Re: [Usability] totem = video or media player ?

[Julien Olivier <julo altern org>]

> Depends on what you consider as a perfect way. For example Rhythmbox is
> overweight for my daily usage since it's not really about playlists,
> it's more about _catalogizing_ music.
> 

Well, I don't how much music you've got on you hard drive. But I - like
a lot of people I guess - have all my ripped CDs (around 40) on my hard
driver. And _cataloging_ my music is the #1 feature I need from a music
player.

But, of course, your needs may differ from mine.

> AFAIK both audio and video files can contain metadata information.
> 

I didn't know about video metadata. If you're right, this argument is
indeed bogus.

> Visualization plugins.
> 

>From my point of view, visualization plugins are a very example of
broken UI due to a bad mix of different functions (video and audio
playing) in a single application (media player). I mean, in real life,
you don't need (or even want) to see anything when you're listening to
music, do you ? But, well, media players had to find a solution to hide
this useless *video* widget, so they use visualization plugins...

> Don't force me to use rhythmbox for music :)
> RB is cool but i just want to have my simple playlist where i can throw
> both audio and video files. 
> 

Like I said, your needs may differ from mine. The real question is: what
do most users need in an audio player. And I'm pretty sure that lots of
users really need a way to catalog their music. But maybe you're right,
and it's actually the file manager's role to catalog your music...
except if you're in an application-based model.

> It's not at all off-topic if you suggest default locations for open/save
> file dialogs. 
> 
> I think having /media for all is ok.
> That concerns 
> /media/audio or music
> /media/video
> /media/pictures
> 

What's getting off-topic is discussing whether totem is the best app to
play music. But you're right that it's on-topic if we're discussing
default folders. That said, I think it's really app designers' role to
deciding which folder would be their default one. And /media could be a
good one by the way.

-- 
Julien Olivier <julo altern org>