Thursday, June 18. 2009Amarok 2.2 development, one week in
Last Friday, trunk was opened for features and changes intended for Amarok 2.2. In the scope of a few hours more than 250 commits had been made as people were frantically committing their local git repos.
Today, less than one week later, I though it was worth posting a little update and a video showing how all of this new stuff fits within Amarok. While most of the stuff that is shown in this video has already been blogged about before its kind of interesting to see it all in Amarok at once after having only been able to run them separately for a while. The features shown in the video are (roughly in order of appearance) - New browser navigation interface - Wikipedia applet mkII. - Videoclip applet showing matches for current track and playing a youtube video. - Videoclip applet playing a video podcast. - Dockable interface elements Direct link Since so much stuff in trunk has changed in such a short time, there are plenty of small bugs and visual issues present in the video, but there is plenty of time to work on these before even getting close to a 2.2 release. Considering just how many changes have been made, I am surprised that trunk is currently working as well as it does  Also there are many features currently being worked on that are still not in any state to show of. Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
Comments
Display comments as
(Linear | Threaded)
Personally for me #1 feature is "dockable interface elements". At last I will be able to remove context panel from the middle of Amarok window and place it somewhere else. I believe that this is small code change but it will please huge number of old school Amarok users who don't want to have context panel at the center. Keep a good work!
Wow! The last feature greatly improves Amarok. I can now have only two panels visible. For me it's a great great feature. Now you guys need to work on the main toolbar. Overlapping buttons is not fun to look at and the placement of the sliders is really odd. Just improve it and Amarok will be really good...
Thank You!
I completely agree. The overlapping buttons are really a bad design choice and so is the position slider. Why oh why does it have to cover the full width of the window? I'd rather have more vertical space on the left for the collection view.
ps: be gone context panel!
Breadcrumbs and videos and panels, oh my!
Looking stunningly awesome guys! Looking forward to being able to use amarok as my full rss media player/reader. I'd also like to add a big thankyou to whoever put in the feature that automatically adds a bookmark when you close amarok before it finishes playing a file. I've always loved dragonplayers ability to keep playing an unfinished file, and it was so cool to open up Amarok Nightly and have my unfinished file do the same kind of thing. ***** (Five Stars
Now all it needs is some visualization on top of the seek slider between the buttons and volume slider to that empty space that is there.
Then frankly Amarok 2.2 is perfect! 
As nobody replied i'am reposting my idea:
"What about something a litle based on opera 9 sidebar. Move "Widget Configuration" button(or put "Add tab") to the top of the tabs on the left. Transform the current tabs in docks. Each Widget is a dock. Remove the Context View. Add an options to chose the position of the tabs(left,right,top,bottom). Add a option to chose what will be showed in the tabs(text,icons,text only in the selected tab like konqueror). Users can drag any tab out of the side to any place in Amarok. By default the layout can be just like it is in 2.1 but the with widgets as docks. I think this will make happy everybody that commented here. If you need i think i can do a mockup." I don't think that this version is a big improvement as it could be...
"If you need i think i can do a mockup."
Please do, I am not really sure I understand your idea. Maybe because I have never used Opera much. "I don't think that this version is a big improvement as it could be..." He, no, of course not as that would leave no improvements for 2.3 and beyond!
I couldn't post the complete comment... maybe because is has too many links so i sent it by email...
Here goes my mockups... By default Amarok could look like this: http://imagebin.ca/view/1Ms47y.html Same image with comments: http://imagebin.ca/view/P1Ti9mg.html (...) and more here: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/an-introduction-to-opera-unite/ My Idea is a lot more flexible than Opera as in my idea you can move tabs outside the sidebar and change the position of the tabs while inside the sidebar... "He, no, of course not as that would leave no improvements for 2.3 and beyond! " lololol. i'am a developer too and any developer knows that software development never ends... so, don't worry... you always will have sth to improve! lololol
The amaroK team just got rid of the vertical tabs, and you're asking them to reinstate a bad design element again?
What you're asking would be nice as far as the separation of widgets, but the "widgets" were never really separate in 1.4 either, just confined to the context tab. This is similarly achievable by docking the browsers and context panes together as a tabbed set.
