Future Directions

Sat, 01/17/2009 - 01:13 — moschou

Post Songbird 1.1.0, Now Playing List will probably change dramatically in a way that hasn't been possible before. This will be due to a bug fix that didn't make it into 1.0, as well as a patch that I wrote and got accepted, which will most likely appear in the next major release. What this means is that I'll be able to completely rewrite the add-on to avoid all those crashes and bugs, and also eliminate the need to have those confusing modes. I thought I'd share with you the new user interaction model I hope to implement and get your feedback

Play a track from the main window
Starts playing the track as normal
The now playing list populates itself with the new playlist
The tracks are displayed in the order they are going to play in, not the order they appear in the playlist
The playing track will therefore appear at the top of the now playing list if shuffle is enabled
The now playing list is renamed back to 'Now Playing' if necessary
Play a track from the now playing list
Starts playing the track as expected
This does not make the track appear at the top of the now playing list, as the previous action would, instead playback has "skipped ahead" to this track
* Reorder the position of tracks within the main window;
* Add tracks to the main window;
* Remove tracks from the main window;
* Change search/sort/filter on the main window
The now playing list populates itself with the updated playlist
The tracks are displayed in the order they are going to play in, not the order they appear in the playlist
Add tracks to the now playing list;
Remove tracks from the now playing list
The now playing list is renamed to 'Custom Playlist'
The now playing list becomes a new playlist that is now out of sync with the main window
Starred actions (*) have no effect on this playlist
If playback has already started, the custom playlist is what will continue to play, not the original playlist
Reorder the position of tracks within the now playing list
This changes the track order that the playlist is going to play through, whether it is showing 'Now Playing' or 'Custom Playlist'
Change sort on the now playing list
This is disabled and has no effect

As you can see, no where have I mentioned the work 'queue' or talked about having to switch modes. The changes that are going into Songbird 1.1.0 should hopefully enable these things to happen naturally like they should. It still makes a distinction between 'Now Playing' and 'Custom Playlist', but this happens automatically and merely indicates whether the now playing list is still in sync with the main window, or has been altered "on the fly".

You should also be aware that when I say "Add tracks to the now playing list" I haven't said how, so this could be via drag and drop, via pressing 'Q' on the keyboard, via a right-click menu with 'Queue Next' or 'Queue Last' etc. Also this should be possible from any playlist, not just the library.

moschou's blog

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Fri, 01/30/2009 - 01:28 — killersquiller (not verified)

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