Version:           1.2-beta1 (using KDE KDE 3.3.1)
Installed from:    Compiled From Sources
Compiler:          gcc-3.4.3 
OS:                Linux

Hi,

it would be great to have some sort of managing removable media in Amarok. An example for that can be found in Yammi, although even if the idea is great, it is not implemented in a very usable way...

What I'd like to have is that when specifying a media to add files from to the collection, that this media is removable. Amarok should store which media the song is located on (device name, media name) and have some means to display this information in the collection (Yammi grays out songs that are on media not currently mounted). If I add such songs to the playlist, Amarok should display the name of the needed media (so ideally there is a list of needed media for the current playlist). One step further would be caching these songs in some temporary location, so that one could remove the media afterwards and still play the complete playlist. Restrictions could be given on how large that cache should be, and older songs (or songs no longer in the playlist) could be deleted automatically from the cache.

The thing that makes Yammi's implementation unusable at least for me is the fact that removable media does not only mean "CD ROMs". For example, I have two removable harddisks containing big parts of my music collection. I would like to add songs from these to my Amarok collection, telling Amarok that they are located on removable media and handle this sensible as described above. Maybe Amarok could even automatically mount and unmount these disks...

This means, that one should be able to specify multiple mount points (/dev/cdrom, /dev/extdisk etc.) and Amarok should know that now I have to plug in one of my harddrives, or insert the CD ROM labeled "Rolling Stones Vol. 1". And if caching worked, I could even leave the disks at home when I'm going to work, provided I've added enough songs to my playlist.

What do you think?

-- Manuel