"The amaroK team just got rid of the vertical tabs, and you're asking them to reinstate a bad design element again?"
lol If you had read this article comments: http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/1016-From-the-Post-2.1.0-Git-Vaults,-Part-2-No-more-vertical-tabs.html you will know that lot of people(with arguments) want the tabs back... nobody have any argument against it... And if you knew fitts law you will know that buttons near the border can be clicked faster so it's an improvement in usability and a good design element. And tabs can be vertical or horizontal... and they are removing the tabs from the navigator but adding them again in the docks anyway... What you're asking would be nice as far as the separation of widgets, but the "widgets" were never really separate in 1.4 either, just confined to the context tab. This is similarly achievable by docking the browsers and context panes together as a tabbed set. I don't care about how 1.4 worked. i care about improving amarok and if it's possible to do... i don't know if it's possible to put the widgets in separated docks. One really big usability problem is the horizontal "tabs" on the context view. I really don't understand how they work and the widgets are not resizable... this can be fixed with docks... but amarok still need a easy way to add/remove the widgets and docks... so i did my proposal based on Opera... and put everything in the same place. This video have TWO kinds of tabs, my proposal only have one kind and that makes the interface more consistent and usable. And in the future an EQ and a visualizer can be added in a dock too. Nikolaj Hald Nielsen, can you tell me your opinion on this? it is possible to put the widgets in diferent docks?
It's important that you add some layout presets, so the user can revert to the default layout (or use a 1.4/2.0 one, and so on).
Congratulations and thank you. p.s. will 2.2 have improvements in the Ipod support (bringing all the features of 1.4 back)?
I agree completely. Currently it saves the layout on exit and restores it on startup. If no layout is found in the .kde/share/apps/ folder, it will, on startup, load a default layout. But having a button to load this layout makes a lot of sense.
As for iPod support, we currently have a GSoC student working on that, and the plan is to bring back all the missing bits from 1.4 and even introduce some new ones.
Nearly all of the Ipod features (except slowness) are making a comeback from 1.4 in the 2.2 series. This includes playlist support, initializing Ipod, getting rid of stale and orphaned tracks, and podcasts.
The new feature of sync'ing is also in the works, so no more guessing which tracks are out of sync with local collection. Support for dynamic playlists is coming. Improved GUI with ability to deal with failed transfers is also inbound (similar to 1.4).
Excellent!
The main reason for me to still stick with Amarok 1.4 is the lack of ipod-support, especially podcasts. I am really looking forward to 2.2.
As a person that's using amarok trunk now, I can say I don't feel amarok that broken at all. So many interesting changes and some just minor issues. It is feeling way better than 2.1.
Keep up the excellent work guys...
If I am not wrong, EQ is a feature that depends more on phonon than on amarok itself. Do not know what's the state of this on phonon though.
I like the youtube and video thing.
Is it possible that when you look the video you can integrate a save button. So when you hear the music again you have a link to the youtube video and you have also save the video on the disk. I like interactive things, but when I'll show a movie, than I will have it also on the hard disk for the next time, because when I'll download it once I will have it. great work.
hmm that's a controversial point, and we're not "yet" going for this, but stay tunned
Thx for your feedback -Simon
I think that integrating the youtube feature to Amarok, oversteps littlebit other mediaplayers what are focues to videos. Altought that there ain't good Video library application what Amarok is for Music and digiKam for photos, it is littlebit "there". Hopefully there comes somekind software for Videos what allows users to do same to videos as Amarok did for music.
There is many nice features coming for Amarok so... cant wait..
i would love to be able to switch between languages in the wikipedia applet.
- in 2.1 the language link sends me to my webbrowser - in 2.2 it looks like there are no additional buttons for language switching but it would be a very nice feature, because, as i am german the applet shows me the german wikipedia, but most of the time the english entries are more detailed in particular for special albums or songs. and some artist have just a spanish or french wikipedia entry. Thanks for your great work, on the best music player out there!
It's there, I jsut did not show it in the video
The icon furthest to the right in the wikipedia applet goes to the settings page where you can change the language.
