GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 326198
Disabled 'Play Audio Disc' menu item is confusing
Last modified: 2006-01-22 13:28:32 UTC
This is in reference to totem in CVS Head (1.3.x) (there is no such version to select in bugzilla yet). I found it confusing that there is a insensitive 'Play Audio Disc' menu item in the File menu. It led me to believe that there is a particular reason why it was disabled, and that I should be able to select it under other circumstances (e.g. different backend, whatever). Other information: Maybe the item should be sensitive, and when it is selected, totem should try to spawn sound-juicer or rhythmbox or gnome-cd to play it? Or pop up a message dialog with a short explanation / selection? Or maybe the menu item should be made invisible in case of an AudioCD rather than just setting it insensitive?
This is actually the same behaviour as when a blank CD is in the drive: the CD is detected, but Totem can't play it. As for spawning another application, I can just imagine the confusion if Totem is setup to handle audio CDs, and launched again when the user selects the CD... If we made the menu entry invisible, the user would probably think that the CD drive and the fact that there is a CD in it isn't detected.
I don't know what the best way to deal with this is, either. I just find the current way confusing. The situation is not really comparable to having a blank CD in the drive, because a blank CD cannot be played, and the user wouldn't expect totem to do the impossible, whereas an Audio CD can be played, and as a user I would probably expect totem to do this or tell me why it can't, especially if it did in previous versions. In the spawn-another-application case I wouldn't have registered totem as cd-playing application with the system, but just allowed users who start it explicitly to play CDs (after all, totem is the only app that does visualisations, and some people seem to like that). If a CD is inserted, I think it's fine if only sound-juicer or gnome-cd-player is popped up. Feel free to WONTFIX, I just wondered if there isn't something better that could be done here.
I'll WONTFIX. I can see how it can cause confusion, but the alternatives aren't so much better.