Sunday, February 10. 2008
QWebKit goodness, putting context info where it belongs
Over the last months, there has been a number of questions about the reason for the large empty space in the center of Amarok 2. I completely agree that having only a "Now Playing" applet there makes it seem kind of useless. The reason that we have not had much to show so far, has not been lack of ideas, but rather that many of the things we want to do requires the ability to do proper html rendering in a plasma applet, something that is just not possible with Qt 4.3.
So, hearing good things about the features that will be included in Qt 4.4, such as Widgets in QGraphicsView and QWebKit, I decided to setup a new development user and build KDE4 and Amarok 2 against the Qt 4.4 Technology Preview 1 to see what is possible.
After an hour or so of tinkering, I had this:
Now, this is not laid out properly, the svg background for the service info applet is horrible ( something I drew up in 5 minutes a looong time ago ) and the white background clashes with the svg colors, but all that will be fixed. The main point is that it is showing properly rendered html!!!
This means that I can get rid of the annoying little info window at the bottom of the browser and use the full height to show browsable content. It also gives a sense of what the context view is all about.
This should allow us to start working on applets for Wikipedia info, lyrics, service info and many other things that, until now, has not been possible for us to do.
We have started a git repository for playing around with Qt 4.4, but for the time being, the svn trunk will remain Qt 4.3 to allow Amarok 2 to build on top of KDE 4.0.0 and 4.0.1.
So, hearing good things about the features that will be included in Qt 4.4, such as Widgets in QGraphicsView and QWebKit, I decided to setup a new development user and build KDE4 and Amarok 2 against the Qt 4.4 Technology Preview 1 to see what is possible.
After an hour or so of tinkering, I had this:
Now, this is not laid out properly, the svg background for the service info applet is horrible ( something I drew up in 5 minutes a looong time ago ) and the white background clashes with the svg colors, but all that will be fixed. The main point is that it is showing properly rendered html!!!
This means that I can get rid of the annoying little info window at the bottom of the browser and use the full height to show browsable content. It also gives a sense of what the context view is all about.This should allow us to start working on applets for Wikipedia info, lyrics, service info and many other things that, until now, has not been possible for us to do.
We have started a git repository for playing around with Qt 4.4, but for the time being, the svn trunk will remain Qt 4.3 to allow Amarok 2 to build on top of KDE 4.0.0 and 4.0.1.
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Because there is a direct correlation between the amount of borders and the level of usability.
Yes ... and no.
I would like just to communicate my point of view : Amarok is """just""" a music player. It's a really great player, I use it since years... but I'm really afraid about Amarok 2. I mean, if I want to browse wikipedia or any other website, I use the great Konqueror.
I would prefer see music related features. Honestly, how many of us read our music player? Not so many I think.
Anyway, I'm sure a lot of users will find some great amarokoïds to fill this huge space
I would like just to communicate my point of view : Amarok is """just""" a music player. It's a really great player, I use it since years... but I'm really afraid about Amarok 2. I mean, if I want to browse wikipedia or any other website, I use the great Konqueror.
I would prefer see music related features. Honestly, how many of us read our music player? Not so many I think.
Anyway, I'm sure a lot of users will find some great amarokoïds to fill this huge space
Amarok 1.x is not "just" a music player. It already has integrated lyric and wikipedia lookup. Amarok 2 just does it better and in a space other than a skinny little sidebar.
Well, I like that I can read Wikipedia entry on my artist.
But to be honest, I do it every two months or so. I don't need 50% of my screen taken by this.
While in fact, I really use 100% of the UI visible out of the box in Amarok 1. I do care about playlist, and library on the sidebar, in the playlist I do care about the length of the track, artist, etc.
I love the ability to sort by any column and I love the ability to shortlist my playlist by typing some letters into search box.
I use it all, and I don't see how this features might work in the new UI.
Instead I see very shiny space for wikipedia entry. I usually listen music in background. For many hours.
When I switch to manager it's just to sort music, update playlist and/or queue some tracks.
It's extremely rare for me to look there to find info about the artist.
Overall, the concept for new UI looks nice, but it's not what I'm looking for.
I'm compiling Amarok2 every once in a while, and I love the UI from the beauty point of view. But not as a user.
Huge white space around play/back/forward doesn't help me.
Very nice looking, but very limited functionality of the right pane neither.
Overall, the problem from my perspective is that while it's a great player for newbies who come from Winamp/Windows Media Player, it's not as powerful as Amarok 1 used to be. And I don't see the way to achieve that without refactoring the UI
But to be honest, I do it every two months or so. I don't need 50% of my screen taken by this.
While in fact, I really use 100% of the UI visible out of the box in Amarok 1. I do care about playlist, and library on the sidebar, in the playlist I do care about the length of the track, artist, etc.
