Removing stars in new Spotify version!

[dhoulb]

There's a HUGE oversight in 0.9.8, that I hope isn't final. In Artist, Album, Artist top track, etc views, there's no Star column!! It's been removed. The main reason I hate using the iPad and iPhone apps is you never show stars next to tracks, and it seems like whatever flawed reasoning behind that has made it through to the desktop app too.

The starred column is part of how I browse music. I often think "What's that song I like, by that artist." I'll go to the artist, and see the star, and play the song. Without the stars, I'm just seeing a sea of music by an artist I don't know that well, and have to read the whole list to remind myself of the song (if I even remember). Often I'll go to an album, and the stars remind me of the three or four songs I liked from it. I don't play the whole album, I just queue the three songs I've starred. WIthout the star column, I can't do it.

My biggest fear, using Spotify, is that I've trusted you with a lot of data that's reeeeally valuable to me - my list of music that I love. This data contributes to who I think I am - to my sense of self. Even though it seems like a minor change, this has a major impact on how I feel about Spotify, because it triggers that fear. The fear that someday you might cut me off from my list of starred songs, and I'll forget forever about music that I love.

If this version becomes the main version without the star column, it'll contribute heavily to me moving away from Spotify. Spotify KNOWS which songs I like on album X, but it's hiding it from me. It makes me feel like you're taking my data and keeping it from me. It's a really ugly emotion.

The iPhone and iPad apps don't expose stars enough, so I barely ever use them. Stars are one of the best features of Spotify. A really simple way to remind myself I like a song. You should be making them MORE universal, not hiding them.

Every list view, on every device, should show stars.

[Peter__]

The starred playlist approach is being replaced by Collection (now known as Your Music) which you should see as a "+" symbol instead of stars. The Collections closed beta test is still ongoing, so if you aren't part of the test you won't see the feature yet.

Basically, instead of favoriting things in a starred playlists now, you add things to your collection. The great thing about this is you can save albums as well as just tracks. Your starred playlist will however continue to exist if you wish to continue using it (just not as conveniently anymore!).

[dhoulb]

Hmmmmm. Okay, well, maybe I'll retract my rant.

I can see why Spotify would want to do that. Most people's Spotify accounts have mile-long sidebars because they've added every album under the sun as a new playlist. I'm not really a 'full album' listener, but I guess other people are. And it gives them a sense of ownership over their stuff if it's in their Collection.

As long as things in my collection continue to have the same or better visibility as stars, I suppose I can get used to it. The things I really like about the stars are:

1. They're yellow, so your eye can visually jump to them really quick

2. They're universal, so they look the same in every view

3. It's a really simple metaphor. You either like it, or you don't. No fuss.

I'd hate a mixed approach where some views had stars AND my collection. That interim period would be pretty ugly. I guess as soon as this rolls out, I'll move everything I've starred across to my Collection and unstar it all.

[mikeblessing]

They should keep the star feature. I think both the save to library and star feature can work hand and hand. Save to library will allow you to add your favorite albums and artists to your library. This will be perfect for offline listening as scrolling through a bunch of playlists of albums is a pain and unorganized. The star feature would create a playlist of your favorite songs as it did in the past. 

[thedarksyde]

Ok but I have over 9000 songs starred, and now I have You Music "Songs" with nothing in it.  So I now have to reclick all 9000+ Songs?

[thedarksyde]

And My Local Files and Songs are not in the same list anymore?  So now I have to play the lists separtely?  I can't have one place where just all of my music is, either from Local or "added" or whatever you would call it now.   

[Peter__]

@thedarksyde - If you want to move your starred tracks into Your Music, select any track on your starred playlist, then press Ctrl+a to highlight them all, then right click and select "Save" which will move them into your music.

Unfortunately in response to your second post, the "Library" tab I think you are referring too has been removed.

[ecNate]

@thedarksyde - If you want to move your starred tracks into Your Music, select any track on your starred playlist, then press Ctrl+a to highlight them all, then right click and select "Save" which will move them into your music. 

EXCEPT - The ONLY place I see option to right click and select Save is when in album.  When I go to my favorites and do ctrl-A and right click there is no Save option there.  In fact, from none of my playlists shows Save, only from album views.  I was able to do it by selecting them all and dragging to the 'Songs' Under 'Your Music'.

This also means we lose history of when things were added.  I get change is needed, but does it need to break everything in the process?

[ecNate]

Also, another HUGE oversight is that while in playlists you have checkmarks to indicate if something is saved (I will still consider it a 'Favorite') there is no way from an album view to know what you have already marked to be 'Saved'.  Was the entire QA team on vacation for this upgrade?????

[Joe]

Hovering over a track in album view should show the check mark to the right of the track title. As it shows up immediately, you can quickly see which haven't been added. If the album has been saved it shows this at the top. If you have saved a couple of tracks but decide you want to save the whole album, just hit the big save button at the top - it won't duplicate tracks already saved.

