Why is it the obviously needed is seemingly buried in elegance: Amarok repeat track

[woodsmoke]

If anybody wants to "come back" on me about this........maybe.... you should FIRST maybe check the hundreds of posts that I have made advocating the use of Amarok and xmms.

Why is it that in Clementine there is an OBVIOUS menu item ( TO THE NEW FROM WINDBLOWS) for "repeat track" and in Amarok "repeat track" is buried in fifth button on the right on the bottom of the right panel.....

which a new person from Windblows, running a live cd, might not have the time or disc spinning capability to find.............. when running a live cd...............

The old woodsmoker knows ALL ABOUT "developers" doing what they wilt, being the whole of the law......................but this one seems like a no brainer........

the no brainer would be to put a menu item on the top left....which has a "call" for what is in that elegant little button buried on the bottom right....

you know..........a call.........I know, old Basic stuff but.........it is now a library..........so why not include it..........a simple thing

to ATTRACT............the NEW TO LINUX FROM WINDBLOWS...

unless .....what are the lines from the film Thunderball?

Maybe Clementine, of which MANY people at this august forum say it their default player:

He acts while other men just talk

For the cognoscenti ...........I am NOT a "cognoscenti", but for the cognoscenti...........we............."of course"...........we are sooooo smart..... we "know" that obvious things are buried in obscure places.......

but the very people who a "lot" of Linux people say that we need to attract, have neither the time or the "desire" to hunt through obscure icons....

DOES ANY LINUX PERSON remember the DERISION with which the Windblows "ribbon" ....was greeted..........by Linux people? There was no text, no obvious associations, just "universal icons".....

Well, to this author........ the "universal icon" of the ribbon resides in Amarok in the bottom right panel, fifth right button............

But.....................lo and behold ............this author offers a recommendation:

Why not have a "first run setup" for Amaok.....?

Dear users of Amarok:

tick "A" for new user which provides "classic" "obvious" buttons and menu items.

tick "B" for the experienced Amarok user who wishes to have a more nuanced interface.

This has nothing to go with "glassy" or "glossy" or "oxygen" or "oxygen deprived"............

it has EVERYTHING to do with ACCOMODATING BOTH...................

a) those NEW TO LINUX

And at the same time.....

b) the old groaners, the elite, palace guard for Napoleon....






get in your car, drive real fast and drive real far.........

woodsmoke

[Qqmike]

Well, you know, as usual, I have no idea what 43.7% of your post is about, but a note on Kaffeine. It has a repeat under the Playlist tab (at top), which is kind of intuitive (but you must learn how to use it -- not always obvious what it is that is repeated!). You've been away for awhile?

[life0riley]

I do understand what you are saying and have to admit that I fiddled with Amarok for some time before learning to use it. It wasn't intuitive to me. In the past I've used Rythmbox and most recently before switching to Kubuntu, Audacious.

[dequire]

I agree with Woodsmoker's assessment of Amarok. For example, in Netrunner the default music player is gmusicbrowser. Cool app. Stupid name. But it does what is should in the most minimalist way possible. There are 3 top menu options, one of which is "Play order". Can't get more minimalist that that. But here's the thing: You can actually make Amarok look pretty minimalist, and therefore less likely to overwhelm and confuse people on 1st encounter, with a little work. OTOH, you can also make Amarok look like this:



Ideally, and I agree with Woodsmoke here, Amarok should default to a minimalist skin and pane layout. Then there should be an "explore" option somewhere obviously placed where the user could, at his or her pace, be walked through more advanced options. Finally, and optimally, there should be limitless set-ups available to use. These could be downloadable 'skins' via KGHNS. This way, every user-case could be covered, from basic gmusicbrowser-type users to power users to home theater setups.

In a nutshell, if Plasma is moving towards one toolkit for many different form factors and use-cases, it's flagship music player should also...If it is to survive.

[woodsmoke]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies! anyone else who wants to chime in feel free to so do!

Dequire, methinks that Amarok is being left to the dustbin.

The interweb is littered with thousands of posts from people asking for just "skins".

I mean, if xmms could have a hundred or more "skins", that were made by USERS..............not "the developers", one would think that a mature app like Amarok could at least have a couple of "different skins".

This site from 2007: http://www.xmms.org/skins.php

But, the devs of Amarok, seemingly, do not consider a "skin" to be worthy of consideration.

Ummm how long has Amarok been in development? I leave it to the gentle reader to so ponder.

ANNNNNDDDDD the developers can do what they wilt, it is the whole of the law.

