We should replace Rhythmbox with GNOME Music in default install. In the past, when we discussed this, GNOME Music seemed somewhat slow and buggy and not really ready for prime time. It's had several rounds of performance improvements and stabilizations since then, and I think we've reached the point of diminishing returns where quality is going to improve more slowly now and there's less value in continuing to wait.
Regardless of what we decide regarding Music, we should remove Rhythmbox anyway, since Videos is a better default music player.
We discussed this issue at today's WG meeting but did not yet reach a consensus. Should continue discussion at a future meeting.
Metadata Update from @catanzaro: - Issue untagged with: meeting
@aday, do we want to bring this up for discussion again?
Metadata Update from @catanzaro: - Issue tagged with: meeting
I'm not sure. What was the conclusion of the last discussion?
It would be great to have Music replace Rhythmbox, as it is a much more consistent with the rest of the UX. My experience is that it still has issues though. The last time I tried it, I hit this issue, for example.
Well it's been another year.
I think Music is ready, but if the WG disagrees, let's at least remove Rhythmbox since Videos is a better default music player (given that it doesn't attempt to import every sound file played into a music database).
I would prefer to make this decision in reference to a) the complete list of pre-installed apps and b) a policy and set of design goals for what gets pre-installed.
Where can I find a? Does b exist?
One feature missing in GNOME Music that was considered a blocker for this change in the past was the support for removable devices (phone, usb stick, etc...).
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-music/issues/8
Can it be a flatpak?
It's already on Flathub: https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Music
There are some polish issues that I'd like to see resolved too, although to my shame I haven't filed issues for them all yet (mostly things around the lists, which are inconsistent, and some of the playlist section is a bit broken).
However, I think we maybe have a bigger question to answer, which is: in 2020, is it useful to preinstall an app that's specifically for playing local music files? This isn't to say that it's not good to have those apps available, should someone want to use them, but it is to question whether it is important to have one of them preinstalled on every system.
in 2020, is it useful to preinstall an app that's specifically for playing local music files?
Good question. My instinct says no. I'd much rather have a recommended app for managing+playing podcasts. I've only used Vocal on Fedora, while gPodder has a higher score in GNOME Software.
Superseded by #125
Metadata Update from @catanzaro: - Issue close_status updated to: Won't fix - Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)
I think we should recommence this discussion. Obvious questions to answer:
Metadata Update from @aday: - Issue status updated to: Open (was: Closed)
I think we should recommence this discussion. Obvious questions to answer: Is Music being actively maintained?
Yes.
Do we need Music to be able to open files from the file browser, given that Videos no longer supports that?
Ideally. That would be very nice.
Is the overall UX quality where we want it to be?
That determination is kind of up to you, as lead designer, right? It's surely better than Rhythmbox?
...
Do we need Music to be able to open files from the file browser, given that Videos no longer supports that? Ideally. That would be very nice.
If Videos doesn't play audio files, it might be more important than that. But testing here, it still seems to, so maybe that's OK.
Is the overall UX quality where we want it to be? That determination is kind of up to you, as lead designer, right? It's surely better than Rhythmbox?
I'm not sure that Music is quite there in terms of quality, but yes it is probably better than Rhythmbox. My main concern is that, if we do switch to Music, it is going to be developed in such away that existing rough edges go away over time.
Yeah, works here too. Huh, OK.
I would start by reporting upstream issues for the rough edges that you see.
... Do we need Music to be able to open files from the file browser, given that Videos no longer supports that? Ideally. That would be very nice. If Videos doesn't play audio files, it might be more important than that. But testing here, it still seems to, so maybe that's OK.
I believe @hadess intends to break this with the GNOME 40 release of Totem/GNOME Videos, so I wouldn't count on that.
There's already no association for audio files in the 3.38.0 release: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/totem/-/commit/e4a1aaf7d9d3b2c50e2540d5d7f0059ffa30c26b
I didn't "break" anything. It's a video player, and audio specific features have been getting removed or obsoleted since at least totem's current design was made in the early 2010s, and rhythmbox is still being shipped as an audio player in Fedora.
And I'm getting frankly tired of the idea that I somehow made those changes out of spite rather than it being the result of years of "de-media-playerisation" of the project.
An initial list:
Is Music being actively maintained? Yes.
Is Music being actively maintained?
Poking around the issue tracker, it doesn't seem to be in the best state to be honest - ambiguous old tickets, old design proposals that have been sitting around for years. (Not pointing fingers here.)
I'm going to take this comment back. I've had a good response from the maintainers since I reported those issues and the project seems active.
Metadata Update from @aday: - Issue set to the milestone: Fedora 34
Hi Allan, any status updates here? Keep in mind the question is "is it better than Rhythmbox?" and not "is it everything we ever wanted?"
