[mythtv] improvement to MythMusic RIP location

[Colin Guthrie]

Hi,

Isaac Richards wrote:
>>How about combining the playlist selection and the player screens more
>>seamlessly...
>>Effectivly set the "show enitre music tree" option as fixed ON.
> 
> 
> I like them separate.  Listening is a different task then selecting, to me.
> 
> 
>>Alter the split tree in the player such that when you go "far right" it
>>grows to full size and fill the available width for a more attractive view.
>>
>>Going left once from here will cause the list to split vertically as it
>>does currently.
> 
> 
> That's not consistant.

Taking both the points above on board (as they are kinda related), would 
you object heavily if I were to make a patch to do this? It wouldn't 
affect all that much, as the UI would be pretty much the same as it is 
currently, and if you want to have the feature, you just hit left. Just 
because it's not consistent, does not mean it is a bad practice or bad 
UI design. The Active Play Queue is fundamentally different from your 
Music Heirarchy and Playlists. They have different depths and different 
layouts and options. They are already inconsistant branches, grouped in 
a single tree, so I don't see why this is any different.

>>Pressing the info button at any point would "popup" a little statistic
>>about that entry, e.g. If it's an artist, how many tracks by that
>>artist, total length, how many albums by that artist. etc. It could
>>perhaps even bring up an album browser at this point? Back in the list,
>>if the highlighted entry is an album then try and correlate the track
>>metadata and files in the album's folder to bring up cover art etc. and
>>perhaps a tracklisting with times or something maybe auto scrolling past
>>slowly??
> 
> 
> I don't see how that'd help playback selection at all, but, a good idea..

Maybe wouldn't help per se but to have little album browser with cover 
art and such would be very pretty, especially if you can't remember the 
name of the album, but do remember it was the one with the big picture 
of a duck on it or something =)


>>A "menu" key pressed at any time would give you a popup like the one
>>that appears when pressing "i" on the "Active Play Queue" entry in the
>>playlist editor as it stands currently. This would give you buttons to
>>save the active play queue as a playlist, clear the active play queue etc.
> 
> Don't see the point of that - getting to the active play queue item is fast 
> enough.

OK, but it there any real point in not having it either? I think I would 
find it useful even if you wouldn't, and I'm sure others would too, so 
would you object if I implemented it?


>>The ability to define on a per playlist basis, which layout to use use,
>>e.g. splitartist, artist, genre etc.
> 
> Too complicated, UI wise.

Really? Surely you get a popup when you have your playlist selected and 
you can rename it etc., so why not put the layout style there too? This 
is just the same as my suggestion to allow fast switching of the layout 
in the normal tree, which you said was "fairly easily done" (although 
this may have refered to the 2nd level of the tree being a list of each 
view method rather than the popup method; personally I prefer the popup 
method as you may find a song you like and want similar ones and thus 
jump to genre mode and want to keep the current song selected!).

There are only three or four layouts so these can just be a combo box 
listing, rather than free typing like in the setup.

>>* Regexp based auto playlists. The ability to define a playlist that can
>>use all the different metadata components along with a regexp to match
>>certain tracks. This could be automatically built at startup or when the
>>"scan for new music" thing runs (e.g. on demand or after ripping a CD).
> 
> 
> At one time, someone was working on sql-based rules for playlists, but never 
> finished.  This wouldn't be very useable from a remote, though.

Granted it wouldn't work via the remote, but if these playlists are 
shared amounst many clients, then perhaps they can be configured on a 
client with a keyboard? I know I'd definatly use this feature, so If 
it's OK, I'll probably do this too.


Let me know if you really object to anything and I'll reasess.

Cheers

Col.

-- 

+------------------------+
|     Colin Guthrie      |
+------------------------+
|   myth at colin.guthr.ie  |
| http://colin.guthr.ie/ |
+------------------------+