I hope this version can read the old amarok collection properly. I had ~3000 songs in Amarok 1.4 all correctly tagged, sorted by artist/album. I tried the "import collection" with amarok 2.0/2.1, and that doesn't do the job correctly (At least not for me)
Now with amarok 2.1 all my songs are without tags.. it's so annoying. The strange part, is that the Collection Browser of the left reads everything OK, but the playlist doesn't read the tags.
Incredible work guys & girls, I'm already looking forward to the 2.2 release!
Hi, great job, especially the dockable layout (personnaly, I've switched the context view under the navigation bar and access to it by clicking on the tab).
I personnaly would like some usability and design improvement, like - Increase the "Home" button (and maybe change the name to a more comprehensible one) of the new browser navigation interface, so that user could understand easily that he could go back to all browsable elements (HD, internet...) - Suppress all configuration buttons from the interface. The interface is done to interact with the user, not in order to modificate it. Those elements should be in the top menu, in a configuration interface (who change every day the way to display his searches?), which has for purpose to propose advanced configurations. - Suppress bottom buttons of the playlist. Users don't save/clear/export/change the way to display elements every days. Again, this should be in the Playlist menu. In the end, Amarok could keep all its powerfull features and configurations possiblities without bloating its interface. The interface in that case could be more usable and clearer.
Yeah, I really think that it could be a great usability (and design clearance) improvment, and has I think that it's pretty easy to do so (just hidding/removing buttons, and add their control into a configuration window) I believe it could be one "priority" (as simple solutions for big issues should be in my mind).
Anyway, amarok is going into the right direction
Looking good. Is the videoclip applet going to be scriptable? There is already a youtube service that can get any desired youtube video but doesn't do a heck of a lot because there is no video playback, and I know there are a lot of video websites out there.
For me, personally, there are really three features that are really holding Amarok back: 1. No support for multiple artists, genres, or other tags for each song. (this is by far the most important) 2. No way to change sorting or grouping of playlists 3. No mtp album art support Any word on these features?
Nop, the video-clip won't be scriptable unless someone want's to code this feature
But we're in touch with the guy who made this youtube service, and it will probably be possible to watch a video from this service. For now, the videos are fetched from youtube, dailymotion and vimeo, if you know another famous one, which has a nice api etc, send me an e-mail.
Cool stuff!! Looks very promising!! Especially the youtube integration.
A wish while looking at the youtube part: It would be cool to allow playing media without having to add them to the playlist. Often it's just a detour with no additional value, e.g. when browsing radio streams or now youtube videos. More the opposite, as you have to remove them afterwards if you don't want your playlist to become cluttered beyond belief. Also radio streams by nature break the playlist concept as they never end. Keep on rocking!
Looking very very nice, amarok is quickly shrinking the feature gap between itself and its classic release. It will be exciting to hopefully have EQ and the player visualizer back, whenever the code allows for them (the playback buttons look so lonely without a visualizer next to them...)
I was wondering, I mentioned this recently on Lydia's blog, if parts of the player are now going to be draggable all over the player, would it be possible to code so one could move the playback buttons to the bottom of the player? I think it would be cool to have them there, and it would be a sweet throwback to the classic interface if it was possible. I made a mockup, just for fun, because I like visual things. I hope at some point this will be possible in amarok. Keep up the great work! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/dancemasterglenn/Amarokconcept2.png
Already possible. See the video linked in my previous post: http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/1018-From-the-Post-2.1.0-Git-Vaults,-Part-3-Something-really-far-out.html
Oh dear, I completely missed that video. That's excellent! Thanks for cluing me in. Your work is much appreciated, and I am now quite excited for amarok 2.2.
I really like it but I wonder if will there be in the near future a collection browser just like in winamp or songbird, in customizable panes and columns?
Yes, that would be a very handy feature to have. Don't think this will be 2.2 though, if i remember correctly the devs scrapped the columns-idea from the 1.4 playlist cause of the mess it was. And from my experience with qt4 such a thing will not be easy to accomplish. If i have the time i might try it, but currently my university project and the following bachelor piece take precedence.
