Import assistant- helping you import media into your library
One of my least favorite things to do in music programs is import music. You drag files or a folder into the program's window, and when you drop them, you aren't even always sure if anything happened; you usually just see a quick import progress bar show up. If you downloaded the songs, the metadata might be incorrect or missing, and you will have to scavenge your library to track them down. Even if you do find them labeled with the appropriate information, you often have to make a few changes like adding album art.
I think that there should be an "import assistant" in Songbird, that makes you more in control of the process of importing tracks. When you drag tracks into the Songbird window, it could visually change to look like a "drop site" so that the user gets the sure feeling that dropping tracks there will have the desired effect of importing them. Here I have the window getting darker and displaying the message "Import media" so you know what will happen.
Once you make the drop, a window could slide down just like the edit metadata window and let you make any changes you need to before importing the tracks. If you were importing a lot of tracks, like the first time you add your collection to your library, it would obviously need a scroll bar so you could see the entire list.
If you decided for some reason that you don't want to import a few of the tracks you dropped into the window, you could just uncheck them. You could then select any tracks with incorrect/missing metadata and fix them manually or retrieve the information from a web service like Gracenote. Also, you could input album art manually or retrieve it automatically from an online service. Once all of the tracks are ready, you could press the import button and finally import songs into your library with the confidence that they are ready to be there.
I think that there should be an "import assistant" in Songbird, that makes you more in control of the process of importing tracks. When you drag tracks into the Songbird window, it could visually change to look like a "drop site" so that the user gets the sure feeling that dropping tracks there will have the desired effect of importing them. Here I have the window getting darker and displaying the message "Import media" so you know what will happen.
Once you make the drop, a window could slide down just like the edit metadata window and let you make any changes you need to before importing the tracks. If you were importing a lot of tracks, like the first time you add your collection to your library, it would obviously need a scroll bar so you could see the entire list.
If you decided for some reason that you don't want to import a few of the tracks you dropped into the window, you could just uncheck them. You could then select any tracks with incorrect/missing metadata and fix them manually or retrieve the information from a web service like Gracenote. Also, you could input album art manually or retrieve it automatically from an online service. Once all of the tracks are ready, you could press the import button and finally import songs into your library with the confidence that they are ready to be there.
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I thought about this a little more (I do like this idea quite a bit) and thought of a small problem: what happens when someone clicks the edit metadata button? Currently, the metadata editing window slides down just like this import assistant window would, so would it just slide out on top of the import assistant window? No, I think that would be too confusing. I wanted to make it so that you could quickly edit the metadata of the tracks you are about to import without leaving the window.
How about this: when you click the "edit metadata" button, the import assistant window would just expand to accommodate the metadata fields. An added benefit of the solution would be that when you select songs, you wouldn't even have to hit the shortcut to open the metadata editor; it would just stay open and update the fields for whatever songs are selected.
I removed the album art part from the metadata area to make it fit better, and because I figured you could just drag album art into the the album art wells that are in the song list. I also added a tags field because I figured that importing would be a great time to tag your tracks if it is one day possible in Songbird.
I think it looks nice. :)
I’m hopeful for this idea.
4 people think
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?This would be mint, Drag and drop is the way. I'm all for intuitive stuff to actually work :)
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Inappropriate?Loooooooove it!
This is probably the time when I use Songbird the most.. I usually import media into my "!New Music" playlist.. From there I spend the time fixing metadata, album art, choosing which playlist these songs go into, etc...
This UI would let me focus on that so I don't put it off later.
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Inappropriate?New music play list! that's such a good idea for sorting in to other playlists. I just have a smart one for added in the last month etc but a static one would work much better and encourage me to actually sort them out. I like it.
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Inappropriate?I thought this idea would be a good core thing so I posted it on bugzilla: http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com/show...
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good call. -
Inappropriate?anything that makes it easier to use will encourage uptake and make Linux more mainstream - Songbird on Windows works, it should be the same for Linux
I’m confident
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Inappropriate?I thought about this a little more (I do like this idea quite a bit) and thought of a small problem: what happens when someone clicks the edit metadata button? Currently, the metadata editing window slides down just like this import assistant window would, so would it just slide out on top of the import assistant window? No, I think that would be too confusing. I wanted to make it so that you could quickly edit the metadata of the tracks you are about to import without leaving the window.
How about this: when you click the "edit metadata" button, the import assistant window would just expand to accommodate the metadata fields. An added benefit of the solution would be that when you select songs, you wouldn't even have to hit the shortcut to open the metadata editor; it would just stay open and update the fields for whatever songs are selected.
I removed the album art part from the metadata area to make it fit better, and because I figured you could just drag album art into the the album art wells that are in the song list. I also added a tags field because I figured that importing would be a great time to tag your tracks if it is one day possible in Songbird.
I think it looks nice. :)
I’m hopeful for this idea.
4 people think
this is one of the best points
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