[Loto_Bak]

i agree a few labels for prev/next tracks would be useful. these labels would easily update as the user navigated forward/back. the ability to reference these songs from other windows besides the queue would be useful. such as being able to remove, or change to one of these songs without entering the queue.

regarding playlist window not being intuitive...
the current implimentation of listcontrol really rules out creating a queue dialog (insted of a window as it is now). so this really should be pushed into a feature request.
i think the most annoying part of the playlist is the keymapping that moves the user to/from. black and white are really non-natural buttons to push and new users rarely realize their function. thinking about the problem i though longpress/shortpress button support could be more useful. if you would like to read my thoughts on the topic there is a thread here.
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....t=18869

[BritneysPAIRS]

no worries just to me filemanager used to be 2 windows and its now one, and to me its easier. but still if i had that new list for qued items a skinner could slide the list out the window to bring in the other one. if both thumbpanels and playlist list where availble to skin i could even on press left it goes to music on press right slides off to show qued music (allowing full names) just both being in same window. im just saying with those items i mentioned a skinner could do list in so many ways using slides it would be up to there imagination then and the team could then put easier playlisting anywhere and design any interface to run from one window and also have the advantage of having playlist stuff in any other window (eg home and music vis)

[kraqh3d]

but why does it need to slide out? how does that specificly make it *easier to use*?

to me, this is no different than it being another window. you still need to hit a key to make it appear and then hit another key to make it disappear. its just eye candy.

[BritneysPAIRS]

its actually just due to that i can add it anywhere really. good for skinner can intergrated it an rethink new ideas (eg flexible to skinners rather than locked like it is now)


anyway the issues id love to be solved is not knowing what ive qued in my music (have to swap into music and if i have 1000songs there i still dont really know if i qued "cant touch this") highlighting would fix that even if current song wasnt highlighted and just all qued songs were.
2) a way to see whats coming next......on home and full vis
3) being able to scroll though my currently qued songs while on home or full screenvis and selecting (not an issue just a nice thing). for me i guess this could make an easier altering of playlists. the rest for swapping windows can be redone though skinning means to make it newbe proof.

really for me highlighting is the biggest issue of all and not knowing where i playlisted a song when ive qued 100s of songs

cheers

[jmarshall]

if you have 1000 songs queued, do you really need to know if "can't touch this" is queued yet?

seems to me that this is a playlist creation issue (which ofcourse xbmc is lacking in at this point) more than anything. i don't think that highlighting what is currently added is really useful in this respect.

playlist creation is something that can be improved upon - particularly if it's from what is already in the database - we have a stack of information there, and a search form to add stuff to the database by specifying a query is imo the best way to go in this respect. i don't have time to work on such a thing at this point though.

cheers,
jonathan

[BritneysPAIRS]

well for me if a few people at a party want to choose some songs it would be nice to see what ones people have choosen without pressing back 2 times. well i guess what i want for a party is press y to que and its highlighted as qued (y again would unque) and when a song is finished its removed from list. this is actually a completely diffent purpose to making nice controllable playlists and is just a quick me and my fiends can add a song or 2 all night form a large list.

i agree that playlist editing and making is a diff subject this is really just for a party mode. i would just like it to behave more like a jukebox im happy with the way playlists works really for making complexed lists it just for a simple jukebox application its a bit complexed for me.

cheers

[kraqh3d]

here's a bunch of responses to multiple posts...

anyway the issues id love to be solved is not knowing what ive qued in my music (have to swap into music and if i have 1000songs there i still dont really know if i qued "cant touch this") highlighting would fix that even if current song wasnt highlighted and just all qued songs were.

how does winamp solve this? it doesnt. there's a playlist, and you scroll through it. same with xbmc.

2) a way to see whats coming next......on home and full vis

a way of seeing whats coming up next is easy. that can be done with some info labels like were mentioned earlier. can winamp display a coming up next thing while in a full screen visualisation? i dont tihnk so.

3) being able to scroll though my currently qued songs while on home or full screenvis and selecting (not an issue just a nice thing). for me i guess this could make an easier altering of playlists. the rest for swapping windows can be redone though skinning means to make it newbe proof.

again, lets look at winamp... if you have a full screen visualisation running in winamp, you cant do this either. i really dont understand why its such a big deal to switch windows to see the queue. yes a little semi-transparent popup window over the current window would be nice. but, its just eye candy. it doesnt make xbmc any more user friendly.

really for me highlighting is the biggest issue of all and not knowing where i playlisted a song when ive qued 100s of songs

maybe its just me, but i just dont see this as useful. i used to think it was nice to have the current song highlighted but bobbin changed my mind on it. there really is no value in it. its already in the overlay. i think i was just used to it.

playlist creation is something that can be improved upon - particularly if it's from what is already in the database - we have a stack of information there, and a search form to add stuff to the database by specifying a query is imo the best way to go in this respect. i don't have time to work on such a thing at this point though.

