Checklist & System Info
Checklist
- [x ] I have used the search function to see if someone else has already submitted the same feature request.
- [x ] I will only create one feature request per issue.
- [x ] I will describe the problem with as much detail as possible.
System info
App version: 2.1.3
App source: Google Play
Feature description
Problem you may be having, or feature you want:
- Swiping episodes in the ‘Episodes’ screen is
- complicated: swiping the wrong direction changes tabs
- ambiguous: it doesn’t indicate what happens when an episode is swiped
- not customisable: you can’t change the swipe action (e.g. ‘add to queue’)
- limited: you can’t swipe in two directions (each with their own action), and in the current design adding such option is impossible
More issues (incl user requests we can't meet)
- Users are requesting new elements to be added to the (all) Episodes screen, while it’s already quite packed with elements. The multifunctionality comes at the cost of simplicity and usability.
- Users want a “Won’t play”/“Ignore” option/status, others indicate an interest in a “to be watched” list
- The former is an indication of the ambiguity of the swipe action in the Episodes screen
- Selecting ‘Mark as played’ is a bad workflow for ignoring episodes, as it will (or at least is perceived to) mess up statistics.
- Many users don’t seem to use the queue. For some this might be despite a thoughtful reflection, for many I suspect this is because it doesn’t server their workflow currently.
Suggested solution:
Introduce a new screen/system called ‘Inbox’
- The inbox displays the episodes until they are swiped away from the inbox or the inbox is cleared.
- Episodes can be swiped left or right, and the user can set their preferred action for each. They can choose from four swipe actions, which they can change in the settings:
- Add to queue: Adds the episode to the queue. It might be downloaded automatically, depending on your settings. Default right swipe action for users that have Automatic Download disabled.
- Download: Downloads the episode.
- Ignore: Excludes the episode from Automatic Download, so it will not automatically end up in your queue. Also greyes out the episode, as if it was played. Default left swipe action.
- Remove from inbox: Simply removes the episode from the inbox. It might be downloaded and added to the queue automatically. Default right swipe action for users that have Automatic Download enabled.
- Inspiration for swipe actions and screens was taken from Gmail, GitHub and Outlook.
More details: feature specifics, new statuses, affect on Episodes screen & Automatic Downloads
- The number in the side menu displays the number of episodes in the inbox, and cannot be changed.
- The inbox can be filtered by podcast (e.g. to review all episodes from a specific podcast), or publishing date (e.g. to review all episodes that are a year old).
- In the process, we simplify/clarify episode statuses:
- New: episode found since a) the last generic feed update OR b) last checking the Inbox screen
- Normal
- Ignored: episode was indicated as not-interesting by the user. These episodes are greyed out, and they are excluded from auto-download.
- Played: episode has been (fully) played or manually marked as played. These episodes are greyed out.
- ‘Include in auto-download’ is not a status, but episode data that can be flipped (unless marked as ignored).
- ‘Episodes’ remains as a screen, but with the following changes:
- The tabs are removed - it always shows ‘all’ episodes
- It is no longer showed by default (for new installations)
- The ‘Episodes’ screen gets a dedicated ‘Favorites’ toggle button.
- A new ‘Favorites’ screen is introduced, but disabled by default. If the screen is included in the menu, the ‘Favorites’ toggle on the ‘Episodes’ screen is hidden.
- Automatic Download process prioritises episodes that are not in the inbox - i.e. episodes that have been “OK’ed” by users: user did ‘Remove from inbox’. This way, the user doesn’t end up with an episode in the queue that they would have ‘rejected’. Only when there are no “OK’ed” episodes left, the process will take episodes currently in the inbox into consideration.
- Any ‘Remove new flag’ entry in episode contextual menu is removed - in line with the updated, automatic nature of the ‘New’ status. This helps simplify the context menu. If so desired, this a new contextual menu item ‘Ignore episode’ can be added (though that undo simplification of context menu).
This has the following benefits:
- More & customisable swipe actions (not possible in current design) that support all above user flows
- A cleaner UI, which at the same time allows for showing more information per episode & that creates space for adding some requested features (e.g. batch editing)
- A new clear, single entry point for making a (pre)selection, regardless your workflow:
- Users who that make use of ‘Automatic Download’ will have a quick way to filter out any episodes they certainly don’t want to listen to
- Users that start playback of individual episodes (from the ‘New’ tab or from the Podcast screen) will have a quick way to indicate which episodes which episodes they want to download. Also, these users are encouraged to using the queue, as there now is an easy way to select what you want to add (without any automatic process involved).
- Users that manually add items to the queue, now have an easy way to do so (don’t have to long-press episodes in the New tab or on the Podcast screens).
- As the app gets data about which podcasts get ignored often, AntennaPod could in future better serve content relevant to the user (e.g. in Home screen, by displaying number of ignored episodes in the Stats)
Screenshots / Drawings / Technical details:
A few screens (Inbox, detail view, menu, new Settings screen, Episodes, and Episodes with favourites filter):
Please see the interactive mock-up to get a better feel of how it works and a couple more screens (e.g. ‘Clear inbox’ dialog, episode detail view, swipe action explanation in the settings).
To see the interactive elements (where you can click), please click on the eye icon and select ‘Show interactions’:
Please,
- provide feedback on this idea & the mock-ups
- submit links to relevant questions, comments & feature requests from any GitHub issue or form thread that might provide evidence for or can help improve this idea
And the ‘Episodes’ gets its own clear purpose: displaying all episodes. No distraction with hidden or secondary functionalities.
If we do decide to have a label, it should probably just be spelled out just like the ‘new’ label - I couldn’t find a suitable icon.