New Desktop Experience - your feedback wanted!

[Sebasty]

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

[Sebasty]

So I got the new UI as well, and the below is based on my first glance.

+ I like that tracks in my playlist are numbered again. I kind of missed this.

- Unable to Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V a selection of songs into specific spot in the playlist. This makes managing my #promoday playlist very difficult.

- Where is the URI under Share? I can't make small play buttons in here or use stuff like playlistmachinery without it. Lots of sharing options are gone tbh.

- I can't seem to drag and drop a selection of songs either. This is bad. This actually works now. I guess something was not right before.

? I feel a bit confused seeing this blank space:

as if something's missing. Idk, I'm on Linux. Is it supposed to be an empty space?

Similarly freaked out by the following:

..I also see it fortunately scales with length to fit in one line, like this:

Liking the less in-your-face font sizes, I will probably rename my playlists to have longer names. : )

- Search stashed one extra click away. 😫 I like browsing playlists and then suddenly having an idea of what I want to hear, and then going straight to search. Ctrl + L is a decent shortcut, but we the keyboard players are unfortunately a minority.

- On last version, hitting Esc to take focus off the Search tab took me back to where I was before (a playlist or whatever). Doesn't do that anymore.

+ A popup for keyboard shortcuts is awesome tho! Ctrl + / (but only people with numpad can get it?)

+ I like I can make use of my dropdown menu key when browsing tracks on playlist. While I am very disappointed the Ctrl + Q for queueing the highlighted tracks has not returned, this makes it possible to queue tracks fairly decently.

What happened before was it was intermittently opening two different menus (for artist and for the track).

- Storage location cannot be changed anymore. Bad for users who have small SSD for OS and huge hdd for storage. This will mean Spotify will put its huge load of storage (it was 11GB on Windows last time I checked) on the small SSD and clutter up the drive.

- Proxy.... Many users work behind corporate firewalls and using a proxy is their only way to get Spotify work.

? browsing the playlist is kinda clunky. I can't fly through it anymore because i'll only see grey boxes and lines instead of names of the tracks and stuff. I can understand why it's slow (the pics), and while I like that there are pictures, I.. am also all in for smooth and fast scrolling experience.

I'm also not certain about the touch-screen desktop hybrid user interface. Kind of reminds me the legacy Spotify app for Windows Phone (especially the scrolling playlist part). You seem to have come full circle... : )

[aerojad]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

The November update took away the ability to dislike songs in Discover Weekly. Please restore.

[Shavea]

Yes, we need it again. Also, I marked a song as "Remove from this playlist" in my Android phone but in Windows Desktop version it´s still in the playlist. 

[joshcygnet]

Plan

Premium

Country
UK

Device

HP Envy (circa 2014)

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

My Spotify was updated today though I am not sure whether I received this update late as any Google searches for an update through November 2020 returns 0 results and rather many issues I am having seem to relate back to an update rolled out in May 2020.

Since the update I have lost the use of basic command functions such as CTRL C & CTRL V (which I use all of the time when moving multiple songs (selected through either CTRL + left click or SHIFT + left click) from one playlist to another. That is to say CTRL C and CTRL V have no response. Similarly the DELETE key-command no longer functions and to remove songs from a playlist I have to right-click and select "remove song from playlist" which is a frustratingly less fluid & less UI friendly means of achieving the same result.

The "search" function returns no results for any search including more than one word. Searching for "Neil Young" returns no results where searching for "Neil" returns all "Neil" keyword results in any given playlist. Another example being searching for "Bitter Sweet Symphony" returns 0 results where searching for "Symphony" returns all "Symphony" keyword results. This is frustrating to no end.

Lastly: prior to the latest update using a sort function on a playlist - e.g. sorting a playlist by artist - would fix the play order of a playlist to the chosen sort, indefinitely. The playlist would remain sorted by whatever filter choice until manually changed back to custom / title or whatever you so choose. Now when changing a playlist sort order after leaving the playlist to look at a different menu/playlist and returning the the playlist the playlist sort order defaults to custom. Every time. I have over 100 curated playlists that I prefer to be sorted by artist as default, as the majority of these playlists are simply genre-based playlists and are not meant to be listened to in any particular order. Navigating these playlists (which can be 1000s of songs in length) is much easier when sorted by artist. When trying to copy records over from one playlist to another I am now forced to repeatedly change the sort order back from "custom" to "artist" over and over again as every time I select a batch of songs to transfer over to a current / new playlist, once I have moved them and return to the playlist from which I was sourcing music, I have lost my place in the list (returned to the top of the playlist) and the whole sort order has changed from artist (a nice easy alphabetical system) to custom - of which there is no real custom order.

Combining all of the above issues together makes curating playlists very frustrating and non-user friendly. I take no issue with the aesthetic overhaul but some basic functionality / customization has been removed and it is ultimately ruining my user experience outside of simply listening to and enjoying music.

Please help!

Issues:

1) CTRL+C, CTRL+V and DELETE no longer functioning

2) Search functionality broken (can only use one key word or search returns 0 results)

3) Unable to permanently fix a playlists sort order by any filter other than Custom

[Hubo]

Hey @polyfrog, thanks for sharing your feedback here!

The teams backstage really appreciate your comments here. I've also taken a look and a few points are already going to be implemented soon! Your playlist sorting preference will be saved after the new update of this experience after the 30th of November.

Also, the search bar on top of the playlist should help you find a song in the playlist, let me know if that works! Lastly, you should still see: 'Fans also like' (similar artists) and About on the artist pages right above the bottom. Let me know if you see those.

Have a good one and thanks again for sharing,

Hubo

[_40998nld-y5r]

Not a fan of this new UI. It feels clunky and cluttered, and basic functionality like copy-pasting songs & sorting by artists seem to have been removed, which is really frustrating. I've also noticed the artists' Discovered On section has been completely removed, which is a major setback for independent playlist curators wanting to know how their playlists compare & attract new followers. Overall, this UI seems like a step backwards, rather than forwards. The key features removed are not offset by the handful of improvements, in my opinion.

[Hubo]

Hey @Elgrimm1, thanks for posting your feedback in this thread.

You've been a part of the Spotify band for a long time - congrats! Your feedback is really valuable to the teams working and tweaking this experience under-the-hood.

About point #3 and #4, those seem to work on my end. Could you try to log out and log back in and see if that helps? Keep me posted!

Have a good one,

Hubo

[tripwired]

@Dan, your update regarding changes that will be included in the 30th November release are noted, but you don't acknowledge other issues raised in this thread. Can you please provide some feedback on the other things that have been raised? Are they regarded as 'no plans to address', 'roadmapped to look at', etc.

[Hubo]

Hey @_40998nld-y5r, thanks for sharing in this thread!

This feedback is very useful for the Desktop teams in further shaping this experience! Copy-and-paste functionality in playlists should be working. Could you try to log out and log back in to refresh the app and try this again? That might help here. 

Also, you should be able to sort by artist by clicking the 'Title'-column a few times. Let me know if that works!

Have a great one and thanks again for sharing your feedback on this new experience,

Hubo

[_40998nld-y5r]

Strange, I'm still not able to copy-paste within a playlist.

Your trick for sorting by Artist worked, but it doesn't feel intuitive. Having song name and artist name in the same column feels messy overall.

Does anybody have any news on if the Discovered On section will be added back? I also agree with a comment earlier in this thread about returning to an About tab, rather than having that information displayed at the bottom. The current design feels disrespectful to their brand and personalities, the whole thing feels like an afterthought.