Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.5.2)
Installed from:    Slackware Packages

there have recently been a quite significant user interface change in svn versions of amarok - context browser tab has been removed and has been moved on top of playlist - in the name of usability.

i'd really like to ask to consider this wish, leaving rants like "get a bigger screen, sucker !!``1" for irc ;)

so, what has this accomplished ?
context browser now takes room from playlist vertically, possibly giving more room horizontally (if tabs are closed). this also allows to have both context browser and collection open at the same time.

the problem is, on a 1024x768 resolution screen (most users still have today, especially laptop users) playlist has been reduced to unacceptable size when context broser is visible (and currently it even displays seriously less information then before, but that probably will be improved with columned contents).
for me, on a 1024x768 screen previous size of a playlist was quite acceptable - i had enough place horizontally at most times and vertically to hold my 25 or 30 songs, if dynamic mode kept adding songs after some repeats or so. now, i can possibly get more space horizontally, which i didn't need - but vertical space is reduced to less than 50% of it's previous size, a vertical scrollbar appears which also reduces hypothetical horizontal space gain.

markey reminded on irc another time that amarok encourages small playlists - which is fine by me, i am mostly keeping a 25 track playlist. but by my estimates visible playlist part should be reduced to 8 or so songs to have a useful context browser. in dynamic mode that leaves me with 5 played tracks, so i can see two upcoming tracks - or i can scroll all the time forth and back.
this is quite awful for the real usability, because the tracks is what we use amarok for. yes, context browser is cool and is one of the flagship features for amarok, but this situation forced me to choose between context browser and playlist, so i have stopped using context browser at all.

markey also opposes options, as far as i could tell ;) - but i'd suggest eliminating options only if sufficiently useful compromise or automated logic can be created that allows removal of them.
i don't see how it could be done here - changing layout depending on resolution would be BAD. except maybe by choosing the default based on resolution, but an option would still be needed.

xine options tab was redone to make it more usable at 800x600 - but this change probably kicks those users in the head heavily, as it is quite bad at 1024x768 already.

let's take a look at context browser contents.
mostly it has some tracks & album listing. this content is easier arranged vertically, as can be seen by the need to column-ise the new layout.
then there are lyrics, which definitely are better organised vertically.
the only content that would gain more from the horisontal layout is artist information, but that gain is reduced by wikipedia content as such - first part of the artist info mor a lot of artists is more vertically arranged (a picture followed by contents - and not all of that is visible in horizontal layout)

from what i have seen, most users who don't oppose the new layout use large resolution screens. which is nice, but designing the software by only taking into account higher end hardware isn't the best thing, especially when it's not going to be a huge gain.

i also took the time to ask several current & potential amarok users i know. they were fine with this change when they saw it on screens with resolutions of 1280x960 or larger (though one current amarok user said that it became acceptable for him only at 1600x1200, as he was quite heavily modifying his playlist manually). none of them liked the change at 1024x768, even those who were not very familiar with computers and did relatively few modifications to the playlist during their usage of amarok. the conclusion was identical to mine - it's either context browser or playlist.

thanks for listening to your users ;))