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Topic: Playlists vs. playback queue (Read 37705 times) previous topic - next topic
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Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #25 –
have you actually ever started foobar? this is a music player, not rocket surgery ffs...a little trial and error should help anyone understand non-standard usage of the term "enqeue"

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #26 –
 Sigh. Really? If you spent a few minutes actually using foobar, you would realize most of this thread is a waste of time.

Foobar2000 doesn't require deep understanding. If you look at this forum, most threads deal with specific features or problems, not vague statements of "I need to understand foobar." You require some mythical complete understanding, and expect us to provide it. Well, I consider this abuse of our forum.

Quote from: kstuart on
since "enqueue" adds to the separate invisible "queue"


No, forget the queue. "Enqueue" adds the tracks to the end of currently active playlist OR the playlist you specified in the preferences. You would know this if you actually tried it.

Quote from: kstuart on
and "play in foobar2000" is not itself described precisely anywhere that I have found.


If you had tried this, you would know that "play in foobar2000" replaces the tracks in the currently active playlist (OR the playlist you specified in the preferences) and immediately plays the first track. Trying this once takes a few seconds of your time.

Quote from: kstuart on
A couple of people are responding as if I want to do a particular thing, but rather I first want to find out exactly what foobar2000 actually does.

So ... this is some sort of thought experiment. You require complete understanding without trying foobar2000 in any appropriate fashion.

If you buy a car, do you read the manual completely before driving it? Do you write a complaint to GM if a term is not explained properly? "Dear sir, On page 4 your describe a 'glove compartment' and on page 27 you mention a "glovebox" -- I would argue that a compartment is not necessarily a box, so I simply cannot drive your vehicle. Furthermore, the manual does not specifiy that I need to open the driver's side door, sit in the seat, and close the door before I drive."

Quote from: kstuart on
Again I don't want to judge prematurely, but it seems like eleven years should be long enough to have solid documentation of what files will be played when, and what each of the terms in the interface actually mean. Going back to the beginning, there needs to be some documentation


Your argument would hold water if Foobar2000 were a retail product. But it is a free program. The documentation is written by volunteers.  Yes, some of the wording is inconsistent. Yes, it makes some assumptions. No doubt the folks who contributed to it would like to improve it. But over the years it has improved tremendously. And on the whole it makes sense to users who actually use foobar. It makes sense to me. It won't make sense to people who don't use the program, and insist on finding semantic holes in the descriptions.
That's so plausible, I can't believe it.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #27 –
So, you are now asserting that one or two tries of a particular command tells you how it reacts to every situation ?? :eek:

Quote
Your argument would hold water if Foobar2000 were a retail product. But it is a free program.


This is a strange meme that has invaded the Internet, that if something is free, then it no longer has to have any quality.

If applied to the real world, it would mean that free Habitat for Humanity housing would be okay to have hot and cold faucets reversed, use different jacks for electrical plugs, have unsafe layouts, etc because it "was free and provided by volunteers".

This sort of thinking denigrates the whole idea of volunteer work, that it is offhand and casual and is overall poor workmanship.

Quote
No, forget the queue. "Enqueue" adds the tracks to the end of currently active playlist OR the playlist you specified in the preferences. You would know this if you actually tried it.


Okay, the "enqueue" command does not put a track into the "queue" and you claim that the fault is with the user?  :eek:  For not trying every possible button and menu item combination in some ludicrous hours long attempt to learn the program??

Quote
If you buy a car, do you read the manual completely before driving it?


Are you serious ?

Someone I knew totaled a new boat, because he assumed that the controls worked the same as a car.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #28 –
 

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #29 –
Quote
If you buy a car, do you read the manual completely before driving it?


But imagine you have a car where the accelerator pedal is in the middle, and the brake is on the right.

At that point, the driver decides that he needs to stop and read the whole manual to see what else is different.

This is the case where I found that at one point, tracks were playing that were not listed in any window or screen of the program.    I found out that this is because it has a hidden playlist called a "queue", despite the fact that every other car - sorry "player", uses "queue" to mean something different - namely, all the tracks that are waiting to be played in the future.