It takes some getting used to after all those years of a playlist-based spotify 🙂

[ecNate]

I see hovering over a track that you manually selected to save appears to work.  Still not ideal, but kinda works.  However, since there is apparently no way for me to select all entries in starred list and 'Save' I was forced to drag to the Songs under Your Music.  They all appeared there with checkmarks, but when looking in album entry there is no check on hover.  When I restart spotify all the ones I dragged from starred to Songs are gone and just the one I manually selected appears.

So again, how do you do a mass 'Save' from starred playlist?  No right click option when Ctrl-A and dragging manually to Songs doesn't seem to take.  It seems that when I do the entire 2k list the change is gone on restart, but doing in a group of say 10 is retained.  Also, it doesn't let me add things that I uploaded from local into the Songs listing.  Ugh...

[Joe]

I'm very **bleep** and did it all manually over a week or two. Most of my playlists were albums (we probably differ there) so I just added the albums from the artist pages then deleted the playlists once I had YM on android. The only playlists I have now are a few multiple artist lists but, generally, if I want to hear something random, I shuffle play from the songs screen or an artist screen. I still have my starred playlist but I haven't added anything to it in ages.

Mass saving by drag and drop should work as you expect. If it doesn't then something is broken in Spotify and I'll keep an eye out for other similar reports.

EDIT: I've been censored 😞

[mccleave79]

Nope, just highlight the whole Starred Playlist (CTRL+A), then drag it to the Songs portion of Your Music.  

[dhoulb]

Completely agree the little 'ticks shown on hover' are not enough. It needs the same 'instant visability' as stars, or it's just not as fun to use! Something obvious that emphasises the tracks I've 'collectioned'.

I'm gonna be spending my life hovering over tracks to see if it has the tick or not. I'm not looking forward to it!

Some subtle highlighting would be fine. Just to make them a slightly different colour than the other tracks. Either that or add the stars column back in, and I'll keep using them. Something!

Google Music has big 'thumb up' logos that are consistently shown in every list view. I can just feel at some point I'm gonna get pretty frustrated about this and move to a different service.

I'm sure this new system is much better for the 'whole album' listeners, but for people who like one or two tracks per album, this is a major downgrade.

[bakerdt78]

I hope Spotify is not going the way of Google, iTunes, Microsoft.

Do not start messing around with something that everyone loves and is working fine.  Just to justify the creativity of all these new interns you've hired.

Why switch from the old look to this new black one?  Why?  Direct me to where that is published?

Why discontinue the star system?

I am really freaked out by this.  I didn't trust Apple corp with our music.  They screwed up everything, the sound quality, the interface.  Why are you doing this?

Now I worry that all the new music that I have found via Spotify is going to be lost.

I feel like I have to buy CDs, which I do do.  But to hoard them like gold, because you are likely to make random and meaningless changes.

Spotify can help so much music, become available to so many people.  Can end the corporatization of radio, etc.  DO NOT betray everythign you've been doing.

[mshel]

I starred a song using this new version and then decided I don't want it in my starred list after all. Does anyone know how to unstar a song using this new version? I would appreciate your advice, if so.

[Joe]

Just delete it from the starred playlist. It works pretty much like all playlists now.

[mylesl4]

This is a terrible renovation by spotify. The star funtion is THE REASON I used the app.

Here is what is wrong with the 'Saved Song' library (SPOTIFY, PLEASE FIX)

1) When viewing an artist page, I want to be able to see what is saved/starred 

2) Dragging all of the tracks from 'starred' to 'your music' does not work -- once you close and re-open spotify, they disappear.

3) Dragging all of the tracks from 'starred' to 'your music'  does not work -- you lose when the song was starred/favorited

4) Dragging all of the tracks from 'starred' to 'your music'  does not work -- when viewing artist pages, it doesn't show as 'checked' to favorites, even when hovering over.  You have to manually check the songs, you can not just drag to 'your music'

PLEASE FIX.  I AM WILLING TO PAY MORE!

[mccleave79]

I agree with you, I wish there was a way to view at a glance favorited/starred/thumbed up tracks from the artist page.

To solve the dragging from starred playlist to the new Songs section, clearing everything out of this section, then logging out.

Log back in and try dragging less than 500 songs at a time from your starred playlist into the songs section.  Seems to be a bug in the system, but if you do a little at a time it should work.  This will also appropriately populate the Albums/Artist section as well.

[ubprods_]

Yeah, losing the "star" option is a TERRIBLE idea, or at least one that doesn't make sense to all of a sudden be replaced by the "save" option. 

I've Starred over 300 songs and to all of a sudden have to "save" every single one is annoying as hell.

Also, I know you can add a whole album to the saved list, but if I want to do that, I just "save the album as a playlist" (duh).

Either keep both options alive and well or lose "save".  Why mess with something that works????