GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 329986
Playlists abuse the "Track" column
Last modified: 2006-06-19 01:40:42 UTC
Currently playlists use the "Track" column to be the order of the playlist, but in the Library view, it (correctly) uses the Track column to be the original track number from the album. This is a confusing use of the same column. The column should either be used consistently in both, or a new column should be added for keeping track (sic) of playlist order.
iTunes uses an empty untitled column in the Library view: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ITunes_6.0.2.jpg which it populates with the playlist order when in a playlist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Itunes3.jpg The actual track number on the album is normally displayed as another selectable column, by default further on the right of the interface. I suggest we do something similar in rhythmbox, perhaps display the track number after the title, e.g.: Library view: Title Track Artist Album | | Song title | 3 | Artist name | Album name Playlist view: Title Track Artist Album | 2 | Song title | 3 | Artist name | Album name
Incidentally in iTunes the playing loudspeaker icon which highlights the playing track appears in the same column as the playlist order. So to duplicate this in rb, would simply mean moving the playlist order number into the same column as loudspeaker "playing now" icon currently occupies.
I agree that the current behavior is incredibly confusing. The "Track Number" column should be reserved for the track number specified in the file's tag. I am not sure a playlist order number is necessary at all.
One of the ways having playlist track order number is useful, is so you can find out track's positions in things like a "most played" list. Alex's suggestion from comment #2 sounds reasonable, and shouldn't be too hard to do.
Created attachment 59641 [details] [review] Partial implementation of playlist column This is a fairly trivial patch that adds a true Track (i.e the track on the original album) column for playlists and renames the current Track column to Order. This column really needs to be incorporated into the playing icon column, but can't quite see how to do that. Each cell would need to have space for a pixbuf and a text field and my GTK knowledge doesn't go that far. Plus code would need to be refactored so it that it would work for both the library and playlists.
Created attachment 62391 [details] [review] Updated to current CVS Still doesn't combine columns, but that may be more trouble and more of a maintainance headache than it's it worth. I think this will keep most people happy and it restores the track number column to it's correct value. One thing I might try doing is reducing the font size a bit.
Created attachment 62393 [details] Screenshot showing new order column The new column has a slightly reduced font size (0.75) and is in italics to distinguish it from the Track order. This shot shows how the track number and the order number don't necessarily have to be in the same order (in fact this is sorted by duration).
Created attachment 62394 [details] [review] Better patch that modifies the font size and style
Created attachment 62398 [details] Updated to be on left edge in grey
Created attachment 62399 [details] [review] Even better patch that moves the listing to left edge This implements the view on attachment #62398 [details] with the addition that it right-aligns the track number.
Created attachment 62999 [details] [review] Updated, make font a bit bigger
Created attachment 63000 [details] Updated screenshot to match new patch Also make grey a bit lighter.
Created attachment 65431 [details] [review] Updated to CVS, remove background colour change Using background colour doesn't play nice with themes, removing.
Created attachment 65433 [details] [review] Better patch, remove some cruft
Created attachment 65434 [details] Updated screenshot to patch #65433
This looks okay to me. It would be nice to make the column width depend on the number of tracks, so it won't look weird if the user has >= 10k tracks in a auto playlist, but that probably isn't too common (and is no worse than what we do now).
(In reply to comment #16) > This looks okay to me. It would be nice to make the column width depend on the > number of tracks, so it won't look weird if the user has >= 10k tracks in a > auto playlist, but that probably isn't too common (and is no worse than what we > do now). Excellent. Any chance of committing this soon then? I would like to clean up my patch tree. ;-)
I'm happy to commit it post-0.9.5
Committed to cvs, thanks.
A problem with the patch is that play-lists no longer honor the Track number visible column setting in preferences. I have Track number unchecked, but play-lists show the column.
Fixed in cvs, it was a s/TRUE/FALSE/ mistake - thanks for catching this.