At that point, I decided that I needed to read the documentation and find out how things actually work.

And then I find out that there isn't any documentation.

Despite the fact that all of you have spend several thousand times as long talking to noobs, then it would take to write it...

PS  It's not just me.  Just in looking for a new player, I've come across many, many comments of "I'm a technical guy, but foobar2000 makes no sense to me".

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #30 –
Take the time to write what? The wiki is open to you. You take the singular time to improve it. Otherwise you are just taking up time better used to helping others who actually make an effort of their own.

Trolls come in many colors. I suggest this thread be left to die and kill file the OP as I have just done.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....mp;#entry427970

Partial quote from the developer
Quote
To start with, foobar2000 was never meant to be usable for everyone.
We simply don't care whether specific userbase finds it useful or not. We would probably care if we earned money from it, but we don't, and don't plan to as it would ruin too many good aspects of the project.
There's plenty of other players around, I don't see why people who don't understand our UI as-is have to use foobar2000.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #31 –
Conceded: the term Enqueue is ambiguous given the (albeit less used and undocumented) feature of the playback queue, and there could be a case made for renaming the shell option to something like Add to foobar2000’s active playlist. That said, calm down, everyone: I’d like to think that the distinction is now more than clear and that everyone can move on from nose-thumbing and overwrought mechanical metaphors.
 

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #32 –
I've added a "Show Now Playing" button to my UI via the "Customize Buttons" dialog via right clicking the play buttons. When I need to see the "queue", I press it. Voilà!
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #33 –
Quote
Take the time to write what? The wiki is open to you. You take the singular time to improve it. Otherwise you are just taking up time better used to helping others who actually make an effort of their own.


Some of you should read what you type.    I am asking "how does foobar2000 actually work?".  If I don't know, how can I write the documentation??

Quote
Playlists vs. playback queue, was: "Noob needs pointer to information"


Well, in my particular case, all I am looking for is pointers to information.

For example, if you click on Help in the program, you get a FAQ that includes a lot of very specific special-case questions and their answers.

But, it turns out if you click on the "?" icon, while browsing the Preferences, you get a Wiki that gives far better information than anything in "Help".    But the Windows convention for the "?" icon is supposed to be clicked and then is active until you click a menu option, in which case a balloon pops up with an explanation of the option.  What you get is a page that is in context with the menu options - good - but that is supposed to happen when you press F1.

And, also adding a link to the first page of the Wiki in the Help menu would be helpful.

Quote
To start with, foobar2000 was never meant to be usable for everyone.
We simply don't care whether specific userbase finds it useful or not. We would probably care if we earned money from it, but we don't, and don't plan to as it would ruin too many good aspects of the project.
There's plenty of other players around, I don't see why people who don't understand our UI as-is have to use foobar2000.


I have to moderate my reaction to that statement given that I am guest in his forum.

The concept of "we care if we receive money, but otherwise we do not care" is disturbing.

But, the quote is not talking about documentation, because he says "it would ruin too many good aspects of the project", and, of course, documentation only helps any project.  So, he is talking about changing the UI so it is more like some other player, which (despite many people wanting to lump me in with every other former Winamp user), is not what I am talking about.

Lastly, the "it doesn't matter if we do things the wrong way, because you can use some other player" is false, because every significant software project takes up space, and makes it difficult for new ones to come about.  If you are going to have software with a major public presence, then its very success thereby creates a responsibility to the community to have it be the best possible quality.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #34 –
Unfortunately, this board's software has one of those "you can't edit a post after __ minutes" timers.

So, I have to add yet another post.

The guy earlier in the thread, who sees trolls behind every tree posted just enough of Peter's post to totally twist it.

Here is the full post:
Quote
To start with, foobar2000 was never meant to be usable for everyone.
We simply don't care whether specific userbase finds it useful or not. We would probably care if we earned money from it, but we don't, and don't plan to as it would ruin too many good aspects of the project.
There's plenty of other players around, I don't see why people who don't understand our UI as-is have to use foobar2000. I guess it's a problem for some fanboys who want to convert everyone in the world to use foobar2000, but that doesn't mean it's worth our (unpaid) work time to write and then maintain with each new version.

