[gui-talk] Fwd: First impressions of hope.

[humberto]

I think that the staff who works at Pandora need to also see how 
potential this can be.

> ----- Original Message -----
>From: Steve Pattison <srp at internode.on.net
>To: Access L <access-l at access-l.com>, CUG Members 
<Members at bcacug.org>,VIP-L <vip-l at freelists.org
>Date sent: Sun, 16 Jan 2011 22:47:18 +1100
>Subject: [gui-talk] Fwd:  First impressions of hope.

>All prices in this message are in US dollars.  -Steve.

>From:    Christopher Bartlett themusicalbrewer at gmail.com
>To:      PC Audio Discussion List pc-audio at pc-audio.org

>For those unaware, Hope is Christopher Toth's (of Qwitter fame) 
front end
>for http://www.pandora.com, which is a web site for music playing 
and
>discovery that allows you to create stations by selecting seeds 
and then
>rating how well songs it presents to you fit the sound you're 
going for, or
>how much you like them.  Until this week, it has been 
functionally
>inaccessible, though with a lot of fiddling, one could make it 
work to some
>extent.  Enter HOPE, Toth's Pandora player, a $10 download from
>http://www.q-continuum.net.

>There is an html read-me that explains the program, but frankly 
it's
>unnecessary, since the interface is dead simple, consisting of 
tabbable
>controls, all of which have keyboard shortcuts that speak as you 
tab to the
>control, allowing you to memorize them in a jiffy.

>When you first enter the program, you are asked to log in, or if 
you don't
>have a Pandora account, to register.  Both of these operations 
were
>inaccessible with any screen reader from the web site or 
Pandora's own
>desktop client.  If you have an account, simply enter your email 
address and
>password.  I haven't tried the registration as I already had an 
account,
>though I Imagine it to be quite easy.

>Now you go to your station list, empty if you're first using 
Pandora.  From
>here, you can play any existing station, rename or delete it, or 
search to
>create a new station.  Searching is as simple as typing in an 
artist name or
>song name into the search box and tabbing to the search button.  
Results
>appear in a list one tab away from the search button.  Find the 
one you want
>to use and tab to the create station button.  Your station now 
appears in
>your station list.

>Once you've selected a station and hit the listen to station 
button, you're
>in the player.  Here you have fields with the current song's 
artist, title
>and album, a play, pause, previous, next and stop buttons, and 
volume and
>song position sliders.  Again all have keyboard shortcuts and are 
easy to
>operate.  Even the information fields have shortcut keys to 
quickly move to
>and read the information.

>There are two other important controls, the thumbs up and thumbs 
down
>controls.  If you're unfamiliar with Pandora, these are the 
controls you use
>to customize your stations.  If you want the song you're hearing 
to be
>played more often, (and songs that Pandora thinks are like it) 
hit the
>thumbs up button.  If you don't want the song appearing on your 
station, (or
>again, songs like it according to Pandora) hit the thumbs down 
button.
>Pandora immediately stops playing the song you've rejected and 
moves to the
>next song.  You can also skip the song without rating it up or 
down by using
>the next button.

>Observations.  HOPE is fast and responsive, much more so than is 
the web
>site.  I got playback within two seconds of selecting my station, 
and using
>the thumbs down or next button stopped the song immediately and 
moved to the
>next song in the stream nearly instantly, again beating the hell 
out of the
>web site's performance.

>There is an important facet of station editing missing.  On the 
web site, it
>is possible to go to the page for a particular station and edit 
its
>information, including adding a station description for other 
people to see,
>and selecting artist and song seeds to add to the thumbs-up list 
manually.
>This last makes it possible to hand-customize a station to a 
degree that the
>regular method doesn't.  Because this functionality does exist on 
the web
>site, and in a reasonably accessible fashion, this isn't a deal 
killer at
>all, but would be nice if Mr. Toth could add.

>Another nit is that search results for songs don't return the 
artist.  If
>one searched for "Helter Skelter" one wouldn't be able to tell 
the
>difference between the Beatles ve3rsion and the Pat Benetar 
version, which
>might make for an incorrect station.  I'd like to see this 
information
>provided.

>HOPE is a great implementation of a Pandora desktop client with a 
lot of the
>flair and intuitive ease of use of the Qwitter client.  At $10, 
this is
>definitely software worth supporting.  Rating 4.5 stars.

>                Christopher Bartlett

>Regards Steve
>Email:  srp at internode.on.net
>MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
>Skype:  steve1963
>Twitter:  steve9782

>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for gui-talk:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/gui-talk_nfbnet.org/humbert
oa5369%40netzero.net