr/amarok/1.jpg
http://infrangible.fr/amarok/2.jpg
http://infrangible.fr/amarok/3.jpg

Happy New Year to everyone !

As I'm not english speaking, I apologise for language mistakes in this post.

Hello Radeon,

you don't mention, which version you are using.
Anyway you don't want Amarok to be improved, you want a new app with a complete different approach of how to organise the collection;-)
At first, searching text files will always be slower than sesrching a db.
That's a fact, BUT you're right at one point, that Amarok's db stores data, which is redundant, as already there in the tags.
And the categories should be realized by different virtual collections, which are on the way as far as I know.
Different colors, if there are lyrics available are needless, because they will show up in the applet.
A propos applets, while in your software you have to click to gather all infos about the current track, like other tarcks on the album, cover etc. you can get all these at a glance.
So in this case, you compare apples and oranges.
Don't get me wrong, but there's no need for a Virtualbox clone in my opinion, but its GUI gives me hope for Amarok's.

Regards
m0nk

Dieter Schroeder wrote:Hello Radeon,

you don't mention, which version you are using.
Anyway you don't want Amarok to be improved, you want a new app with a complete different approach of how to organise the collection;-)
At first, searching text files will always be slower than sesrching a db.
That's a fact, BUT you're right at one point, that Amarok's db stores data, which is redundant, as already there in the tags.
And the categories should be realized by different virtual collections, which are on the way as far as I know.
Different colors, if there are lyrics available are needless, because they will show up in the applet.
A propos applets, while in your software you have to click to gather all infos about the current track, like other tarcks on the album, cover etc. you can get all these at a glance.
So in this case, you compare apples and oranges.
Don't get me wrong, but there's no need for a Virtualbox clone in my opinion, but its GUI gives me hope for Amarok's.

Regards
m0nk

Hello Dieter,
I do want Amarok to be improved, I would not have posted otherwise.
I'm runing the latest Amarok 2.2.1 downloaded here:
http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Download:Kubuntu
As im runing ubuntu OS, and as my (old) software was made with .net framework, I do need Virtualbox to run it.
Of course, I know Amarok is MUCH better than what I wrote alone, and my graphical interface is quite old.
I just wanted to tell my opinion and share my ideas.
Oranges and apples are fruits, and we are speaking about fruits - this is also my opinion.
Categories available soon in virtual collections ? great: I shall really use Amarok in the future.

And may be in the future we shall also be able to move our music folder, running amarok without loosing anything "in a second": I think my idea mentionned above is a good one.

And finally, I agree searching a database should be faster, but simple different text file are really fast: I know how to open a database, how to do a request on it: theses steps need some time to be done; you just have to open a text file and search into it.
Whatever how fast it should be, the real time needed to do the task is important. Then you can choose the fastest method according to your needs.

Among all players available, I think Amarok is the best. Again, this is why I'm writing here.
And it is nice to find this section in this forum so that everyone can share ideas to improve it.
Ideas can be good, bad, unfeasable. All are interresting, because even a bad idea can give a good one to someone else.

Regards. Radeon

some of your things already can be done

having your categories for 45 rpm, cd's, tapes, etc can be done by putting the info in the tag for the files than doing a search for it and bookmarking the search. you can even go farther than that, i am pretty much constantly getting new music so i have also bookmarked searches for things like added in the last week and never played.

album art is accessible at a glance as well and lyrics and information about the album and artist it is all there in the center pane if you have those widgets there.

the collection is accessible from multiple computers because amarok can read remote collections (NFS, SMB, etc) just as well as local collections.

and yes the collection browser is not as visual considering it olny shows small thumbnails after going into the artist on the collection tree, but for a lot of people it would be way to cumbersome to search through a collection olny with categories and visual stuff like album art. and im sure there are a lot of people who prefer to browse with searches than categories and visual cues. for me i know searching is a much faster and efficient way to find what i want to hear.


now im not saying that there is anything bad about your way of doing all of this i am just saying that a lot of what you want can be accomplished with Amarok at it's current state but im also sure if there was drastic changes to how it works and it's ui like you suggested that a substantial amount of current amarok users would leave in favor of a different player and maybe other people might start using amarok because it is now closer to there ideal player.

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