Other than that, I fully agree with Moneo's reply earlier in this thread.

Translation support is not planned.

Again, if you don't like our decisions, you are free (and encouraged) to use one of other players instead.

Topic closed.


So, all Peter was saying is "it would take more of our time to continually support translations, so we won't."

This has absolutely nothing to do with one-time documentation of the queue.

The quoting-out-of-context also made Peter look like he was callous or craven, when the actual full post was entirely reasonable.

So, I went back through the threads, and found Peter's original posts of the first public releases of foobar2000.  It seems that those earlier versions were exactly what many noobs are looking for - something that will just play files and display the filename.  Back then (December 2002), one of the fb2k developers said about Winamp3:

Quote
No. Even worse. It's an ugly, slow, over-teched application, with loads of heavily integrated features that no one will ever use (Media Library), a terribly complex method of extension (Wasabi) and so on.


So, all the confusing and counter-intuitive aspects of foobar2000 are things that have been added more recently.

This means that the comments in this thread and others - "You need to learn how to do things the foobar2000 way" are nonsense.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #35 –
I too agree that not displaying what is queued is bizarre. The first time I tried that, i.e. add files to my current playlist using queue and they didn't show I thought, "where the heck have they gone", so I repeated the queue action thinking that I had not done it correctly or that the command had gone to the Mars Rover instead, (may be why it's dead).

For a great way of displaying and adding tracks to a playlist see Rockbox's application of it.

I really don't understand the logic of not displaying the queued tracks, what am I missing...
More stars in the universe than grains of beach sand

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #36 –
Quote from: kstuart on
So, all the confusing and counter-intuitive aspects of foobar2000 are things that have been added more recently.

Note to all: let’s not bother with another round of mud-slinging over those chosen adjectives!

One should expect complexity to increase with capability. foobar2000 strikes a good balance between ease-of-use and configurability/extensibility. I wager many of the features that you would describe in such less-than-glowing terms are ones that Peter and others have added in limited capacities just to obviate any complaint over their absence (e.g. the queue) and/or as a reluctant response to overwhelming community pressure (e.g. the ID3v2 compatibility fixes). There won’t have been any intention to confuse people.

I can only guess that the playback queue is not documented because it’s an optional and rather stopgap-ish feature, and probably also because it could lead to things such as this thread.

Quote
This means that the comments in this thread and others - "You need to learn how to do things the foobar2000 way" are nonsense.
Not really. I see nothing unreasonable with others’ opinions that trial and error can take one quite far, and that one can only expect so much documentation and painstaking guidance from developers and users for whom contributing to foobar2000 and its community is ultimately a hobby.

Quote from: tagtypedisplay on
I really don't understand the logic of not displaying the queued tracks, what am I missing...
foo_queuecontents: Queue Contents Editor
foo_uie_queuemanager: Queue Manager

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #37 –
Quote from: tagtypedisplay on
... what am I missing...

The queue's concept is that it isn't an addition to a playlist, quite the opposite, it interrupts a playlist until the queue which can hold up to 64 tracks is empty. Only after that the playlist continues its normal playback. That queued tracks aren't added to the current playlist is reasonable. Remember that queued files could be taken from a dozen of different playlists.

You can use foosion's Playback Queue Viewer to see what is queued and therefore is played next. Assigning a keyboard shortcut to it makes it comfortably accessible.
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #38 –
Quote from: Robertina on
The queue's concept is that it isn't an addition to a playlist, quite the opposite, it interrupts a playlist until the queue which can hold up to 64 tracks is empty. Only after that the playlist continues its normal playback.

Can you give me a real-world example of using this ?

Especially in light of herojoker's comment:
Quote from: herojoker link=msg=0 date=
If you choose tracks from another playlist B the order will (imho unfortunately) be: current track in playlist A -> playback queue containing tracks from playlist B -> next track in playlist B after the last one in the playback queue [it doesn't return to playlist A].

