New Desktop Experience - your feedback wanted!

[Woodi]

Hi Everyone

Dan here again from the Desktop team.  The latest version of the Desktop client (1.1.51) is rolling out now and contains a lot of changes, improvements and fixes.  Here’s a short highlight of some of the changes you may notice in the new version.

Playlist changes

• The ‘duplicate tracks’ dialog now correctly shows when multiple duplicate tracks are added to a playlist
• It is now possible to select multiple tracks and drag to library or add to library from the context menu
• Added keyboard interactions to playlist menu in the left sidebar
• Added sorting dropdown to all playlist pages
• Improved drag and drop performance on playlists
• Fix playlist not being played in the sorted or filtered order when playing from the header play button

Others

• Improved display of shortcuts on the Home page
• Added listening history stats to user profile page
• Improved restoration of correct scroll locations when moving back/forth
• Added ability to select offline storage location from settings
• Added ability to navigate to followers and following pages from the profile header

One  additional setting that I've seen some feedback on but unfortunately didn't make it in time for this release was the ability to change proxy settings.  This should be ready for 1.1.52.As always, please do ensure you’re fully updated and are running the latest version. We again thank you for the feedback provided.

Thanks,

Dan

[Woodi]

The layout is strange, but will get used to it. What confuses me is that the Dislike option has been REMOVED? Not moved, but REMOVED completely? What is the point of Discovery Weekly if I can't say 'no thanks' to certain songs?

[TerminalGuy]

I really don't like the new update.

• There's no way to order Liked Songs by artist anymore.
• Searching for bands in Liked Songs is broken when using a space, e.g. searching "Off Road" for Off Road Minivan comes up with no results, but if I type OffRoad then all the songs by the band appear.
• The album art shows in the list of songs which means each song takes up more room, so fewer songs can be shown on the screen at once.

If this is just a test, then if it's possible I'd like to go back to the old version.

[lmcphre]

I am 50 years old and I am still rather tech-savvy. I've been an IT worker for 26 years. I have nothing against applications enhancing their usability from time to time. But why does it have to be such blatant changes? My mother is 75 years old and it took me over a month to show her how to use Spotify and she finally got familiar with it enough to use it from time to time. I can't imagine how stressed she will be when she sees the interface has changed. 

Making huge changes, removing features here and there just to enhance the looks of the application frustrates your users. Personally, when I go to Spotify, I want to LISTEN TO MUSIC, not spent time trying to understand how to do it.

[kcwebbah]

Glad to see I'm not alone in my hatred or frustration of this new desktop version! Also, feeling cautiously optimistic we will eventually be reverted back to the old version similar to what happened earlier this year.

I also have one more missing feature to add to the list. I cannot figure out how to find the clean version of albums anymore. This used to be found at the bottom of the album under a dropdown for "More Releases". This feature has been long missing on the mobile version but at least with desktop I could add clean versions of songs to family playlists.

[Sebasty]

I see many of you are frustrated with the search being kind of hidden or not actively available.

Spotify has the following keyboard shortcut for giving focus to the search:

Ctrl + L

For Mac its Cmd - L.

I can't tell if it works in that new UI, but hopefully it does. Should make it easier to get to Search.

[intellix]

yep, it looks like that hotkey works on the new UI. But now the Artist song list has been removed, it's still unusable and I've cancelled my subscription. Realise that I've been paying monthly for almost a decade, which is insane.

It seems like the Twitter @SpotifyCares don't know that the UI has been replaced. They said "Your Library" has been refreshed. It's not a refresh as entire features were completely removed that your user base were using... but hey, it's prettier now I guess?

[hosami]

Did they just remove the option of using a proxy? This feature is a must if you are behind a firewall or inside a restricted network. Please bring it back!!!

[1crimson1]

I'm okay with theme changes, the more the merrier, but I am NOT okay with the removal of simple options such as being able to sort by Artist in playlists that I created for myself. This is absolutely critical to my daily needs as my main playlist has over 2,500 songs from dozens of different artists. If this doesn't get "fixed" I will certainly be considering a new music streaming service.

Ug, seriously? Why? Why is this a thing, I don't have time for this kind of stuff as I'm at work.

[EthanS1]

Hey @intellix,

The @SpotifyCares team are aware about this current test which has rolled out however Spotify staff are monitoring these threads regarding feedback on the new look so I’m sure they’ll check this out with the teams over on Twitter to double check everyone is on the same song-sheet! 

[TerminalGuy]

I should add: you can technically order by artist (clicking the Title column until it turns to Artist), but this then orders each artist's albums in alphabetical order, but the songs on these albums are ALSO in alphabetical order (i.e. not in actual track order).

When I order by artist I'd prefer it orders it in album alphabetical order but each album should also keep its actual track order. This used to be a Spotify feature but it was removed a few months ago.