Topic: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

Hello there, forum people!

I've submitted a pull request to the Picard repository at Github that changes the UI of the file naming format page and merges it with the "Moving Files" page. This also solves PICARD-79.

You can find the pull request here. If you want to try it, here's what you have to do:

In case you already have a clone of the main repository, do the following:

» git remote add mineo git://github.com/mineo/picard.git
» git fetch mineo
» git checkout mineo/options-merge

In case you do not already have a clone of the main repository, do the following:

» git clone git://github.com/mineo/picard.git
» cd picard
» git checkout options-merge

You can then run picard with

» ./tagger.py

You can find a picture of what it looks like in the pull request and here (old version on the left, new version on the right).

Please tell us whether or not you like it, found any bugs or anything else.

Thanks!

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

I have a feature request for the file moving part.  I'd like to see a dropdown box that holds the last few directories I've moved files to.  That would be a lot easier than having to browse back and forth all the time.

"I say we invite opportunity inside for a nice cup of tea, then hit her on the head and steal her purse." - Kevyn Andreyasn
- Schlock Mercenary by Howard Tayler

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

Please log feature requests at http://tickets.musicbrainz.org

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

Hmm, why are Normal/VA settings in two different tabs? I don't think it is that bad, but maybe people like that in the current dialog you can compare them without switching tabs?

Otherwise I don't really have anything against it…

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

I have one more idea, what about dropping the VA settings and changing the default file naming format to:

$if2(%albumartist%,%artist%)/%album%/$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),%discnumber%-,)$num(%tracknumber%,2)$if(%compilation%, %artist% -,) %title%

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

While I agree with dropping it rather than spreading over two tabs, I'm concerned it might be contentious with those users not really capable of using $if type scripting to get the result they want?

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

I like the simplicity of luks' idea a lot. I don't think people commonly need VA naming formats that are radically different from their default format, but maybe I'm wrong.

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

I also like the combined setting (luks idea)... for me it was annoying in the past to manually sync both, because they are really similar.

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

Yeah. If you look through http://forums.musicbrainz.org/viewtopic.php?id=514 even the more complicated ones tend to amount to "put VA stuff in a different base folder" or "include track artist in file name only for VA".

Worth noting that since the introduction of proper multiple-artist support in MB, the "various artist" naming format has been debased somewhat anyway; and people often end up with $if($eq(%albumartist%,Various Artists)... in their formats anyway to avoid it catching releases where a single track has a different artist to it - which currently would be considered "Multiple Artist", and compilation=1.

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

Ok, I take that as a general "yes" towards the pull request itself… I'll try to combine it with a patch to combine both settings (I think a message if a non-standard va_file_naming_format is configured would certainly be nice).

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

I understand that from a programming perspective, combining the move and rename file formatting string is an elegant solution, most end-users will be baffled by it. Taggerscript isn't a very user-friendly language when the strings get too large.

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

The move and file renaming strings are in effect already combined in current Picard (the directory parts separated by slashes represent "move" details, the part after the last slash the "rename" details); however enabling/disabling the settings themselves are spread over two different tabs - which is the part that baffles most end users; makes little sense and is the root issue that mineo's change is trying to resolve.

Were you actually objecting to combining multiple artist and single artist strings and just typed the wrong thing?

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

luks wrote:

I have one more idea, what about dropping the VA settings and changing the default file naming format to:

$if2(%albumartist%,%artist%)/%album%/$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),%discnumber%-,)$num(%tracknumber%,2)$if(%compilation%, %artist% -,) %title%

As someone useless with that kind of stuff, it doesn't really matter, because a new user isn't going to understand either.
A small (?) icon or something linking to a very simple description of how it works could be helpful. But again, imo feel free to assume that if someone doesn't understand the stuff above, they're probably equally confused by having them separate.

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

FWIW, I have updated the pull request to remove the va_file_naming_format altogether.

The code now
    * merges va_file_naming format into file_naming_format if use_va_format
      is true
    * asks the user whether to remove or merge if the va_file_naming_format
      is not the default but use_va_format is false
    * removes va_file_naming_format and use_va_format otherwise

Before testing this, please make sure you have a backup of your picard config.

Re: Feedback required for some UI redesign on Picard

Are there any remaining objections to this change? Personally, I'd like to merge this soon. Here's an up-to-date screenshot.