Future Player UI/UX when playlist autoload is enabled

[Solarunit]

As I prefer playlist-based players where you have multiple independent playlists and you can switch between playlists on the fly and start playing any song (in any playlist) instantly, I would love to see improvements with loading saved playlists.

Improvements could be like this - automatically clear Queue tab and load the whole saved playlist when you click to play any song in that playlist.

So Queue tab could become irrelevant and I could hide it via config.

I would like to see Playlists Tab redesign or a new Playlists Tab for playback songs. The old one can be renamed as "Playlists Manager" for managing playlists.

In a new Playlists Tab you would have 3-pane-layout:

1. Playlist list
2. Songs in the selected playlist
3. Cover art

it would become a default tab.

• you can select any song in playlist to play and that playlist would be automatically loaded in the background 🚀

---

from #400

[Solarunit]

That is up to you to solve with how you "set a music player as default". If you want to configure your xdg-open or what have you to execute rmpc clear && rmpc add && rmpc play when opening a music file in your external file manager then by all means do that.

That was example what player does when you start a new song. I never add songs this way. Usually it's just drag and drop to the new created playlist.

You can hide the queue tab if you want to as well, with this issue solved you will even be able to start playing the playlist from the song you select, but you will for example not have the currently playing song highlighted in the tab like you do have in the Queue.

What if track list in the Playlists Tab would be replaced by track list from the Queue tab like a mirror? So it will be exactly the same list with currently playing song highlighted?

---

My idea is to combine Queue tab and Playlists Tab in one tab, so you don't have to switch between 2 tabs.

[mierak]

Improvements could be like this - automatically clear Queue tab and load the whole saved playlist when you click to play any song in that playlist.

Yup that will be done in that issue, there will be a keybind to do that as well as some sort of menu to do it with mouse, though I am not promising the mouse support will come right away.

I would like to see Playlists Tab redesign or a new Playlists Tab for playback songs. The old one can be renamed as "Playlists Manager" for managing playlists.

To get the terminology clear, a "tab" is something you, the user, create by combining different panes in a given layout. What I think you are referring to is the Playlists pane, right? And the old Playlists pane cannot be renamed, that would be a breaking change to existing configs.

In a new Playlists Tab you would have 3-pane-layout:

Playlist list
Songs in the selected playlist
Cover art

it would become a default tab.

you can select any song in playlist to play and that playlist would be automatically loaded in the background 🚀

First, the Cover art would not be a part of any pane. It exists as its own AlbumArt pane which you can put into as many tabs as you want, so that point would be solved by your configuration.

Now for the actual problem:
The current Queue and a stored playlist are two separate entities. You cannot replace one with the other because they each serve a different purpose.
What I assume you want is something like this:

 ___________________________________________________
|         |               |                         |
|  Cover  | Playlist List | Songs in playlist/Queue |
|_________|_______________|_________________________|

The cover and playlist list are I think self explanatory, that is fine even with me.

What I have a problem with is the right column here, you essentially want to merge two concepts into one and I am having a hard time to imagine how that has any chance of working.
The only thing I can come up with is it literally being a Queue pane where a simple act of browsing inside the "Playlist List" would completely clear the queue and load the currently selected playlist. Which of course brings another set of problems of just "clicking around" in the list stopping your playback.

I am happy to hear any non-hacky and non-brittle solutions to this, because the use case sounds completely and totally fine to me, something I would use myself even. My whole problem is that I am simply not OK with any half baked solutions here.

[Solarunit]

Yup that will be done in that issue, there will be a keybind to do that as well as some sort of menu to do it with mouse, though I am not promising the mouse support will come right away.

Great!

To get the terminology clear, a "tab" is something you, the user, create by combining different panes in a given layout. What I think you are referring to is the Playlists pane, right? And the old Playlists pane cannot be renamed, that would be a breaking change to existing configs.

I get it that user can create a custom tab.
The current Playlists tab is basically a Playlist Manager. Not sure if it's a good idea to combine a Playlist Manager and proposed new tab layout you drew below.

What I assume you want is something like this:

Yes!

The only thing I can come up with is it literally being a Queue pane where a simple act of browsing inside the "Playlist List" would completely clear the queue and load the currently selected playlist. Which of course brings another set of problems of just "clicking around" in the list stopping your playback.

I am thinking about this idea: the queue would be cleared and loaded only when any song started playing first time in the playlist.

• for example we have Playlist_A selected and song_A1 starts playing first time in that playlist (no songs were playing before in this playlist in current session), queue would be cleared and all tracks in Playlist_A be loaded.

• we can select other playlists to see their content, the queue won't be cleared and new tracks won't be loaded

• let's say we switched to Playlist_B and start playing song_B1, queue would be cleared and all tracks in Playlist_B be loaded.

• now we can play any song in Playlist_B and the queue won't be cleared and new tracks loaded

---

The problem I see here is how to make a switch from playlist track-list to queue track-list and vice versa seamlessly, i.e. without visual distraction. Another problem is how to monitor that track was played for the first time in playlist in a session.

[mierak]

The problem I see here is how to make a switch from playlist track-list to queue track-list and vice-versa seamlessly, e.g. without visual distraction.

That is exactly the problem I am pointing out the whole time. Visual distraction is one thing, but the more important one is it not being fragile. I cannot think of a proper solution.

And you have to keep in mind that holding some arbitrary state somewhere (like "Playlist_B" was loaded, so if playlist list is on "Playlist_B" then we show the queue, otherwise show playlist content) is not really a solution because it is very fragile. Rmpc can be restarted and the state will be lost. If you instead persist it on a disk the same problem remains, you can restart your whole system or another client(which might not even be rmpc!) can connect from a different system altogether.

I suppose you could misuse the lastloadedplaylist status property but then what happens when something else, eg. another client or you yourself from script add a song to the queue? You would be presented with a playlist view that contains a song which is not in the playlist.

Or you could have a keybind which switches the view, but then it defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

I understand that this is solvable pretty easily in an isolated environment where you will be the only client ever, but MPD is a network based player and we have to keep that in mind.

[Solarunit]

Hmm, what about new mpd Partition feature? Could it be used for playlists, i.e. each playlist would be in its own Partition 🤔

[mierak]

I dont think that solves any of the problems, any client can still connect to any partition.

[Solarunit]

if only there was possibility to have a separate queue per playlist..

[jgregoire]

@Solarunit I think MPD may not be the player you're looking for. Alternatively, this functionality you seek is best suggested to the MPD team.

Rmpc and other clients are just frontends to MPD, and they should, IMO, respect its philosphy.

For example, I use rmpc as my desktop player, MAFA as my remote control on Android, and mpc for scripting, widgets, keybinds etc. If rmpc adds stateful functionality, these other clients will have no way to interact with that.

Further, because clients can communicate with an MPD server on an entirely different machine, rmpc's state on my laptop might not match rmpc's on my desktop, despite the fact that theyre both talking to the same MPD instance on my music server.

[Solarunit]

I think MPD may not be the player you're looking for.

I know, on a desktop I am using another playlist-based player, that works perfectly for me. But I also need mpd for "streaming" music 🙂
I don't know a better alternative to mpd.

Alternatively, this functionality you seek is best suggested to the MPD team.

Already done that

For example, I use rmpc as my desktop player, MAFA as my remote control on Android

I am using MALP on android.