XMMS USERS............ made all of those skins starting in 2004.........

now yes xmms has gone by the by and was reborn xmms2 which is now a "sound server" used by obscurants like the old woodsmoker..........why is that?

We all know the answer......it is because the "target population" has changed in what it thinks in "necessary" and xmms has been left behind...

But the point being, that if the developers of Amarok did not consider it important to have even "other skins", dunno about any other kind of "customization".

AND.......... even though this statement has been mocked and derided by dozens and dozens of "cognoscenti".

Ummmmm the "user" wants to be able to "fiddle" with apps, WHEN POSSIBLE .............and NEW, INEXPERIENCED people want things to be EASY.

I do scuba.

When I was in high school and the navy, scuba gear was fins, mask, a tank hoses and a weight belt. That is what one sees in the Thunderball film with Sean Connery.



Put on the gear and jump in, pretty much "sink or swim" was the attitude.

Nowadays, I use what is called a "buoyancy compensation device" (BCD) with a push of one button I rise, with a push of another button, i sink.....( and there are some who would just as soon that I pushed the button and sank into oblivion! lol ).



The raison' detre for the BCD is that THE WANTS of the users have changed.

xmms was pretty bare bones.............but the developers recognized that the USERS wanted to fiddle with things...........

That was the point of the original TRON film...........the individual USER did not want to submit to "what other people wanted".

Now, yes,..............WE ALL SUBMIT TO THE DEVELOPERS...........if we did not we would not be using Linux right now, typing on this screen.

ANNND YESSSSS AMAROK DEVELOPERS HAVE RESPONDED.............. I mean..........Amarok "does it all"...........but.........

there are just the "niggling things" that, at least to this user, should be pretty OBVIOUS that just............aren't there..... like a simple way for a new user to click a menu and get to repeat instead of...

SEARCHING THE MICROSITH RIBBON , in this case an obscure button on the bottom right of the interface...

But........... methinks that players like Clementine and others have decided that if the USERS are not USING the app then maybe, there is no point to having the app.

Again..................there is not one single person who can say that the old woodsmoker has not been an AVID supporter of everything Amarok, but, maybe.,....

it's time to change the paradigm.

I, personally, don't think that it will happen, already Clementine is "almost" if not "already"...... the default player for the flagship KDE / Ubuntu distro....even the old groaners say that they use Clementine....

what a shame.......





just a thought, of little worth...

wood

just sayin'



smoke

[MoonRise]

I liked Amarok early on. Now they do seem to keep parts not as intuitive as before and performance seems a little off. I find myself using VLC more. However, I do use Amarok every once and a while because it does have a great Library Management system.

[mcNisse]

This article has some input on music player in kde, http://www.linuxveda.com/2015/09/02/...ware-kde-deals. Point 3 is about multimedia applications.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[woodsmoke]

Hi dequire
just off into other things, I'm doing scuba with disabled people nowadays, although that has been seriously cut back because of Obamacare, all part time teachers who were "full" part time, lost a third of our hours, that is from kindergarten up to college, ( I mean it isn't as if a school can suddenly raise taxes one third (which has to be done by a vote of the local populace, or a college increase tuition one third in single semester) so since it is all donation, I work odd jobs to do the scuba.

Other teachers just plain quit, because they had their own insurance from a spouse, or parents, or whatever and are now working at the "big box store".

But, be that as it may, it doesn't leave much leisure time.

Also I've really moved away from "the computer" except to print stuff, and a music server, etc. (as noted in another post). I do everything on an Android, I even gave away the tablet that I thought I might be able to install Plasma on but since nobody is porting to new ARMs anymore, that has gone by the by also. I should have purchased a Bamboo! lol

Anyway, thanks for the comments.

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

McNisse
Thanks for the linky!
I had not read it, and did not know about Tomahawk or Cantata, but did try out Bangarang when it first came out. So I'll install them and give them a whirl!

Before I came to KDE/Kubuntu i had been a stalwart proponent of mpd and also the xmms / various skins paradigms , And since I'm waay older than dirt, I also hooked into GKrellM (That IN ADDITION to the whole.

but when I came to KDE/Kubuntu i saw the greatly enhanced value of Amarok and moved completely to it.

As to system monitors, I have always been very minimal in my power useage and after a while just dropped all of them.

The NEXT BIG STEP, for me was when KDE connect appeared and it hooked into Amarok, so I can use the smart phone to control volume while I'm in another room.

So..........anywhooo...thanks again for the linky, it reflects, in a much more readable and understandable manner ! , a little of what I said, so I'm not the only squirrel sitting in the tree throwing half eaten walnut hulls at passersby! lol

woodsmoke