Crimsonietta.net

… but will it blend?

Memes aside, excuse me the language but.. what the hell is this?!

Well, I guess I’m supposed to answer my own rhetorical question. That would be the alpha of Amarok 2. Supposedly it’s going cross-platform with the version 2 release, and there’s a ton of new flashy stuff (integrated networking, like the ability to pull artist information from Last.fm and such, nicer artwork, etc.) And naturally, I have to go around being a pessimistic cynic and raise an opposition to the so-called “intuitive” interface. Because you know what?

I hate it.

Sometimes I really wish I could say things in a nicer tone of voice, but I guess bluntness bestows a certain kind of charm to my blog - I don’t look to be controversial, it just sort of happens. Either way, I usually try my best to explain the reason behind my spite, so I guess I owe you all a reason why I believe the new interface sucks, reason(s) being:

It’s cluttered, it’s extranneous, and it pales in comparison to the previous one.

There’s a reason why I picked foobar2000 as my audio player of choice for Windows: it was simple, it was minimalist, and it gave me exactly what I wanted - a playlist. If I want artist information, I’ll look it up on Wikipedia. I don’t want all five of those frame-like panes present in the Amarok 2; I want ONE main pane open that shows whatever the heck I’m listening to, and I want one small side pane to show whatever I want it to show (tab window). Can someone explain why there are tabs along with five panes in Amarok 2? Isn’t that a little extranneous? Which pane (and I use pane to mean one of those iframe-like windows) would the tab open itself in? If only the left pane, why is there a need for three more to clutter up my space? For heaven’s sakes, where is the damn playlist on that thing? I don’t want to construct my own playlists because my tastes are constantly changing day by day, nor do I want to go search for songs indiviually from my collection one-by-one as I finish each of them. I want a large, open area to where I can click-and-drag my files and have them play in rapid succession.

Oh, and have I also mentioned I hate that theme? I first had my run-in with that style when I got KTorrent 3.1 and nearly gagged myself. Am I the only person who thinks it looks like a disgusting cheapass imitation of the Mac OSX style?! Surely there has to be a way to mod the UI. If not, I’m going to stab myself in the eye every time I open or alt-tab over to Amarok. Which, you know, is quite frequently, so I hope I don’t die of an optical hemorrage.

Unlike all the Ubuntu zealots who seem to place attractiveness of their desktop over usability, I must say I favour the minimalist approach - it makes things easier to use and more efficient. The current version of Amarok gives me that efficiency without sacrificing a clean and satisfying interface.

In all seriousity, I hope either the final release ends up being a lot more flattering, or that there will eventually be an option to mod Amarok 2 to look like the current version - not just the style, but the setup.

Aaaaaaaaand there’s my daily dose of spite. Blend well before consuming.