GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 159824
rhythmbox: HIG says use seperate play and pause buttons
Last modified: 2006-03-28 05:26:24 UTC
Subject: play/pause should not be the same button Distribution: Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Package: rhythmbox Severity: normal Version: GNOME2.8.0 unspecified Gnome-Distributor: Gentoo Linux Synopsis: play/pause should not be the same button Bugzilla-Product: rhythmbox Bugzilla-Component: Interface Bugzilla-Version: unspecified Description of Problem: While I was reading the Gnome HIG I stumbled across this line: "Show separate Stop and Pause buttons. Do not change Play to Pause while the clip is playing." This behaviour however is displayed by rhythmbox. Steps to reproduce the problem: 1. Start rhythmbox 2. click play 3. watch as play becomes pause Actual Results: Play becomes pause Expected Results: A separate pause button should have been present from the beginning How often does this happen? always Additional Information: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/toolbars.html#toolbars-media -- Niklas Westerberg <niklas.westerberg@nackademin.com> Nackademin ------- Bug moved to this database by unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org 2004-11-29 07:59 ------- Unknown platform unknown. Setting to default platform "Other". Unknown milestone "unknown" in product "rhythmbox". Setting to default milestone for this product, '---' The original reporter of this bug does not have an account here. Reassigning to the person who moved it here, unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org. Previous reporter was niklas.westerberg@nackademin.com. Setting to default status "UNCONFIRMED". Setting qa contact to the default for this product. This bug either had no qa contact or an invalid one.
good point. Accepting bug. Adding HIG keyword. Even the latest HIG draft wants seperate buttons. http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/hig-diff/toolbars.html#toolbars- media Setting Severity ENHANCEMENT as it is not breaking any functionality.
This issue is discussed for Totem as well. http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162949
Well spotted. Concerning consistency i believe rhythmbox may want to follow whatever behaviour totem decides on the matter. both are media players.
Rhythmbox in cvs has changed to using a toggle button. From comments on the mailing list, irc and other places, a minority love it, and minority hate it, and the majority don't seem to care. We did try having separate buttons for a while, but a lot of people complained about it. Using a toggle button also has the advantage of hiding the fact that the opposite of play isn't necessarily pause - some things (iradio) are unpausable, so the opposite is stop.
*** Bug 331959 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
"Using a toggle button also has the advantage of hiding the fact that the opposite of play isn't necessarily pause - some things (iradio) are unpausable, so the opposite is stop." Which is precisely why there should be separate buttons. If the opposite of play isn't always pause, then I don't know what will happen if I untoggle the play button. A button with unpredictable and inconsistent behaviour is very irritating, because it effectively becomes only 50% effective.
A toogle button seems accaptable to me. You can very well predict what will happen if you untoggle it: the audio playback will cease, seems to be very intuitive to me. It does not matter whether it pauses or a stream is stopped. Regarding the _inital_ comment, this report can be closed in my opinion.
Having thought about it, how it is now is probably best, on the basis that anything else would require a large number of toggable buttons to make sense and reflect real life usage (e.g. toggable play AND pause). Also, we've moved on from the original bug, so close away.
Closing as per last few comments.