Netjuke User-Interface Ideas

Hello netjuke-users,

  This might rather be a topic for netjuke-dev but I like to pick up
  what Steven and Blake discussed in their thread here, so i'll post
  here.

  There are 2 kind of "popups": HTML-Windows and Javascript-Alert
  Messages. I'd like to see the HTML-Windows (adv-search, random, ...)
  being replaced with "full html pages" in the main window
  (optionally) but I think in some cases the popups for "meta data
  edit" are useful since you can edit several tracks from one
  search-result without having to switch forth and back.
  The JavaScript-Alerts are mainly used for error messages which imho
  should be displayed in the main window (e.g. via a special
  error.php?) as well - but I'm not sure if that is applicable in all
  cases. Some centralized error reporting and/or logging methods are
  needed anyway, as we see from the b18 bugreports which mostly lack
  meaningful error messages.

  Let's assume for a moment that we want to remove all popup windows
  for good. That means we need new pages in the user interface which
  provide viewing/editing for genres, artists, albums and tracks.
  With all those (new) pages we have to restructure the user interface
  because it's already not intuitive enough for everyone to understand
  immediately.

  Here is what I think about when I speak about reorganizing, an (M)
  indicates that this will be (an icon) in the menu at the top:
  
  Main page (M):
  - basically like it is, with search and alphabet listing
  - search by default in all tables (artists, albums, tracks, genres).
    If there is one exact match go to the details page, else display
    matches for artists, albums, tracks and genres.
  - advanced search can be accessed with an "advanced..." link
    next to the search box/button
  - maybe instead of browse/explore User or Admin configurable content
    from local/external xml-sources, user preferences, charts listings,
    automatic recommendations.
  - Clicking an alphabet letter opens the search result page,
    displaying artists, albums and tracks with this letter.
  
  genre/subgenre details:
  - could include the explore view
  - view/edit genre data

  artist details:
  - display all albums, maybe most popular tracks
  - view/edit artist data
  - maybe related artists (powered by echocloud)

  album details:
  - display tracks of an album, maybe most popular tracks
  - view/edit artist data
  - maybe display/link external data AMG, MusicBrainz, Covers

  track details:
  - view/edit track data/tag

  track listing (the old search.php)
  - still used for search, when no exact artist, artists, album is
    selected or to display items multiple matches
  - improve handling of albums (group by album), column ordering

  always display a path where the user currently is to improve
  navigation, e.g for track details:
  Genre > Subgenre > Artistname > Albumname > Trackname

  
  So much for a hierarchical view on the music. In addition to that:

  Random (M):
  - extended with echocloud support:
    select 3-5 artists to specify the music style you want to get

  MyJuke (M):
  - your preferred Artists, Albums, Tracks
  - Artist Recommendations (powered by echocloud for now)
  - your Playlists (also still accessible via the main menu)

  Community (M):
  - other user's shared playlists (like it is)
  - top artists, albums, tracks
  - user reviews(?), recommendations

    
  And the administrative features:

  Account/Preferences (M):
  - merge to one menu-item, i.e. one page
  - maybe link it from within MyJuke

  Login / Logout / Register (M)

  Admin (M)


  Ok, that's all that comes to mind right now. The main (M)enuitems
  are basically the same - I expected this to be a bit more
  revolutionary when I started ;-) - any comments appreciated.
  
Florian <[email protected]>



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