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #39 –
Quote from: db1989 on
Quote from: tagtypedisplay on
I really don't understand the logic of not displaying the queued tracks, what am I missing...
foo_queuecontents: Queue Contents Editor
foo_uie_queuemanager: Queue Manager

Also, title formatting can be used in playlists to mark queued tracks and indicate their position in the queue.

ref: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...5queue_index.25

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #40 –
Quote from: kstuart on
Quote from: Robertina on
The queue's concept is that it isn't an addition to a playlist, quite the opposite, it interrupts a playlist until the queue which can hold up to 64 tracks is empty. Only after that the playlist continues its normal playback.

Can you give me a real-world example of using this ?


1. I started an album somewhere in the middle. I changed my mind, and wanted to play it all, but stopping a good song is a sin. While that item played, I added the first track of the album to the queue. It would then play next, as indicated by the (1) next to its title in the playlist.

2. I started to play an album. I decided mid-way of the first track that I wanted to have a listening session of this album, rather than casual background music, because the album is just that good and must not be wasted or played lightly. I copy the remaining tracks to a new playlist, and add the first one in that list (track #2) to the queue. Foobar will continue playback with that item, rather than the original list, and stop playback when the playlist has completed.

Note I:
Example 2 has been completely made obsolete by the Stop After Current Album component, which I now have turned on all the time.

Note II:
Modifying the queue is something I do very very very very very rarely. This is why I state again that it's best if you forget about foobar's internal queue, and treat the "Enqueue" shell option as its literal English meaning: "Put this stuff at the end of the list." No more no less.

Is all clear now?

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #41 –
Quote from: dhromed on
Modifying the queue is something I do very very very very very rarely. This is why I state again that it's best if you forget about foobar's internal queue, and treat the "Enqueue" shell option as its literal English meaning: "Put this stuff at the end of the list." No more no less.

Is all clear now?

Yes - and I think I have found the root of the problem.

As you say, the Windows Explorer foobar2000 command "enqueue" actually does what "enqueue" does for every other player, which is undoubtedly why the word "enqueue" was chosen, so calling that command "enqueue" is not the problem.

The problem is that every other player uses the word "queue" to mean all tracks that will be played if the user never takes any action.

Then I think that the way to "fix" things - in the sense of avoiding continual noob confusion (and if you do a search for "queue", you will see that there is quite a bit of it) - is to rename the foobar2000 "queue" to something else.

I think there is a word that would work, but I cannot think of it at the moment (perhaps someone reading this can). The essence is to call it something that means "special immediate playlist" or "special interruption playlist", but of course those are too long. As close as I can come right now is "detour playlist".

If this were done, when a noob asks about the "queue" then you just say what frogworth said in the thread:

Quote from: frogworth link=msg=0 date=
In Preferences under Shell integration you can choose to always send tracks to a named playlist, so if your standard view is the Default playlist (as it would be by default), just always send there. The "Enqueue in foobar" context-menu item will then just send tracks to the bottom of this playlist.
This Default playlist is then simply your "Now Playing" viewer. It's your playback queue. Isn't it?


But when the Devs created version 0.9 and then called the new special interruption playlist the "queue", they added this confusion for everyone who comes from another player.

I do not think a rename would be a problem for foobar2000 users, given what you said earlier in the thread:

Quote from: dhromed link=msg=0 date=
It might help to just dispense with any preconceptions you have about what a "playlist" is, and also completely forget about this half-hearted "queue" (or "playback queue" or whatever) that foobar has but doesn't really display. It's not what you want, I think, and it pretty much never comes into effect (I only recently discovered it existed and I've been using foobar for years).


PS I think that Peter and the Devs had been using foobar2000 for three years when they created and named the "queue", so they were not thinking about how words were used by the other players:

Quote from: Peter link=msg=0 date=
Now that queue has been added (which is already functionally redundant to what playlists offer)...

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #42 –
As I said via PM:
Quote
All I can say is that I think the distinction between playlists and the queue is clear enough in most cases, but I agree that Enqueue it its current usage doesn’t help to alleviate confusion such as yours.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #43 –
Quote from: db1989 on
As I said via PM:
Quote
All I can say is that I think the distinction between playlists and the queue is clear enough in most cases, but I agree that Enqueue it its current usage doesn’t help to alleviate confusion such as yours.