I love the ability to sort by any column and I love the ability to shortlist my playlist by typing some letters into search box.
I use it all, and I don't see how this features might work in the new UI.
Instead I see very shiny space for wikipedia entry. I usually listen music in background. For many hours.
When I switch to manager it's just to sort music, update playlist and/or queue some tracks.
It's extremely rare for me to look there to find info about the artist.
Overall, the concept for new UI looks nice, but it's not what I'm looking for.
I'm compiling Amarok2 every once in a while, and I love the UI from the beauty point of view. But not as a user.
Huge white space around play/back/forward doesn't help me.
Very nice looking, but very limited functionality of the right pane neither.
Overall, the problem from my perspective is that while it's a great player for newbies who come from Winamp/Windows Media Player, it's not as powerful as Amarok 1 used to be. And I don't see the way to achieve that without refactoring the UI
The panes are resizable ... I don't understand the "it's too big" complaint.
I guess mainly the complain is not about the default size of the panel but about lack of functionality of amarok 1.4.x powerful playlist.
I know it it not new complain and it was discussed before...
I believe that the only way to stop such complaints (I may be wrong but it seems that each post with Amarok 2 screen shots has such or similar complains in comments) is to give people what they want...
I know it it not new complain and it was discussed before...
I believe that the only way to stop such complaints (I may be wrong but it seems that each post with Amarok 2 screen shots has such or similar complains in comments) is to give people what they want...
The only way to get such an implementation is if someone who is complaining is willing to do the work. Remember that Amarok 2 took the approach of stripping things out to build them back up again, so it's not like it's less functional to spite users, it's mostly just less functional because nobody has had the time to make it more functional yet.
I think it is nice, that there now is the possibility to show this information in a bigger space without having to enlarge the context browser.
Anyway. In my opinion there should be the possibility to have this big playlist also in Amarok2. When playing only albums the small one is okay (and this is when I want to have all those information), but when just listening in random (or party) mode I want to have the possibility to see my id3-tags in one view and many of the upcoming tracks...
Anyway. In my opinion there should be the possibility to have this big playlist also in Amarok2. When playing only albums the small one is okay (and this is when I want to have all those information), but when just listening in random (or party) mode I want to have the possibility to see my id3-tags in one view and many of the upcoming tracks...
Have a look at the last picture in this post: http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/513-Nikolajs-sort-of,-but-not-really,-weekly-status-update,-part-whatever.html
Everything is resizable by dragging the dividers.
Everything is resizable by dragging the dividers.
Here is two two quotations of the post you've pointed:
1.
I don't have time to bring this alternate playlist view to a usable state. And I am not even sure it is needed, seeing how the new playlist is really coming along very nicely.
2.
Do note, that there is no guarantee that it will be possible to hide the context view in the future as this currently being discussed.
So looking at this it seems to me that this will not be implemented in Amarok at all.
1.
I don't have time to bring this alternate playlist view to a usable state. And I am not even sure it is needed, seeing how the new playlist is really coming along very nicely.
2.
Do note, that there is no guarantee that it will be possible to hide the context view in the future as this currently being discussed.
So looking at this it seems to me that this will not be implemented in Amarok at all.
It seems to me you are making a lot of rather bold assumptions based on a fairly old blog post.
re. quote 1.
No, I do not have time to finish up the classical playlist prototype as I personally think that right now there are much more important things to get done before 2.0. But if there really are 1000's of users who simply love Amarok but cannot live with the new playlist, it only takes one to step up and finish the classical view, and its not like we will actively work to discourage this or make it impossible. This is a community project, and one of the main things that keeps Amarok moving forwards is users taking up the developer torch and adding their features and their vision to Amarok. Indeed, one of the reasons for including that screenshot and text in that blog post, was the hope that one of the people who have, for a long time, been extremely vocal about this were willing to put their effort where their mouth is...
re. quote 2.
"Being discussed" != "Will not be implemented". Back when the other post was written, we were discussing whether to have different ui "states" and some developers came out very strongly against that. However, my personal opinion now is that, since the resizing of the 3 different panels is not stateful as it does not influence internal logic, and it can be achieved in a natural way without the need for more configuration options, I see absolutely no need to spend the additional work to remove this possibility ( I even quite like being able to size the panels as I see fit )
re. quote 1.
No, I do not have time to finish up the classical playlist prototype as I personally think that right now there are much more important things to get done before 2.0. But if there really are 1000's of users who simply love Amarok but cannot live with the new playlist, it only takes one to step up and finish the classical view, and its not like we will actively work to discourage this or make it impossible. This is a community project, and one of the main things that keeps Amarok moving forwards is users taking up the developer torch and adding their features and their vision to Amarok. Indeed, one of the reasons for including that screenshot and text in that blog post, was the hope that one of the people who have, for a long time, been extremely vocal about this were willing to put their effort where their mouth is...
re. quote 2.