Thanks for the ping! I've updated the status of the issues in my little review above.
Is it better than Rhythmbox is a somewhat tricky question. Overall the UI design of Music is nicer, but Rhythmbox is more featureful and Music does have rough edges. In some respects I think the bar needs to be higher for whatever we might want to switch to. One concern in that regard is the fairly low level of development activity around Music.
Action: Allan to blog and request community attention for the selected issues.
Metadata Update from @catanzaro: - Issue set to the milestone: None (was: Fedora 34)
Metadata Update from @catanzaro: - Issue tagged with: default-apps
Here is an updated issue status:
Issue Status Missing album artwork Resolved Content doesn't automatically appear after adding files to ~/Music Resolved Inconsistent list styles Resolved Album view loading isn't smooth Resolved Playlists UX improvements Unresolved Empty starred tracks list looks broken Unresolved Open audio files Unresolved
I think playlist UX improvements and empty starred tracks lists are not blockers, but opening audio files is. Allan, do you agree? If so, I would like to let the Music maintainers know that we will swap Rhythmbox -> Music once that remaining issue is fixed.
I think playlist UX improvements and empty starred tracks lists are not blockers, but opening audio files is. Allan, do you agree?
It depends on what we expect to happen with totem, I think. If it continues to be able to play audio, and can act as the default audio handler, then it seems OK to switch Rhythmbox for Music.
Bastien has already removed support for handling audio, he just didn't do a new totem release for 40 or 41. So we have a little breathing room until 42 at least. But not much.
Maybe instead of gnome music it would be better to replace rhythmbox with lollypop?
We'd like to stick with core GNOME applications. I'm sure Lollypop is great, but its maintainer is taking a different direction, and that's fine.
We'll likely be able to do this (finally!) for Fedora 37, see https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-music/-/merge_requests/901
Just putting my 2c here... Rhythmbox's UI is extremely outdated and it doesn't follow the GNOME UX, making it stick out like a sore thumb among the default apps. Canonical papers this over in Ubuntu by using the Alternative Toolbar extension (provided by the rhythmbox-alternative-toolbar package here in Fedora), which helps some, but I know Fedora prefers to do things upstream so I don't believe including that is a possibility?
rhythmbox-alternative-toolbar
There are a few issues I have with GNOME Music:
Shuffle is turned on by default; it should not be. Clicking on an album or playlist, it is naturally expected that it will play in the order shown on-screen. Additionally, the shuffle/repeat button is oddly placed in the bottom-right of the window, and it is only visible when playing a song. The options for shuffle and repeat ideally should be in the burger menu on the headerbar.
Speaking of the burger menu, it includes a Last.fm account option, but this is greyed out due to it requiring non-existent support from GNOME's online accounts system. Unless the Music developers plan to use an external library for Last.fm like Rhythmbox already does, this should be removed entirely to avoid confusing users.
After playing songs, they appear greyed out, which is confusing because greying out items implies they are unavailable. Songs should not be greyed out after being played.
There is no volume control in the app. If users want to change the volume, they will have to either turn their entire system volume down, or open the Settings app and scroll all the way down to Sound and use the volume slider there.
When there's no files in ~/Music, the image shown is low quality.
That said, most of those are nitpicks, and I would still be happy to see it be the default instead of Rhythmbox even in its current state, or at least once it gains the ability to open audio files directly. The UI overall is so much easier to understand than Rhythmbox's archaic UI and it fits in very well with the rest of the GNOME experience!
I agree with all your concerns, but also agree they are nitpicks. It would be useful to report issues for these problems upstream.
We have had a change in direction upstream. Instead of teaching Music to open audio files, we are now working on a new app to open audio files. It's uncertain whether Music will remain in core or not.
We should continue to delay and just leave this ticket open until the situation upstream has stabilized a bit more.
Metadata Update from @ngompa: - Issue tagged with: experience
It looks like we're going to want to replace Rhythmbox with the new Decibels app rather than Music.
Does the new app exist yet? Is it in a state to be packaged in Fedora?
The app is https://github.com/vixalien/decibels/
I don't know whether there will be packaging problems or not. Hopefully not.
My suggestion is to wait and see what happens upstream. In the meantime, packaging is good to do regardless.
My suggestion is to wait and see what happens upstream.
There are two considerations:
Will Music remain in GNOME core? Uncertain,
So we had been talking about starting the upstream core app review process due to lack of development activity. But checking things now, I see activity has actually picked up significantly recently. So that problem is actually solved. I will close the upstream tracking issue.
My new proposal: wait and see what happens to Decibels. If it enters GNOME core, then replace Rhythmbox with both Music and Decibels. Music on its own is not an adequate replacement for Rhythmbox, but the two together are.
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