GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 588889
Separate the options "Shuffle by" and "Shuffle based on"
Last modified: 2020-03-17 08:15:54 UTC
I've just installed Banshee from git. Near to the "forward button" I have the options: -Shuffle by song -Shuffle by artist -Shuffle by album -Shuffle by rating -Shuffle by score This doesn't allow me, for example, to "shuffle by artist based on rating". Add all options there is not possible because there would be 10 options. I suggest you create 2 different drop downs: Shuffle by: -Song -Artist -Album Based on: -Rating -Score -Pure random I'd left "Shuffle by" near the foward button and put "Based on" on preferences.
There is a request in the mailing list [0] to base the shuffle weights on the number of plays. If for example least played songs are shuffled more often, it would allow to even out the number of plays for all songs across the library. [0] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/banshee-list/2009-July/msg00059.html
We don't have ratings/scores for artists or albums (even though we actually do have db columns for them...but they aren't used anywhere), so we could just take the average of the rating/score for the artist's/album's tracks? The wording of "Shuffle by" and "Based on" isn't super clear to me, seems like you could switch the labels and it'd still sort of make sense. Maybe change "Based on" to "Weighted by"; I think that'd help a lot. Or maybe change it to "Prefer" then have the options be "Higher Ratings", "Higher Scores", "Pure random", "Less heard" etc? This is super configurable, but it is also pretty complicated, especially to the casual user just wanting to turn on 'normal shuffle' (eg random-by-track). Thoughts?
(In reply to comment #2) > We don't have ratings/scores for artists or albums (even though we actually do > have db columns for them...but they aren't used anywhere), so we could just > take the average of the rating/score for the artist's/album's tracks? Or we could normalise based on track lengths. For example, if an album consists of 2 tracks, first is 1 minute and rated 4, second is 4 minutes and rated 5; the album's rating would be 1/5 * 4 + 4/5 * 5 = 4.8. > The wording of "Shuffle by" and "Based on" isn't super clear to me, seems like > you could switch the labels and it'd still sort of make sense. Maybe change > "Based on" to "Weighted by"; I think that'd help a lot. > > Or maybe change it to "Prefer" then have the options be "Higher Ratings", > "Higher Scores", "Pure random", "Less heard" etc? > > This is super configurable, but it is also pretty complicated, especially to > the casual user just wanting to turn on 'normal shuffle' (eg random-by-track). > Thoughts? Just an idea, the drop down menu could look like this: >>| v +----------------------------+ | o Shuffle Off | +----------------------------+ | o Shuffle by Song | | o Shuffle by Album | | o Shuffle by Artist | +----------------------------+ | o Unweighted | | o Weighted by Rating | | o Weighted by Score | | o Weighted by Least Played | +----------------------------+ Top and bottom sections would be selected independently of each other, and the bottom section would be disabled if "Shuffle Off" is active.
I agree with what was said on this last comment. I think it's a good solution.
So I was about to suggest this (where advanced shuffle would pop up a box with more options): >>| v +----------------------------+ | o Shuffle Off | | o Shuffle On | +----------------------------+ | o Advanced Shuffle | +----------------------------+ but then I talked to my wife and she said that she likes the idea of a shuffle that picks the music she likes more often, and if that option was buried in a different box, she would probably never use it. She didn't mind the idea of lots of options in a single menu with words like "weighted," so I'll just give a big +1 to the previously suggested ideas.
Just one more suggestion from me: >>| v +----------------------------+ | [x] Shuffle | | x by Song | | o by Artist | | o by Album | +----------------------------+ | [ ] Favor media with | | o a higher rating | | o a higher score | | o fewer plays | +----------------------------+ "Shuffle" and "Favor media with" have checkboxes to turn them on and off. Wording changes from "Weighted by" to "Favor media with". Personally I think this wording states more clearly what is going to happen if you choose that option. If the Shuffle box isn't checked, all other options are inactive. When Shuffle is checked, "by Song" is selected by default and "Favor media with" becomes active but stays unchecked. This way, if all the user wants to do is turn on a simple, normal shuffle, all they have to do is check the the Shuffle box. If they want more options, though, they are all clearly presented on the same dropdown menu.
IMHO Banshee is becoming more and more the Evince of Multimediaplayers. Plenty of features but bulky, slow and unstable. I highly recommend to implement a shuffle mode like this as a plugin, at least allowing deactivation.
(In reply to comment #7) > IMHO Banshee is becoming more and more the Evince of Multimediaplayers. Plenty > of features but bulky, slow and unstable. I'm sorry to hear that your experience with Banshee can be described with words like slow an unstable; my Banshee experience now compared with a year ago is actually the opposite of that. Banshee's memory usage is down considerably thanks to fixing some memory leaks, and crashes are way down compared to what I used to experience. If you have specific issues, definitely report them. > I highly recommend to implement a > shuffle mode like this as a plugin, at least allowing deactivation. These shuffle modes are actually already implemented in Banshee. Offering them doesn't really add bulk to Banshee and shouldn't make things slower or less stable. This bug is specifically about splitting up some of the options and presenting them in a user-friendly way. I don't think there's a need to implement these shuffle modes as a plugin, because disabling this feature is already as simple not selecting the complex shuffle boxes. The user wouldn't gain anything by disabling a shuffling plugin.
Banshee is not under active development anymore and had its last code changes more than three years ago. Its codebase has been archived. Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping to reflect reality. Please feel free to reopen this ticket (or rather transfer the project to GNOME Gitlab, as GNOME Bugzilla is being shut down) if anyone takes the responsibility for active development again. See https://gitlab.gnome.org/Infrastructure/Infrastructure/issues/264 for more info.