"Being discussed" != "Will not be implemented". Back when the other post was written, we were discussing whether to have different ui "states" and some developers came out very strongly against that. However, my personal opinion now is that, since the resizing of the 3 different panels is not stateful as it does not influence internal logic, and it can be achieved in a natural way without the need for more configuration options, I see absolutely no need to spend the additional work to remove this possibility ( I even quite like being able to size the panels as I see fit )
Great! Finally we're seeing the last big (UI) piece on it's place. Can't wait to compile Amarok again (at the end of the next week, probably :/ ).
PS. Small info window is gone, yay!
PS. Small info window is gone, yay!
Well, the resize ability of plasmoids can be locked actually 
But you guys should use QT 4.4 and don't care about KDE 4.0.1 atm because in about a month 4.0.2 will be released for sure, just in time.
But you guys should use QT 4.4 and don't care about KDE 4.0.1 atm because in about a month 4.0.2 will be released for sure, just in time.
Is there any chance to get something like a classic mode with an interface resembling Amarok 1.4 (which I consider the best UI for any music player by a long shot)? I for one simply don't understand the waste of screen space in the bar covering the play/pause etc buttons...
If that center plasmoid thing can be used for visualizations, this will be absolutely awesome. Not that much could stop it...
Enable support for audio post processing plugins, and Amarok will be the swiss army chainsaw of music players.
Enable support for audio post processing plugins, and Amarok will be the swiss army chainsaw of music players.
We were actually discussing this just the other day, and it really seems to make sense to have a visualization applet.
This also led us to the discussing of whether a visualization applet should be allowed to show music videos ( if available ) as these can be considered a sort of pre-rendered visualization
Some of this stuff might not be ready for 2.0 though. But then again, we need to keep some cool features up our sleeve for all the 2.x releases!
This also led us to the discussing of whether a visualization applet should be allowed to show music videos ( if available ) as these can be considered a sort of pre-rendered visualization
Some of this stuff might not be ready for 2.0 though. But then again, we need to keep some cool features up our sleeve for all the 2.x releases!
I know amarok2 is alpha software and I don't think to post "bugs". I've just uninstall amarok1 few months ago, and install amarok2. And is it possible to get collection work? I don't really ask about slider to work or something, just it would be nice to know when collection start work. I see collection on every screenshot, but not on my pc. Thank you for attention.
Nice to see the pieces coming together nicely! Congrats!
The thing I'm worried about (usability-wise) is the visual separation of 'now playing' and song position slider and playback controls.
The thing I'm worried about (usability-wise) is the visual separation of 'now playing' and song position slider and playback controls.
I have to agree on some points here. I already know who the artists/bands are that I have on my collection. so I dont really need to see this information everytime I have something playing.
I'm sure it's useful for some people, but I really hope there will be a way to hide the whole middle panel altogether.
I only use collection browser and playlist, and the nice little OSD tells me when song changes.. the actual Amarok app is hidden on my systray, and I only use it when I am working with the playlists..
and if I need information about artist, I just use konqueror. because it almost never is the one that is playing right now..
.b
I'm sure it's useful for some people, but I really hope there will be a way to hide the whole middle panel altogether.
I only use collection browser and playlist, and the nice little OSD tells me when song changes.. the actual Amarok app is hidden on my systray, and I only use it when I am working with the playlists..
and if I need information about artist, I just use konqueror. because it almost never is the one that is playing right now..
.b
You understand that this particular feature (the one in the screenshot) is for Magnatune, not your collection.
Technically, it is for all the services that has any interesting html data to show. Currently this is Magnatune, Jamendo and the OPML directory.
But yeah, it has nothing to do with what is currently playing but instead what you are browsing in the service browser.
But yeah, it has nothing to do with what is currently playing but instead what you are browsing in the service browser.
PLEASE also make it recognize local .html AND .nfo AND *.txt files. That would be awesome!!
Hint: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/conTEXT?content=40231
Maybe you guys could work together for this?
Hint: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/conTEXT?content=40231
Maybe you guys could work together for this?
oh, sorry I got it wrong then..
so when you are just using your collection, it will be same as Amarok 1.x, no middle panel ?
.b
so when you are just using your collection, it will be same as Amarok 1.x, no middle panel ?
