[mythtv-users] family acceptance test.

Roger Siddons dizygotheca at ntlworld.com
Thu Aug 13 11:33:50 UTC 2015


On Thu, 13 Aug 2015 03:28:11 +0100, Phill Edwards <philledwards at gmail.com>  
wrote:

>> Personally I *hate* playlists, but I could handle making a one item  
>> playlist, if I could ever figure out how to make one, and >>then play  
>> the damn thing. I have lots of music archived, and have NEVER found a  
>> player which I like. All have failed in the UI. >>Maybe mythmusic  
>> wouldn't be so bad, but since I quite literally cannot get a single  
>> piece to play using it, I do not know.
>
> I don't like playlists either. They seem like an unnecessary impost to  
> me. I just want to select an artist or a song and an album >and play it.  
> Why should I need to faff about creating playlists. I understand their  
> usefulness, but it shouldn't be the only way >of being able to play  
> something. There seems to be a lot of products with a big focus on  
> playlists.

Totally agree. You don't have to create playlists.

The "playlist" term is a confusion between:

1. "THE playlist", as in "the list of tracks that are currently  
playing/queued to play", and
2. "A playlist", as in "a specific order of favourite tracks that you  
assemble and save to replay later".

Consequently you get a "Playlist Options" dialog with options to "Save to  
New Playlist" (2) & "Save To Existing Playlist" (1?).

I'm not a big user of music apps but IMHO this seems to bedevil all of  
them. They can circumvent the issue by UI design (layout, menubars,  
tooltips), which MythMusic cannot use. It has the (severe) restriction of  
using only buttonlists & dialogs, so terminology becomes crucial.

I wonder if introducing a new term for (1) would resolve some confusion.  
What's a standard, intuitive term for the "Now playing list" ?

An alternative (more accurate) perception is that MythMusic always plays a  
playlist, but it will automatically create one from an album and then  
throw it away afterwards. However I wouldn't say that's intuitive...


I always play albums.

1. Main Menu/Music/Select Music

2. Go down to Albums, then go right to the album list. (Going into the  
tree via the Artist/Genre filters reduces the album list significantly but  
is extra button presses!)

3. Go up/down to your preferred album and select/click it (OK, Space,  
Return etc)

4. Choose "Replace Tracks" from dialog ("Add Tracks" will queue it to play  
when current album finishes)

5. It plays the album, I listen.

Selecting individual tracks doesn't start them playing automatically but  
moving right to the Playlist (1) and selecting the track (OK, return,  
"P"/Play etc) does.

If that doesn't work for you then a precise description of the problem  
would probably elicit a quick response.

I'm using 0.28 but I believe all MythMusic patches go into 0.27/fixes.

FWIW: If your confusion lies more navigating the "Scrolling Button Filter  
Tree" UI used by MythMusic then I'd recommend playing with it in the  
MythCenter theme. Although the others look good, they do seem to obscure  
the way it works, to my eye.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20150813/27b1c0bf/attachment.html>


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list