Improvements to playlist menu operation

I was out with a friend at the weekend, and was able to observe his first attempts at choosing music.

He was used to queuing music with XMMS or something, so was continually being surprised by selecting a tune and having it replace the current playlist. IWBNI the default could (temporarily) be changed from Replace to Insert or Append, like there is for Search. (If implemented, IWBNI there was on-screen indication of what would happen).

He was sometimes surprised to select what looked like a playlist and have a track replace the current playlist. IWBNI there were some indication of which menu items are themselves playlists (like you get with submenus in most windowing systems). Perhaps tiny little down-arrows that appear when the item is selected?

IWBNI the default could (temporarily) be changed from Replace to Insert or Append, like there is for Search.

This feature exists in the 2.0 software. You can do inserts and appends right from the playlists menu. It is described in the FAQ here.

At least one person's hand is going to get tired. Either his friend's for having to hold the button all the time, or his, from smacking his friend in the back of the head telling him "hold down the button!"

It's second nature to me now, but this would make a pretty cool configuration option. Of course it would also make for interesting bug reports when people simply forget or don't realize what mode they have configured.

Bruno

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At least one person's hand is going to get tired. Either his friend's for having to hold the button all the time, or his, from smacking his friend in the back of the head telling him "hold down the button!"

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Exactly. That's what was happening at the weekend. (Well, after a while he started smacking himself in the head each time to save me the effort).

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It's second nature to me now, but this would make a pretty cool configuration option. Of course it would also make for interesting bug reports when people simply forget or don't realize what mode they have configured.

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Good point. Though I did suggest that there be some sort of indicator on-screen, like there is with Search (though that doesn't appear in the FID or Year searches...)

I'd like to add that i agree that it would be nice if this could be configured to be the default by the user's choice rather than having to hold down the button.
I'ts happened to me before that i was queing up a playlist and lost the entire thing just by mishandling the button.

Mmmm.. I would consider this for a Hijack feature, except that it is impossible to determine from the display whether or not the current selection is a tune or another playlist-menu.

The dinky "arrow" icon is trivial to "hijack" for this; one could have an option to pop-up the insert/append/play menu whenever the "arrow" icon is "selected", but for single tracks.. I don't have an answer.

-ml