Amarok/Archives/Proposals/Pub Mode ideas

From KDE Community Wiki

Pub Mode refers to the idea of a new view mode, designed to be used as a jukebox in pubs, bars and other party situations, where limited functionality is needed, due to the amount of people using the program - referring to either pub as a public house, or pub as a public social situation.

General Design

The general idea for "Pub Mode" is to have a mode or functionality which means that amaroK can run uninhibited for elongated periods of time, or run as a simple touch screen or click interface, avoiding the discreet-like nature of amaroK as it is "out of the box".

Ideas

The current contributions towards the idea of pub mode are that Amarok should start full-screen always on top; immovable, and have only the bare essential functionality - other features either being provided when needed or not provided at all - to allow users to passively use the machine for selecting songs based on visual information, such as Cover art, and even Wikipedia information.

There are also ideas of creating other modes, such as "jukebox" or "karaoke", which give extended information on songs, such as lyrical and band information if requested by the user, but not as default. Other devices often used in a normal mp3 player setup should not be considered, such as Media Device and Filesystem browsers and the Playlist Filter bar.

Web Application Interface?

Generally, the setup should not allow users to remove songs from the hard drive and change tags, or change songs that are already playing. Ideally, the setup would add songs to a playlist on-click which was automatically played, as opposed to automatically changing the song as soon as it is selected.

Security and Sanity

Generally, the setup should not allow users to remove songs from the hard drive and change tags, or change songs that are already playing. Ideally, the setup would add songs to a playlist on-click which was automatically played, as opposed to automatically changing the song as soon as it is selected.

Implementation(s)

Kirocker Music Display is a good start for this concept: http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Kirocker+Music+Display?content=52869

In the following months it will include "Party Lock" to lock the screen to that interface, and Lyrics display. For KDE 4, a simple collection browser will be implemented, it will look like iPod Artists & Playlists menus.