And there's the catch, as a casual user of applications I certainly expect intuitiveness from a application. I have spent three days trying to add basic functionality for a obvious item, ( show everything that's in a playlist), this is certainly NOT user friendly and detracts from the quality of the product.

Thank you for the relevant links to the plug in for viewing the Queue'd items, I now understand that Queue is a playlist on its own which is hidden by Foobar, and the only way to view the contents of this "hidden" playlist is via a plguin and panel, not very user friendly is it....

The acid test for any applications intuitiveness is to give it to a noob who isn't application literate, now that's a humbling experience for any application UI designer.

After spending days customising Foobar's UI to be a bit more intuitive with a explorer type tree panel on the left and Playlists on the right I then asked my "Foobar clueless" partner to use Foobar, the first thing she asked me is, "why is there "Send" and "Add" "?. She then used "Add" to thoughtfully and carefully construct a playlist for a few hours of listening, she then unintentionally used "Send" for a album, her reaction, "why did it replace the entire the contents of the playlist", she shook her head and walked away.

Maybe "Send" should be renamed to "Replace" ?.
More stars in the universe than grains of beach sand

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #44 –
Quote
I am asking "how does foobar2000 actually work?".


Lets see, I am 62, no much of a computer geek (studied agriculture and worked in Oilpatch Camp repair and setup for 25 years) and was able to figure out by just playing with the components what they do and how they work - sometimes with help of whatever documentation. Maybe it is a function of that I had to repair and troubleshoot a lot of unknown equipment (and had to get it working or else) that I just get to do it instead of worrying about a manual.

I did never expect foobar being a polished product - if you want that, buy friggin dbpoweramp or some other commercial player.

I downloaded and used or tried about 75 components. If I as a fucking old geezer can do that, I feel rather sorry for a so called specialist who cannot get his head out his arse do just go and try. Pitiful.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #45 –
Quote from: tagtypedisplay on
Maybe "Send" should be renamed to "Replace" ?

Yes, "Send" should be renamed to "Replace"!!!!!! 

Another stupid thing is: "Send to selection Playlist/Send to current Playlist"!
Noone in the world who starts with foobar understands this! It allways does the same in my foobar!

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #46 –
@tagtypedisplay,

yes the Send / Add thing is a little tricky but all what your friend had to do after her playlist was changed was "CTRL + Z" or Menu - Edit - Undo... So is the power of foobar  ....
Decalicatan Decalicatan

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #47 –
Quote from: tagtypedisplay on
Thank you for the relevant links to the plug in for viewing the Queue'd items, I now understand that Queue is a playlist on its own which is hidden by Foobar, and the only way to view the contents of this "hidden" playlist is via a plguin and panel, not very user friendly is it....
Glad to help, yet surprised that said information hadn’t been made clear at some point during this thread’s many posts! Also, capital fs and lack of numbers make aliencats cry.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #48 –
Quote from: tagtypedisplay on
After spending days customising Foobar's UI to be a bit more intuitive with a explorer type tree panel on the left and Playlists on the right I then asked my "Foobar clueless" partner to use Foobar, the first thing she asked me is, "why is there "Send" and "Add" "?. She then used "Add" to thoughtfully and carefully construct a playlist for a few hours of listening, she then unintentionally used "Send" for a album, her reaction, "why did it replace the entire the contents of the playlist", she shook her head and walked away.


Yup, definite nomeclature problem. I barely use the media library; much less construct playlists from it, so when I right-clicked just now, I was just as baffled as your friend.

There are tool hints in the status bar, though, but it's not obvious.

Playlists vs. playback queue

Reply #49 –
Quote from: db1989 on
Also, capital fs and lack of numbers make aliencats cry.

That made me laugh, my humble apologies, foobar2000 v1.1.8 beta 1 it is.

(guess I could've called it FUBAR) :=)
More stars in the universe than grains of beach sand