.b
No, unless you hide it ( by using the draggable dividers to make the browser and playlist cover it completely ) there will always be the center part, but it will not display html info at all times. When browsing your collection, it might very well shows statistics about your collection as well as recommendations, much like what is in the context browser in 1.4.x
Hello,
is Amarok 2 going to be a web browser (magnatune/wikipedia) or audio player? I couldn't figure it out, it says it is audio player and yet the web part occupies good 50% of the interface.
thanks
is Amarok 2 going to be a web browser (magnatune/wikipedia) or audio player? I couldn't figure it out, it says it is audio player and yet the web part occupies good 50% of the interface.
thanks
A music player.
Just like the 1.4.x series, it will have the ability to show info in an html view. And just like the 1.4.x series, the amount of space this will take up can be adjusted by changing the since of each panel. The only thing that really differs is the presentation.
Just like the 1.4.x series, it will have the ability to show info in an html view. And just like the 1.4.x series, the amount of space this will take up can be adjusted by changing the since of each panel. The only thing that really differs is the presentation.
Big news!
Amarok won't be able to play music. But you'll be able to browse the web while doing some spreadsheet work while staring at a magnificent clock plasmoid.
Who cares about listening to music anyway ?
Amarok won't be able to play music. But you'll be able to browse the web while doing some spreadsheet work while staring at a magnificent clock plasmoid.
Who cares about listening to music anyway ?
If you just want to be able to listen to music, something like mpg123 from the command line fits the bill.
The point of Amarok 1 & 2 (or any other modern audio player really) is what they can do above and beyond just playing audio files.
The point of Amarok 1 & 2 (or any other modern audio player really) is what they can do above and beyond just playing audio files.
No they don't!
On screen fonts in that screenshot look horrible.
For some reason, my fontconfig is slightly broken on this machine in a way that does not allow anti aliasing with the default font. As I setup a new user for that Qt 4.4 build, I forgot to change the font settings for that user...
So no big KDE screwup here, just me being in a bit to much of a hurry when posting that screenshot.
On screen fonts in that screenshot look horrible.
For some reason, my fontconfig is slightly broken on this machine in a way that does not allow anti aliasing with the default font. As I setup a new user for that Qt 4.4 build, I forgot to change the font settings for that user...
So no big KDE screwup here, just me being in a bit to much of a hurry when posting that screenshot.
Close! Our real top secret plan is to combine the most obscure features from emacs and vi, thus creating something that nobody can use and ending this long standing flame war!
Yes, we forked emacs because RMS wouldn't accept our changes unless we rewrote them in lisp.
I like the 1.4 look way more than this.
You know, in a few years we'll all have wide screens anyway. Suffice to say that there are already websites(and many more emerging) that take advantage of this, having multiple columns with categories, and tags, ads.. just to fill up the empty horizontal space. So yeah, the web points the new things to come. So at a glance, I'dd like this aproach, but thing is that, there is a thin line of good taste and clutter. Clearly that this (the revamped amarok gui) is the work of a coder and not of a designer, wich kind of hurts .. and it shows IMHO as I'm not the only one complaning. What I really don't understand though is why on earth I just keep starring at that screenshot and I simply ask my self, it does look cool (as in an I want to impress my friends kind of way), but looking back to what I'm currently listening.. nope .. no wikipedia entry, no lyrics. There are a lot of VA albums out there and mixes, not to mention streaming; also, don't forget that there are a lot of people from a lot of countries, where even popular bands might not have a wiki entry - go figure. I just fail to grasp amaroks audience at this point. It feels as if it alianates a lot of people and this attitude that I keep seeing(as in reading), "you can customize it" makes me sad ..
You know, in a few years we'll all have wide screens anyway. Suffice to say that there are already websites(and many more emerging) that take advantage of this, having multiple columns with categories, and tags, ads.. just to fill up the empty horizontal space. So yeah, the web points the new things to come. So at a glance, I'dd like this aproach, but thing is that, there is a thin line of good taste and clutter. Clearly that this (the revamped amarok gui) is the work of a coder and not of a designer, wich kind of hurts .. and it shows IMHO as I'm not the only one complaning. What I really don't understand though is why on earth I just keep starring at that screenshot and I simply ask my self, it does look cool (as in an I want to impress my friends kind of way), but looking back to what I'm currently listening.. nope .. no wikipedia entry, no lyrics. There are a lot of VA albums out there and mixes, not to mention streaming; also, don't forget that there are a lot of people from a lot of countries, where even popular bands might not have a wiki entry - go figure. I just fail to grasp amaroks audience at this point. It feels as if it alianates a lot of people and this attitude that I keep seeing(as in reading), "you can customize it" makes me sad ..
"Clearly that this (the revamped amarok gui) is the work of a coder and not of a designer"
It's the work of the same people who brought you 1.4 ...
It's the work of the same people who brought you 1.4 ...
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