“Look at me! Over here! I got boobs!”
September 24, 2007This is Amarok 1.4.x, the current tree.
On OSNews, for the past few days, some discussions have centered around Amarok being ‘the best music player hands down’. I beg to differ, and based on this main window’s screenshot alone, I can point to various major flaws in this application that will prevent me from ever using it. Please note that these are just my personal concerns (that’s why they call it a personal weblog, boys and girls), and they do not reflect the opinions of my employer.
In the top left corner of the window, you see the Music/Lyrics/Artist tabs. This indicates that this row (yes, even modern graphical user interfaces can be divided up into textual rows) is a tab bar. Great, but, then, why are there file/navigation buttons on the same row, only a few pixels east?
The reason for this is clear: the Amarok developers are trying to cram so much information into the main window, they were forced to split the window up in two sections: a contextual section (left) and the actual section that matters to this kind of application, the playlist/buttons (right). You could argue that the play/pause/stop/etc. buttons in the right section ought to be on top (seeing they are the most vital buttons for a music player) but alas, I’ll let that one pass.
Let’s focus on the left section. The Amarok developers were so hell bent on cramming as much information as possible into this limited space, that they were not only forced to add a vertical scrollbar (and sometimes, a horizontal one too), but also not one, not two, but three (!) tabs.
The above leads to this ridiculous situation where you have two completely different types of sections crammed into one window, where rows switch their function (tab to button), simply because they wanted to cram way too much (pointless, in my book) information into a single window. The end result is that the actual part that matters (playlist, play/pause/stop/etc. buttons) is now demoted to that side of a window that receives the least focus (the right side). On top of that, as said (can’t let it pass by, I’m sorry), the most important buttons (play/pause/stop/etc.) are now rendered somewhere at the bottom right, far away from the focal area of a window (which is the top-left).
The ever-growing hunger for more functionality and information forced the Amarok developers to take even more drastic measures. The left section of the main window needed to function not only as a three-tabbed contextual tab (read that aloud five times if the ridiculousness doesn’t sink in immediately), but also as a devices tab. And a Magnatune tab. And a collection tab. And a files tab. And a playlists tab.
And in order to cram all that information and functionality into one single window, they did what makes Amarok, to this very day, the most ridiculous application ever written, UI wise: vertically text labeled tabs, with normal horizontally oriented icons. This is wrong on so many different levels, it’s just not funny any more. Whoever thought of that brilliant idea ought to never be allowed to “design” a graphical user interface, ever again.
Amarok is not the only audio player that suffers from functionality and information creep. Windows Media Player, iTunes, they all suck major balls because they all try to present their users with so much goddamn pointless information it almost makes my head spin. Every part of Amarok except for the parts that matter are just screaming “Look at me! Over here! I got boobs!”.
That’s why I refuse to take anyone seriously who says “Amarok is just about the cleanest as it gets UI wise”.
Hi,
Here is my personal opinion on Amarok user interface.
In my opinion, what makes Amarok design very good is that there are really a lot of features BUT all the complexity is hidden. When I look at the user interface, it remains quite simple actually. I’d say that the UI is made of only 2 parts : the playlist on the right + “special feature” part on the left (let’s call it like that for the moment).
- Regarding the playlist part: it is displayed as a really simple list but behind this simple list there are some very powerful features (the search field, the right click, the queue manager, etc…)
- Now regarding the “special feature” part, I think it’s the same: the complex features are hidden and I only get what I want. If I want my mp3 device manager I click on the tab and the other feature are not displayed, if I want lyrics, I click on context/lyrics and it’s the same, I’m not bothered with features that I don’t need. If I just want to play my mp3, the “special feature” part displays by default the “context” that shows me what is currently being played in the playlist… and THIS is (IMO) the most important information I want to read in the interface and that’s why I think this information is displayed in the right place (top-left).
I don’t want an application with fewer features… I like all these useless features (Wikipedia integration in Amarok, etc…)… I’ve heard A. Seigo say that that “a user use only about 30% of the features… but every user use a different 30%”. The point in KDE apps is not to remove features, it is to integrate all these feature into a simple user interface.
However, maybe some people think that Amarok could I failed creating a really simple application… but I really don’t think so. I really think that the vertical tabs are a good solution. Another KDE apps that taks benefit from the vertical tabs: Digikam.
The reason why those tabs are really goods:
- Each tab is kept quite simple
- I can access to any advanced feature with only 1 or 2 clics.
- It makes the UI very intuitive
Comment by Didier Hoarau — September 24, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18662&comment_id=273877
Comment by Manjabes — September 24, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
What you seem to miss here is that Amarok is incredibly complete. Yes, it has a rather busy screen, but it’s not that bad. Just click the active tab, and you’re left with just the playlist and a few buttons (which is the REAL reason they have the tabbar and the playlist manipulation buttons in the same row).
Anyway, I’m sure the Amarok dev’s would love your suggestions.
And that’s serious. They realize they have a very complex app, and everyone who has a practical idea to do something better is very very welcome. So if you do have any suggestions for improvements that actually IMPROVE the situation without removing stuff - I’m perfectly sure they would listen.
Comment by jospoortvliet — September 24, 2007 @ 5:03 pm
Jos,
All this indeed got me thinking. If I find the time, I will dive into this a bit more and think about how an application like Amarok can be improved without messing with its featureset. The problem is of course that they’re already working on a KDE4-ified version of Amarok, and they probably already have a goal set for its UI.
Still, even if it doesn’t get used (and it most likely won’t), it’s still a nice exercise.
Comment by Administrator — September 24, 2007 @ 5:11 pm
I don’t know, for me Amarok is very easy to use. If you want it only to play music, you only need tray icon or Win+Z (Previous Track), Win+C (Play/Pause), Win+B (Next Track), mouse wheel (volume). Easy.
Comment by Mark — September 24, 2007 @ 6:08 pm
I must agree with this post, and is the reason why I stopped using it. I now exclusively use rhythmbox and maintain my own repository.
Now I must admit to being a gnome user because cleanliness is important in my view.
Comment by Jeffrey Drake — September 25, 2007 @ 4:22 am
“the most ridiculous application ever written, UI wise: vertically text labeled tabs, with normal horizontally oriented icons”
Well, without the text labels it makes all sense, just icons, with rightly horizontal orientation.
As others also said, Amarok is increadibly feature-rich. That makes it a _very_ handy app, and also quite usable if you use it enough to get accustomed to it to a level that you don’t need to visually search for your icons and labels because you know where things are. For me, it’s the best music player around, and the main reason for that is it’s large feature set.
But, as always, people are people, and they are different. So, for Gnomes [i.e. Gnome users :P] who live and die by the simple-is-better and simple-sometimes-means-no-features and simple-sometimes-means-no-customizations, well, good that we have those three dozen different music players that they can choose and use happilya ever after.
Comment by l3v1 — September 26, 2007 @ 7:46 am