Proposed Play/Enter/OK behaviour (1 Viewer)

[jameson_uk]

OK after lots of thinking I have a plan (and some code) to try and make the whole play/enter/ok controls behave in a more user friendly way.

My plan is to introduce two settings, a playlist mode and an add all option.

The playlist mode option would be set to play or playlist and will simply control what enter/ok does when browsing track listings. When in play mode enter/ok will do the same as play (ie. it will clear any existing playlist, stop anything that is currently playing and start the selected item). So in this mode play and enter/ok will behave exactly the same way when viewing tracks.

In playlist mode if you press enter/ok on a track it will basically add that track to the current playlist. There will be a check and if there is nothing playing (or what is playing is not music) but the current playlist contains some songs you will be asked if you want to clear the playlist or add this song and start the playlist with the item you are adding. If the playlist is empty or music is already playing you will not get this dialog box pop up.

The add-all setting is basically to replicate what we have now. So if you press enter/ok on a track it will queue up all tracks in the list.

What I don't know yet is whether this add-all option should apply to both play and enter/ok and if it should apply to play then should it apply to all view levels (ie. if you have a view
artist
album
tracks
and you are on the album level and press play should all albums for that artist be queued up ?

Some things to remember here....

• A lot of people want a lot of different things so this is an effort to make things a little easier to understand for the masses but still add a little control for those who want it
• Enter will obviously still be used to select items other than tracks (eg. in the above view clicking enter/ok on an album will take you a track listing for that album)
• Play will still function as now (subject to the add-all option question)
• You will still have the context menu as you do now to do things like queue up items, add all to playlist etc

There are two options in the context menu that I would like your views on. There is a play next option which inserts the selection into the playlist after the current song. Do people still want this? The other option is the add all to playlist option, do people use/want this option at different view levels? (eg. in the above view if you are at album level is there any need to add all the albums for that artist to the playlist via a menu when you can navigate back up and then perform the play/add action on the artist ??)

Finally one thought about what should happen about pressing enter/ok on a track that is already in the playlist (assuming we are talking about playlist mode here) ??? My thought is that the current playing and queued up tracks should be somehow identified when browsing (some sort of icon?) then if you click enter/ok on a track which is already in the playlist it should be removed??

Comments please

 

[jameson_uk]

Comments please

no-one ?

 

[wonkyd]

OK after lots of thinking I have a plan (and some code) to try and make the whole play/enter/ok controls behave in a more user friendly way.

My plan is to introduce two settings, a playlist mode and an add all option.

The playlist mode option would be set to play or playlist and will simply control what enter/ok does when browsing track listings. When in play mode enter/ok will do the same as play (ie. it will clear any existing playlist, stop anything that is currently playing and start the selected item). So in this mode play and enter/ok will behave exactly the same way when viewing tracks.

In playlist mode if you press enter/ok on a track it will basically add that track to the current playlist. There will be a check and if there is nothing playing (or what is playing is not music) but the current playlist contains some songs you will be asked if you want to clear the playlist or add this song and start the playlist with the item you are adding. If the playlist is empty or music is already playing you will not get this dialog box pop up.

The add-all setting is basically to replicate what we have now. So if you press enter/ok on a track it will queue up all tracks in the list.

What I don't know yet is whether this add-all option should apply to both play and enter/ok and if it should apply to play then should it apply to all view levels (ie. if you have a view
artist
album
tracks
and you are on the album level and press play should all albums for that artist be queued up ?

Some things to remember here....

• A lot of people want a lot of different things so this is an effort to make things a little easier to understand for the masses but still add a little control for those who want it
• Enter will obviously still be used to select items other than tracks (eg. in the above view clicking enter/ok on an album will take you a track listing for that album)
• Play will still function as now (subject to the add-all option question)
• You will still have the context menu as you do now to do things like queue up items, add all to playlist etc

There are two options in the context menu that I would like your views on. There is a play next option which inserts the selection into the playlist after the current song. Do people still want this? The other option is the add all to playlist option, do people use/want this option at different view levels? (eg. in the above view if you are at album level is there any need to add all the albums for that artist to the playlist via a menu when you can navigate back up and then perform the play/add action on the artist ??)

Finally one thought about what should happen about pressing enter/ok on a track that is already in the playlist (assuming we are talking about playlist mode here) ??? My thought is that the current playing and queued up tracks should be somehow identified when browsing (some sort of icon?) then if you click enter/ok on a track which is already in the playlist it should be removed??

Comments please

I like it.

The "play next" option to me is the same as queuing a song so I think it should stay. The add all to playlist should be like you say, only available on a folder/album/artist etc not from within an album.

 

[geoffstewart]

I use the play button now on albums to quickly get music started.... to be able to hit play on an album to add the songs from that album to the playlist is a great idea and I like it.

I wouldn't use the add all albums from the album view feature... like you said, I would simply go to the artist and hit play.

I like the concept of "playlist mode"... if you start playing music, you are going to browse around to add songs to the playlist... I'd really like to have the play button simply append to the current playlist rather than have to use context menu to add songs. You're solving the "comon case" for me.

I'm indifferent about the "play next" feature... If I care about the order, i'll fiddle with the playlist directly.

As for identifying tracks already in the playlist... I think it's a good idea. You would need that icon for sure if you wanted the play button to remove the song from the playlist if it was already there... that way the user can see that icon toggle between having the song in or out of the playlist.

Great ideas here... Keep it up!

Geoff

 

[jameson_uk]

The "play next" option to me is the same as queuing a song so I think it should stay

The difference between play next and queue is where the tracks get inserted into the playlist. eg. if you play album A with three tracks the playlist will be
A1-A2-A3
if you are listening to A1 and then queue for album B would set playlist to
A1-A2-A3-B1-B2-B3
where as play next would set playlist to
A1-B1-B2-B3-A2-A3

The add all to playlist should be like you say, only available on a folder/album/artist etc not from within an album

I was saying the opposite so if you are in a track listing (does not have to be an album) all tracks will be played. The more I think about this though, the more I think that adding all (whatever all is) should be by context menu only.

This would allow us to actually not have an add-all option (there are too many options as it is)

 

[macardi]

I’m not quite sure if I fully understand what you would like to do, but please don’t change the current behavior where all songs in an album list plays one after another. I like to play my albums like in the old days. I choose an album and play it through, but maybe not from the first track.

/Macardi

 

[tourettes]

I like to play my albums like in the old days. I choose an album and play it through, but maybe not from the first track.

That should still work (after I nagged about the change ).