by Barry4679 » Tue Dec 05, 2023 2:04 am
MattTown wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2023 12:08 am
Some experimentation showed me that I have to click on the first file in the ordered playlist to get the playing queue filled with the playlist sequence. Works, but its not obvious. Why leave your customers in the dark over something so simple? If there is a big prominent control to 'play shuffled', why would users think to do something entirely different like click on a track to get the rest of the list played in sequence? There is noting in the UI to tell you how this is expected to happen. Why isn't there an equivalent button to simply 'play in sequence'? Or even an option to change the function of the button from shuffle to in sequence? And, given that the UI basically demands user experimentation to get songs to play, why isn't there a control to clear the queue contents?
Hi Matt I am in strong agreement with your point.
I purchased MMA when it was first released. I ended up not using at the time because it seemed inadequate.
I only play whole albums, and MMA's apparent inability to immediately play unshuffled albums was a sticking point for me at the time. I continued to use the Poweramp client because it has
album buttons for both shuffled and unshuffled play options.
Subsequent to that I noticed how the Sonos client queued the whole album, when just a single track was clicked, and started playing from the clicked track. I went back to MMA, and noticed that it worked the same way.
I think that the answer to your question may be that this behaviour has become a common trope in music clients. .. maybe some designer, presumably at Apple, saw that the UI could be made more clean looking by losing a button. And then other software designer mimicked that.
Even if this is the case, I agree with your point that a more obvious UI control should be provided for those of us not in the know, so to speak.
My pet hate is anything that wipes, or interrupts, the currently playing album. It is all to easy to do that in MMA. I think that it sucks that there is a secret handshake to play an album when the queue is empty, but that is a destructive technique if the queue is loaded or in progress. ... Maybe I am a slow learner, but it still trips me up from time to time.
And the MMA documentation is hopelessly vague IMO about how to drive this non-intuitive part of the UI. There is nothing to clearly describe or illustrate the Play action with respect to albums.
[quote=MattTown post_id=515106 time=1701234480 user_id=23709]
Some experimentation showed me that I have to click on the first file in the ordered playlist to get the playing queue filled with the playlist sequence. Works, but its not obvious. Why leave your customers in the dark over something so simple? If there is a big prominent control to 'play shuffled', why would users think to do something entirely different like click on a track to get the rest of the list played in sequence? There is noting in the UI to tell you how this is expected to happen. Why isn't there an equivalent button to simply 'play in sequence'? Or even an option to change the function of the button from shuffle to in sequence? And, given that the UI basically demands user experimentation to get songs to play, why isn't there a control to clear the queue contents?
[/quote]
Hi Matt I am in strong agreement with your point.
I purchased MMA when it was first released. I ended up not using at the time because it seemed inadequate.
I only play whole albums, and MMA's apparent inability to immediately play unshuffled albums was a sticking point for me at the time. I continued to use the Poweramp client because it has [url=https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j1r4dv86m9zg0w3haihzx/Poweramp-album-play-buttons.png?rlkey=gwf03e4nrqp4g1dine52r02p8&dl=0]album buttons for both[/url] shuffled and unshuffled play options.
Subsequent to that I noticed how the Sonos client queued the whole album, when just a single track was clicked, and started playing from the clicked track. I went back to MMA, and noticed that it worked the same way.
I think that the answer to your question may be that this behaviour has become a common trope in music clients. .. maybe some designer, presumably at Apple, saw that the UI could be made more clean looking by losing a button. And then other software designer mimicked that.
Even if this is the case, I agree with your point that a more obvious UI control should be provided for those of us not in the know, so to speak.
My pet hate is anything that wipes, or interrupts, the currently playing album. It is all to easy to do that in MMA. I think that it sucks that there is a secret handshake to play an album when the queue is empty, but that is a destructive technique if the queue is loaded or in progress. ... Maybe I am a slow learner, but it still trips me up from time to time.
And the MMA documentation is hopelessly vague IMO about how to drive this non-intuitive part of the UI. There is nothing to clearly describe or illustrate the Play action with respect to albums.