Wednesday, June 4. 2008Greater than the sum of parts ( Video podcast support )
Yesterday something really cool happened. It is not something that was planned or that we even really thought about at the time.
It all started with me trying to add a few fixes to the podcast browser in the playlist tab, as I could not get it to show the actual podcast episodes. Although managing to get in a few fixes for related errors, I could not get it to work. I then sang my song of woe to Bart, who, even though he is really busy with preparations for Akademy, sat down and beat the code into shape. So now the podcast view works, even though it still does not save subscriptions between sessions. Then later in the evening it hit me. Between the podcast view working, the Podcast directory service I did a while back, and Mark's brand new video applet we now have this:   How cool is that?  As is obvious from the screenshots, the metadata of the podcast episodes is a bit lacking still, and there are other minor annoyances as well, but the basics of video podcast support is there and working quite well. EDIT: Oh, and I obviously forgot to switch to an antialiased font when I completely wiped and rebuilt my KDE4 the other day! - Nikolaj Trackbacks
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Whoa this is what i've wanted for a long time, but was scared to ass. This coupled with the audio book takes Amrok to the next level. Amarok 2 will be about rediscovering your Audio!!!
Don't worry, Mark is just teasing you a little bit!
I am glad you are looking forward to Amarok, and we are indeed trying to take it to a new level!
And the winner for 'Least helpful response from a pampered drama queen' goes to.... (fiddles with envelope).... Fish! Congratulations fish, you're a winner!
Thanks guys!
But well, I'm serious. It is completely useless for me without fullscreen support. Just in case you haven't noticed: The last blog entry entitled "Amarok 2 Gets Music Video Support!" got 45 comments. Out of those 45 comments, 21 (!!) were complaining about the missing fullscreen support. But sure, why even give an answer to that? I guess the "most ignorant developers award" goes to Amarok then...
fish also gets the "resident illiterate" award, for his inability to read the post before replying.
had he cared to peruse nhn's words, he would have noticed the "...and there are other minor annoyances as well, but the basics of video podcast support is there and working quite well..." basic, adj: 2. Of, being, or serving as a starting point or basis: a basic course in Russian; a set of basic woodworking tools.
I read that. But it seems the Amarok devs don't consider fullscreen support as a basic feature, ya know:
"There won't be advanced features like full screen mode..." So much for the "resident illiterate award"... 
I find it hard to believe that there is absolutely no circumstance under which a facility you would otherwise find useful would not be just because it wasn't occupying your entire screen, but that aside, how do you think it must feel for someone to put in the time and effort to make something great, and when they first show it to the world a response like yours is amongst the first they get? Do you think it actually makes them want rush back to work and write software for you?
There are ways of asking for things without being rude or demanding. If there was already a thread about the video ability and half of it is filled for requests for full screen then you know what? the developers already know that and you're doing nothing to help and everything to hurt the situation with your petulant demands. In the end, this is open source. Amarok is beloved project that lots of people have written all kinds of extensions for, because they think its great and want to make it do something outside of its core functionality. Even if the devs themselves don't include what you want surely someone else will. Or you could always write it yourself....
Umm. I think that full screen support would be nice too, but i have not tried it yet so I don;t know how well it works. maybe I can try it on kubuntu ppa repo.
I don't know if the GUI is reconfigurable, but I think the controls (play/pause/seekbar) are badly placed. Most of the time, a music player is in the the system tray in the lower right corner and is opened by clicking on its icon. The controls being close to the system tray is VERY convenient rather than on the other side of the screen. Moreover, I'm inclined to think that the seekbar is too large unnecessarily knowing that most tracks are about 5 minutes. (Of course you could argue that it is useful for podcasts, but I would be surprised if 1% of Amarok users use it for this purpose.)
Other than that its coming along rather nicely. Have fun coding!
Man this comes up again and again. You can control Amarok from the system tray Icon. Whether the application window is displayed or not you can use these controls. So it actually makes more sense to have the controls at the top in this case because then you have the option which part of the screen you want to control from.
And on top of that, not everybody has the taskbar at the bottom of his screen. So there will always be users who don't like the position. I personally think that multimedia keys on your keyboard are the best choice
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