Play a sequence of files

[russel]

Using Glide master/HEAD built with Rust 1.30.1 on Debian Sid using GStreamer build from master/HEAD everything seems to work for playing FLAC files… except:

It seems not possible to play a sequence of files. The use case is to play an album comprising a sequence of FLAC (or MP3 or Ogg) files. I would like to either select a directory and have all playable files played and/or select a sequence of files using the file chooser.

Currently the file chooser allows the selection of files but Glide then only plays the first in the sequence.

[philn]

Yes indeed the file chooser uses only one file. I suppose it wouldn't be very hard to tell it to use multiple files but then I think we would need to implement some proper playlist display/navigation UI and until now I wanted to avoid this ;)

You can already play multiple files from the command line though.

[russel]

I'd suggest that if an application offers a file chooser interface, it really ought to have the concept of a current play list display, especially if the command line allows a sequence of files to play. I believe it doesn't need to be a complicated thing, but it does feel as though it ought to be there.

[russel]

Also, there needs to be next and previous buttons for when there is a sequence of files to play. This is already an issue since the command line allows many files to be named. (Should this be a separate issue?)

[philn]

Right, that's what i meant with "navigation" in the previous comment. No need for a separate issue :)

[russel]

I can't volunteer to do any experimentation for the next three or four days, but I could perhaps try something next weekend.

To try and make things explicit, rather than leave requirements implicit:

It seems to me that if there is a single file in the play list, the current UI is entirely fine. If though there is a list of items, then the next and previous buttons need adding to the play control, and there needs to be a new drop down of some sort to show the play list. The currently playing needs marking, but this should be easy since this is displayed in the header already.

The file chooser should deliver all chosen files and feed the sequence is analogous to the command line activity.

[philn]

Thanks Russel! Due to the poor cross-platform support of GTK I've been thinking about switching to https://azul.rs/ So for the time being I have doubts about adding new GTK code. Is this an urgent need for you?

[russel]

Most people would assume a switch to Qt for cross platform, or wxWidgets. The problem with GUI frameworks and libraries are that there are so many of them, and so few have real traction. The problem with Qt and wxWidgets is that they are C++, though Python generally has a good binding. D has a similar problem, GTK+ well supported, nothing else is, but there are lots of alternatives that each has a following of a few people only. Azul (possibly bad choice of name given the Java company Azul :-( ) would be a good choice if the Rust community lines up behind it and makes it good and the main choice, rivalling Qt, instead of there being a fragmentation into lots of different frameworks/libraries.

I am not in a great rush, so not urgent. The right decision is better than a quick decision!