Suggestion for Collection Dialog Workflow

[tK-17]

Hi,
I recently ran into a problem building my collection and was
encouraged to send a suggestion for an improvement on the Amarok IRC
channel.

My problem was that I didn't find out how to build my collection in
the first place. Opening the Collection dialog (Settings->Configure
Amarok...->Collection), I selected the folder I wanted to import, but
didn't know how to proceed.
The correct procedure is to press "Apply". In my opinion, this is
inconsistent, as I would usually expect that to set configuration
options and apply the changes, but not to have a "special" effect of
that magnitude. I would have expected a seperate button labeled "Build
collection" or something to that effect. Indeed I tried rescan and
import, which of course didn't work.

So, in short, my suggestion is to add a button - maybe right next to
"Rescan Collection" and "Import Collection" - labelled "Build
Collection" that builds the collection from the files selected.

Regards,
Thomas
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> So, in short, my suggestion is to add a button - maybe right next to
> "Rescan Collection" and "Import Collection" - labelled "Build

The button labeled "Rescan Collection" does exactly that. Maybe the
button should be renamed to reflect that it can be used to both
"Build" and "Rebuild"

Casey
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[tK-17]

I'm sorry, I forgot, I use 2.1.1 on sidux. And I'm actually quite sure
I tried rescan... But I may well be wrong. In that case, sorry for the
false alarm.
Thomas

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Casey Link <unnamedrambler@...> wrote:
>> So, in short, my suggestion is to add a button - maybe right next to
>> "Rescan Collection" and "Import Collection" - labelled "Build
>
> The button labeled "Rescan Collection" does exactly that. Maybe the
> button should be renamed to reflect that it can be used to both
> "Build" and "Rebuild"
>
> Casey
>
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tK wrote:
> I'm sorry, I forgot, I use 2.1.1 on sidux. And I'm actually quite sure
> I tried rescan... But I may well be wrong. In that case, sorry for the
> false alarm.

You probably tried Rescan before hitting Apply, so the changes to your
folders hadn't been saved yet.

--Jeff



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[Jakob Kummerow]

> You probably tried Rescan before hitting Apply, so the changes to your
> folders hadn't been saved yet.

So maybe we should change the behaviour of the Rescan button to
perform an Apply action before scanning?

Jakob
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> So maybe we should change the behaviour of the Rescan button to
> perform an Apply action before scanning?

I don't think that would be a good idea, the "OK" and "Apply" paradigm
is widely used, and thusly, understood by users. "Applying" for them
would break that, as they aren't expecting it.

Really, if the user changes his/her folders and hits Apply/OK, the
scanning process should be initiated automatically. That is the best
solution I think.

Casey
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[Jonas Norlander]

2009/11/1 Casey Link <unnamedrambler@...>:

>> So maybe we should change the behaviour of the Rescan button to
>> perform an Apply action before scanning?
>
> I don't think that would be a good idea, the "OK" and "Apply" paradigm
> is widely used, and thusly, understood by users. "Applying" for them
> would break that, as they aren't expecting it.
>
> Really, if the user changes his/her folders and hits Apply/OK, the
> scanning process should be initiated automatically. That is the best
> solution I think.
>
> Casey

I disagree with that. Sometimes I want to change the settings but not
perform a full scan as that takes hours and there is no way to cancel
the scan without the collection gets "empty".

/ Jonas
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[Kolja Dummann]

On So, 2009-11-01 at 11:43 -0500, Casey Link wrote:

> > So maybe we should change the behaviour of the Rescan button to
> > perform an Apply action before scanning?
>
> I don't think that would be a good idea, the "OK" and "Apply" paradigm
> is widely used, and thusly, understood by users. "Applying" for them
> would break that, as they aren't expecting it.
>
> Really, if the user changes his/her folders and hits Apply/OK, the
> scanning process should be initiated automatically. That is the best
> solution I think.

I think this is actually done. I add a folder an when I hit OK the
scanner starts a "update collection".


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On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 1:39 PM, tK <thomaskolar90@...> wrote:

> I recently ran into a problem building my collection and was
> encouraged to send a suggestion for an improvement on the Amarok IRC
> channel.
>
> My problem was that I didn't find out how to build my collection in
> the first place. Opening the Collection dialog (Settings->Configure
> Amarok...->Collection), I selected the folder I wanted to import, but
> didn't know how to proceed.
> The correct procedure is to press "Apply". In my opinion, this is
> inconsistent, as I would usually expect that to set configuration
> options and apply the changes, but not to have a "special" effect of
> that magnitude. I would have expected a seperate button labeled "Build
> collection" or something to that effect. Indeed I tried rescan and
> import, which of course didn't work.
>
> So, in short, my suggestion is to add a button - maybe right next to
> "Rescan Collection" and "Import Collection" - labelled "Build
> Collection" that builds the collection from the files selected.

The fundamental problem with this dialog is this this, it just occurred to me:

The settings dialog is for setting options. Stuff like "[x] On/Off",
etc. That's also what most pages in this dialog do. With one
exception: The Collection page. We have a mix of two paradigms here: A
few settings that work instantly, and two _actions_ that start a
process that potentially takes hours. They don't really belong there.

I think that's causing confusion, no matter what the exact wording is.

--
Mark Kretschmann
Amarok Developer
www.kde.org - amarok.kde.org
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> The fundamental problem with this dialog is this this, it just occurred to me:
>
> The settings dialog is for setting options. Stuff like "[x] On/Off",
> etc. That's also what most pages in this dialog do. With one
> exception: The Collection page. We have a mix of two paradigms here: A
> few settings that work instantly, and two _actions_ that start a
> process that potentially takes hours. They don't really belong there.
>
> I think that's causing confusion, no matter what the exact wording is.

I think this is a good obervation.

Suggestion: move "collection settings" to "tool->collection manager" ?

- Nikolaj
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