@TheBlackCat
I was about to reply that the problem with multi-artist tagging was not a lacking feature in amarok but that container formats don't support it... but now I'm not sure. Foobar2k does multi-artist tagging in mp3s by simply including multiple multiple "ARTIST=..." entries, I don't think this is part of the id3 standard but I don't see any harm in it (well not much). Multiple genre tags are allowed in id3 I think. Vorbis comment does allow multiple tags of any sort... This would be a cool feature and something I've been wanting for years. I wouldn't say it's "holding Amarok back" though, Amarok is progressing pretty nicely. p.s. Is CD support also coming with 2.2 p.p.s. thanks guys for an amazing music player.
According to discussions on BKO, many tag formats support multiple values:
"The following tagtypes supports multiple tagvalues in each tagname: ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, APEv2, ASF, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, Native FLAC and vorbiscomment (Thats pretty much every tagtype there is)" https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=119539 Taglib also has support for reading and writing tags with multiple values.
The video applet looks great, but I have a few questions about it.
1) Does it default to high or normal quality? High would be nice for me, but I know that some people can't spare the bandwidth. 2) Can we play videos for songs that we don't have (via search)? What about songs off of mangatunes or last.fm? 3) If we double click on the video, do we get fullscreen goodness? 4) BONUS: We have youtube, last.fm, podcasts, and internet radio. Is there a Pandora applet in our future? For me, this would be the ultimate feature, and is really the very last major integration left. Thank you so much for the work you all have done!
1) It default to normal quality but i want it to be customizable in a setting menu
2) There is no search function from the applet. There is already a service script there : http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/YouTube+Service?content=100920 But it's broken right now, if someone want's to renew it, it will be possible to query youtube and watch the video from the contextview 3) Not yet, but it's planned too, easy to do. 4) off topic for me -Simon
I don't think I've ever been giddy over a program update before. Much like KDE 4.x, Amarok 2.x started out awful, ugly, and buggy. Now it's developing into a hell of a program (surpassing what the old Amarok was). I can't believe the video addition and the panel switching! I'm very excited!
As for the video, will there be a full screen or separate window option? Youtube playlist support? A separate video search applet? Also, when will visualizations make their way to the applets, so we can drag the visualizations to different locations? Keep up the good work!
Perhaps before to add new feature that will be good to do something which is working and can read every tag as all the other software (mpd, banshee, juk...) can do. I do have some totally regular mp3 file tags that amarok 2 is totally unable to put in the database because of this...
Looking awesome guys !
Any chance using an external mysql instance will be supported in 2.2 as well? I miss the shared database across boxes power Keep up the great work, Jonathan
Great job guys! I'm waiting on labels being re-implemented in Amarok 2, and then I'll jump ship from 1.x immediately!
It's pretty annoying that the context view is in the middle:
It makes the drag'n'drop operation from collection to playlist unnecessarily long - and might I add, that is an operation which you do quite often in Amarok. Right-click actions called "add to bottom of playlist" and "add to playlist after current song" might alleviate the situation a little bit, but it would be far better to just move the context view. For example, move it to the far left. Another example, let it take up half of the space currently used by the playlist. Has the added benefit of making it easier for new users to recognize "what is the playlist" vs "what is the collection", which many seems to have problems with. And a third example for a better placement would be to hide the context view out of the way when the user is adding songs from the collection to the playlist, since you're usually not interested in it at that time anyway. Giving it a better geographical placement would help me a lot with emotionally going from "that context view is pretty damn annoying" to "pretty neat context view". Meant as a constructive comment
The dockable dialogs look great.
What's slightly (or actually, rather) disturbing is the fact that those are last on the list (not 'last but not least' but just last).
The reason I put those last is simply that I already had a previous blog post and video (and a follow up blog post) dedicated solely to this feature (my blog with the most comments, ever).
http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/1018-From-the-Post-2.1.0-Git-Vaults,-Part-3-Something-really-far-out.html and http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/1022-Amarok-Dockwidgets-The-Followup.html As such I did not feel the need to focus on this in this blog post as there were other features that had so far not been shown off yet. |
Amarok LinksCalendarQuicksearchCategoriesSyndicate This BlogBlog AdministrationWe Listen To... Powered by
|
