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My favorite iTunes feature insanity: When you listen to a song in the "Music" section of iTunes, you have a "pause" button; when you are listening and browsing

by Jkeg 16y ago

My favorite iTunes feature insanity: When you listen to a song in the "Music" section of iTunes, you have a "pause" button; when you are listening and browsing iTunes store, the "pause" button inexplicably and detrimentally becomes "stop", so you have to re-navigate to "music" just to pause a song. Never mind that "stop" functionality is essentially pointless in digital music players anyway, if you are unfortunate enough to accidentally stop the song/podcast, you have to re-navigate to the Music section and manually restart the file and navigate to the right portion, only if you happen to know where that is. * Yes I know you can right click on the song area and pause there. This is about UI design, not whether or not I can figure out how to pause a song.

thought_alarm 16y ago
It changes to a Stop button because when you press Play again it will start playing the currently visible playlist/screen rather than the previous playlist. So let's say the Play button works the way you want it to: - You start playing a playlist. The Play button turns into a pause button - You navigate to a different playlist. The pause button does not change to a Stop button. - Push this pause button. The music "pauses" and the button changes to a Play button. - Now push the Play button. What happens? Does it resume the previous playlist? Or does it start playing the currently visible playlist? Anyway, I use the Play/Pause button on my keyboard.
- Jkeg 16y ago
  1. You can't press play again, it's just faded out. 2. What other playlist? I'm in the iTunes store. I haven't given any indication that I want to or even could specify another playlist to play. 2. That's exactly how it should work anyway. If I want to change the playlist, that's a different kind of event altogether from just pausing. Having one UI element try and control both is confusing. In this case, a dedicated stop button would actually be useful, as that could distinguish between pausing the current playlist and stopping it altogether. But removing relevant pause functionality just because you're in a different program section? Pointless.
  - thought_alarm 16y ago
    > You can't press play again, it's just faded out. Right, because there's nothing to play. If you preview a song in the store then the Play button becomes active. The point is that the Play button does only control one thing: the playlist or screen that you are currently viewing. It works the same whether you're switching between two playlists, or between a playlist and the store. How else would you have it work?
  - Jkeg 16y ago
    > Right, because there's nothing to play. There's nothing there to play because "pause" irrationally became "stop" for no apparent reason (remember there's no playlist in sight), and the user accidentally pressed it. There's no reason for it to be this way. Why shouldn't the play button apply to songs, especially when it was played individually and not as a playlist? Seems like the type of thing a music player should do.
    - thought_alarm 16y ago
      The Previous, Play, and Next buttons apply to the screen you are currently viewing. They work just the same in the store as they do on any other iTunes screen.
      - Jkeg 16y ago
        The way they work is exactly the problem. Considering there's a lot you can do in iTunes, it makes more sense to have the control buttons apply to items independent of where you're browsing, as for example, Windows Media Player. The current behavior is confusing and pointless.
        thought_alarm 16y ago
        You are forgetting these iTunes use cases: - Select a track and push Play. - Select an album and push Play. - Select a playlist and push Play. - Select iTunes DJ and push Play. These are fundamental to iTunes. It is neither confusing nor pointless.
deleted 16y ago
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by Jkeg 16y ago

thought_alarm 16y ago

It changes to a Stop button because when you press Play again it will start playing the currently visible playlist/screen rather than the previous playlist. So let's say the Play button works the way you want it to: - You start playing a playlist. The Play button turns into a pause button - You navigate to a different playlist. The pause button does not change to a Stop button. - Push this pause button. The music "pauses" and the button changes to a Play button. - Now push the Play button. What happens? Does it resume the previous playlist? Or does it start playing the currently visible playlist? Anyway, I use the Play/Pause button on my keyboard.

Jkeg 16y ago
1. You can't press play again, it's just faded out. 2. What other playlist? I'm in the iTunes store. I haven't given any indication that I want to or even could specify another playlist to play. 2. That's exactly how it should work anyway. If I want to change the playlist, that's a different kind of event altogether from just pausing. Having one UI element try and control both is confusing. In this case, a dedicated stop button would actually be useful, as that could distinguish between pausing the current playlist and stopping it altogether. But removing relevant pause functionality just because you're in a different program section? Pointless.
- thought_alarm 16y ago
  > You can't press play again, it's just faded out. Right, because there's nothing to play. If you preview a song in the store then the Play button becomes active. The point is that the Play button does only control one thing: the playlist or screen that you are currently viewing. It works the same whether you're switching between two playlists, or between a playlist and the store. How else would you have it work?
- Jkeg 16y ago
  > Right, because there's nothing to play. There's nothing there to play because "pause" irrationally became "stop" for no apparent reason (remember there's no playlist in sight), and the user accidentally pressed it. There's no reason for it to be this way. Why shouldn't the play button apply to songs, especially when it was played individually and not as a playlist? Seems like the type of thing a music player should do.
  - thought_alarm 16y ago
    The Previous, Play, and Next buttons apply to the screen you are currently viewing. They work just the same in the store as they do on any other iTunes screen.
    - Jkeg 16y ago
      The way they work is exactly the problem. Considering there's a lot you can do in iTunes, it makes more sense to have the control buttons apply to items independent of where you're browsing, as for example, Windows Media Player. The current behavior is confusing and pointless.
      - thought_alarm 16y ago
        You are forgetting these iTunes use cases: - Select a track and push Play. - Select an album and push Play. - Select a playlist and push Play. - Select iTunes DJ and push Play. These are fundamental to iTunes. It is neither confusing nor pointless.

deleted 16y ago

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