[Playlist, FIFO, queue view]: making Jajuk userfriendly, welcome back the "playlist editor"

[fsck222]

First: start to scream, then: relax and read the following ;)

I believe the main raison why Jajuk is not user friendly is because Jajuk is not doing trivial thing as other player do (e.g.: The FIFO, queue view, once the songs is played it is removed). I believe it is a major drawback because it scares new users. I believe Jajuk must be very simple at the first install/use and then confident users can start customizing and play with advance functions.

I did start to propose changes in #1062 #1055 #1084 #464 #480 #456 # but it is starting to be too difficult to explain and I guess it is better just to create a new ticket.

I believe we must have a view offering 100% of the "playlist editor" of either XMMS, Winamp, or Audacious (actually their quite similar). To make it clearer in the future, I will just talk/compare with audacious.

To recap, in 1.6 we have "Queue view", "playlist view". I propose to:

• hide the queue view, we don't show it by default, we just keep it available in the view menu for now
• we split the "playlist view" in two views:
  • "playlist file" that will contain the current top table and icons of the "playlist view". New columns could be added such as the number of songs in the playlist, the time of the full playlist.
  • "playlist editor" that will contain the current bottom table and icons of the "playlist view" with a few enhancements _inspired_ from audacious that must be available thought click click menu (or new buttons):
    • right click menu: Property, remove selected, remove unselected, remove all, Queue Toggle #
    • FILE +: Add internet address #, Add files #
    • FILE -: Remove all, clear queue, remove unselected, remove selected
    • SEL ALL: Inverse selection, select none, select all #1088
    • MISC OPT.: Reverse list, randomize list #, Sort list by $COLUMN_FIELD #, sort selected by $COLUMN_FIELD #
    • LOAD LIST: New Playlist, Delete playlist, Select next playlist, Select previous playlist, Load list, save list, save as default list
  • the "playlist editor" will be automatically push synchronized to the queue (hence if we sort the playlist, the queue view will be sorted)

#: indicates tickets asking this features/tasks, but can't remember which one for now, will try to find them later.

[bflorat]

I think I understand what you mean but I have to disagree :

* First, the strategic reasons :

** Jajuk is not a player but a jukebox. Even if many aspects are similar, I do think that a jukebox is different and the biggest difference is the fact that we want to show a maximum of information under several different aspects (views: tree, table.., even if user can hide it), not a player. BTW, we don't compete with winmap, audacious or WMP players that are used by another population that ours anyway. We target power users : ok jajuk will never be used by millions of people like WPM or itunes but I hope by several 100Ks of power users and we want to provide the features *they* are expecting, we don't want to run after the wrong target...

• Second, the project reasons : ** We spent near 100 hours and almost one release to refactor the playlist system and this simply cannot be done once again ** After this refactoring, I think we should now stop working significantly on playlists and concentrate on tools and online features (lyrics, last.fm stats, podcast, RSS...), it's what's is now expected : I for one and noboday I know actually still use playlists. The trend is on shuffle (see Ipod shuffle) and for us to comes with *intelligent* shuffle (DJ for instance). I suggest only to apply fixes or small enhancements against the playlist view now. In all cases, I for one will not work on them significantly anymore.

• Third, the technical/design reasons : ** We won't revert the queue / playlist splitting. I think that the new Queue view is confortable without the playlist stuff and can be added everywhere smoothly. ** The queue view makes a sense and comes with many advantages over a single table because you clearly separate the static data (tree/table) from the running one. It makes easy to drag/drop or use actions to play/push to the queue for ie. It also allows powerful features like planned tracks. ** We choose write a single view for playlist view and not two (like it was before) because it makes things much more maintenable and simple (the synchronization between these views or several instances of each view was ugly and very complex). I for one find the result pretty good and confortable.

That said, I suggest you create others tickets (one ticket by feature plz) for specific features that can fit with current implementation. On them:

• right click menu: Property, remove selected, remove unselected, remove all, Queue Toggle # Properties is already available Remove selected : ok, already available from the command bar but should be added Remove unselected: why not ? is it really useful ? I don't like to complexify GUI for phantom features nobody use... remove all: ok Queue toggle: why not even user can already save the queue.

• FILE +: Add internet address #, Add files #

Don't see what you mean. Streaming a mp3 file ? this is not supported by jajuk by design, we only support local files that are known from the collection.

• FILE -: Remove all, clear queue, remove unselected, remove selected don't get it. You already listed this actions before, do you mean FILE - is a sub-menu ?

• SEL ALL: Inverse selection, select none, select all #1088

Select all is already available with CTRL-A. I don't see the point of providing such advances behaviors to work on playlists, a real human playlist will never contain more that few tens of rows...

• MISC OPT.: Reverse list, randomize list #, Sort list by $COLUMN_FIELD #, sort selected by $COLUMN_FIELD #

Reverse: why not, random: why not, sort by column id: why not but we shouldn't confuse the user between reordering the playlist and sorting the *display* , this should be digged.

• LOAD LIST: New Playlist, Delete playlist, Select next playlist, Select previous playlist, Load list, save list, save as default list

New playlist is available from the New special playlist but we should add a "new playlist" available from the upper table contextual menu. Others features are already available from the playlist repository table.

Save as default playlist: don't see want you mean.