4015 playlist maker

[Melcher]

Never really noticed before that 4015 has a playlist maker. It's using the typical 'listmaker' principle using a 'basket' to drop selected songs into. PUP (portable user profile) served me really well here as it automatically synchronized media files from another Longhorn installation to this one using my USB thumbdrive. As you can see, WinFS shows the songs stacked by artist. The playlist creator doesn't allow any further browser whatsoever, you can drag stacks to the playlist and the songs will appear.




It reminded me of some of Heesung Koo's prototype images:




Now, that's kinda interesting isn't it? (Even though they really ruined the graphics while implementing the thing)

[Maza]

Yet another useful discovery from you, Melcher! Thank you for sharing it with us!

You mention the portable user profile and I cannot help but wonder why it was not included in post-reset builds. Regardless, the basket control itself is quite interesting and I am surprised that it survived the development reset, at which time it actually solved one of the potential problems in the pre-reset design (the listmaker's inability to browse for other items to add to a list) before being removed completely.

[Melcher]

Yeah, I can imagine that PUP would have been a really useful feature. I think you could say that logging in using a Microsoft account is a reincarnation of the same idea that you can see today.
Could you give an example of where the basket was used again post-reset?
I don't really think listmaker was meant to have no browsing capabilities (if that is what you are saying). Some of Heesung Koo's design plans talk about the user being able to change view in both the listview and basket. I think we also see this in, for example, the online photo printing wizard's listmaker which has a breadcrumb bar located above the listview control. Either we're not seeing such functionality in this particular playlistmaker as it is 1) not necessary (i.e. locked to music folder as we're trying to select music) or 2) not correctly implemented. Judging from the concepts there should actually have been a breadcrumb bar.

[Maza]

Yeah, I can imagine that PUP would have been a really useful feature. I think you could say that logging in using a Microsoft account is a reincarnation of the same idea that you can see today.

I had the same thought about Castle.

Could you give an example of where the basket was used again post-reset?

It is implemented as the List Pane to facilitate the creation of lists directly in Windows Explorer as early as 5112.winmain beta1.050720-1600 (if one imports registry entries for lists from 5048.winmain idx02.050401-0536 into the former). It is depicted in build 5212.winmain.050726-1915 in the screenshot below.



File System Shell

I don't really think listmaker was meant to have no browsing capabilities (if that is what you are saying). Some of Heesung Koo's design plans talk about the user being able to change view in both the listview and basket. I think we also see this in, for example, the online photo printing wizard's listmaker which has a breadcrumb bar located above the listview control. Either we're not seeing such functionality in this particular playlistmaker as it is 1) not necessary (i.e. locked to music folder as we're trying to select music) or 2) not correctly implemented. Judging from the concepts there should actually have been a breadcrumb bar.

Thank you for clarifying.

[Melcher]

Wow, never have seen that before. It looks like a rather interesting iteration on the "window attached basket". A pane inside explorer's window frame seems much more convenient.


Again, Heesung Koo's portfolio provides a very rich look into the conceptual development of this feature.


Quite interesting that, judging from that patent, the 'list maker' was not ditched altogether. Again, this is really interesting stuff.

EDIT: Seems the patent you mention is a continuation of the original 2003 patent first describing the list maker principle: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050080807A1/en