jm, what do you mean exactly? if you elaborate, i may be able to play around with this idea.

i would just like it to behave more like a jukebox im happy with the way playlists works really for making complexed lists it just for a simple jukebox application its a bit complexed for me.

lets be honest. xbmc does not work well as a jukebox, though i've been toying with the idea of a music jukebox mode... i havent done anything yet, nor am i committing that i will, but this is what i was thinking.... xbmc randomly keeps picking songs out of the database to maintain a queue of say 5 deep at all times. after a song is played, its removed from the queue, and a new song is picked if theres less than 5 songs left. if the user queues a song, that song will get bumped up underneath the currently playing song, and any more songs queued by the user will go underneath it. while keeping a history to prevent repeats is a nice to have, its added overhead so i would avoid it.

[jmarshall]

the suggestion of the "jukebox" mode is exactly the same as how itunes handles it (it uses 15 items i believe, but is exactly the same system - and it is random rather than "random without repeat").

as for the playlist creation, i was thinking a search dialog similar to how smart playlists work in itunes - define the playlist by a sql query effectively - it auto-updates when new stuff is added (as the query runs when you retrieve the "playlist" (really just a virtual folder). setting up the query via a gui is the tricky bit to this really - itunes does it by having:

field conditionals value

where field is "trackname", "artist" etc., value is the thing to match to, and conditionals contain stuff like "contains", "greater than" etc (depends on the field).

you can then have more fields, and they are combined by a separate conditional. just crank up itunes to see how it works.

the idea is that you run this search dialog, it returns the results in the form of a playlist that then auto-updates as new things are added, or items are changed etc.

as for the "what's in the queue list" thoughts. infolabels as suggested is an easy way to do it (and execute functions to chose them) but really this sort of thing would be more efficient in a list. once 2.0 is final (which it pretty much already is) perhaps we can look into a "infolist" which is filled and controlled based on the information. saves having to reproduce the functionality of a list control with buttons + labels.

cheers,
jonathan

[BritneysPAIRS]

cheers that sounds great.

[kraqh3d]

you can then have more fields, and they are combined by a separate conditional. just crank up itunes to see how it works.

i must be the only person left on the planet not using itunes.

as for the "what's in the queue list" thoughts. infolabels as suggested is an easy way to do it (and execute functions to chose them) but really this sort of thing would be more efficient in a list. once 2.0 is final (which it pretty much already is) perhaps we can look into a "infolist" which is filled and controlled based on the information. saves having to reproduce the functionality of a list control with buttons + labels.

if this is just for text display, then i really dont see the point of an infolist. we really only need to see the next few (and possibly a few previous) items from the current playlist. this can already be very easily achieved with a few info labels. and if we open up say 10 new info labels (-5 and +5), then the skinner has the choice of displaying what they want from that set. in fact, having them as discreet labels has advantages. if they only want to see the next three songs, they can. if they want to see the entire list of 11 items with differing colors and alpha values based on how far the items are from the current song, they can. (actually that would look slick).

** edit **
actually allowing something like playlist.item(+/-n) would allow any number of info labels. (0 would be current item).

[BritneysPAIRS]

these all sound nice to me that way i could make a display on any skin on any page as to what is qued.

[jmarshall]

yep, you could do it that way (use the stuff i added for controlgroup(i).hasfocus(j) to map it to a single integer lookup). i guess the advantage of a list is you can scroll it easily if it's a huge list, and you can use it to select a new song on the list easily (ie interact with the list.)

if we're just talking about seeing the items (ie no interation) then sure, sounds great.

[BritneysPAIRS]

for me a scrolling list with select would be ultimate.....but just a viewable list would also be great......in the end it will be up to you guys who have to do the work but for me such a thing would be great to close the gap of playlists, files and jukebox features....

cheers

[Loto_Bak]

the only other way i can imagine interacting with the list would be implimenting something like
<onclick>playlist.playitem(+/-n)</onclick>

the benifit is complete control over what content is displayed and what functions are available to the user. it is also likely the easiest to impliment

infolist is a very interesting proposition. would be nice if it was not specific to this one situation though.
the possibility if it populating itself without the skinner being relied apon is great as its enforces consistancy across skins, but then again it also can limit the skinners creativity.

the only ideas i can storm up would be to
a) impliment the infolabel system with or without methods to allow skinners to create interaction.
or
b) impliment the infolist with hard coded contents.
or (my favorite)
c) impliment the infolist providing as many of the features possible with infolabels as possible.
defining list control contents. for example providing a path along with possibly also implimenting something simular to buttonscroller (which could be stand alone or tack on to a path listing)
font colours/shadows. though font type and size would likely need to be consistant
defining the default <onclick> action
possibly even context menu contents and actions.

just ideas
loto

[BritneysPAIRS]

ok ive had a look on xbox the list would work for me as a jukebox if i had an option to removed finished song from playlist as well as clear playlist on finish. for jukebox mode you need to remove the song once its been listened too.

cheers