Hitchhiker427's dashboard

Actually, Murphy, as a long time user of Winamp, that's not really how it works. If anything, Winamp uses the Playlist editor as the Now Playing and the Queue. Your direction to incorporate both is almost identical to Winamp's behavior (which I like). The jump-to-file feature is simply a method to search within the Now Playing, just in case you add a large number of songs. BTW, adding a search feature to the Now Playing would be kinda cool. It is useful in Winamp, and would also be useful in Songbird. – Hitchhiker427, on May 11, 2009 20:49

This is great! A couple of requests:

- Can you add an option in about:nowplayinglist to *only* populate the list with what I double-click on? For example, if I click on a song in my library, only that song should populate the list. If I double click on an album or an artist, only that album or artist would populate the list.

- Additionally, can you add the functionality so that the now playing list doesn't clear itself out when I close Songbird?

Thanks, this is great. – Hitchhiker427, on May 09, 2009 08:47

@Dustin: You're absolutely right, and I apologize. The way I described is what I feel is the best, and I sometimes forget that others may disagree. What I really want is the choice. I'll be reading through change logs for all future versions, anxiously awaiting this feature. Thanks to the Songbird devs for your consideration. – Hitchhiker427, on April 24, 2009 18:30

@Dustin: The part I'm concerned with is your definition of "like normal". In my opinion, just because iTunes does it hardly makes it normal.

If I double click on a song, it should play that song. That's simple logic. Songbird currently does it, as it should.

However, when that song is complete, it should not play another song until I tell it to. The fact that it *assumes* that I want to immediately hear the next song in my library is annoying, and makes Songbird unusable for me.

There are plenty of new things in Songbird that I can get used to, however, this improper handling on the Library/Current Playlist is something that I cannot. – Hitchhiker427, on April 23, 2009 20:40

Hi,

I have an idea, which might be close to this one, so I'll post it here.

The latest 0.7 version is very nice but it has some usability issues for me. Especially regarding playlists. Usually I have no idea from which playlist are songs currently playing. As I already posted in bugzilla, Songbird should scroll down to the currently played song and highlight it. But I would go a little further. First let's see my sketch:



As you can see, there's not much difference compared to how Songbird looks now. One small difference is to move the Albumart to the top left corner. Another thing is a playlist panel on the right side. On top there should be a dropdown box with playlists like default, browser results and any other user defined. If a song in the table below browser panels is doubleclicked, it will be added to the right playlist. Also if I doubleclick an album or artist in a browser panel, it should be added to playlist. The playlist should look like the one in Amarok 2.

Then since there are many UMPCs and MIDs computers on their way, I think we would need a different UI for these devices. There 2 big reasons: small display and touch navigation. So I would split the functionality into 3 tabs. My idea is this:

This is most certainly a core feature of a media player.

The lack of this as part of a default songbird install is one of the applications greatest weaknesses. When non technical people don't immediately realize where to find it, they are unlikely to look for an extension. They are more likely to simply assume it doesn't exist and use another media player.

This should not be marked as "implemented".

Hi, I'd just like to add something. I've been using Winamp for a number of years now, but it's lack of significant development lately has encouraged me to try other music players. Songbird is at the top of my list. However, I plan on uninstalling Songbird within a few minutes and waiting for it to mature due mainly to this problem (that, and the poor interface). The "Now Playing" add-on is nice, and is definitely a step in the right direction, however, it is far from ideal.

When I double-click on a song, it should be added to my "Now Playing" list, and ONLY that song should be added. I simply cannot stand that when I tell Songbird to play it song, it automatically queues my entire library. I'm sorry, but I find this behavior completely unusable.

This is one thing that Winamp does PERFECTLY. Please check out Winamp and look into how playlists and the media library are implemented. Just because iTunes doesn't disassociate the two concepts doesn't make it right.

Also, as stated, the main program should have this implemented by default. In fact, the program as a whole should be modeled around this system, rather than the afterthought add-on that is available.

Songbird is a great piece of software. It just needs a lot of work before I can find it to be a feasible alternative.