[Back Button During Now Playing]

I think at the end of the day more options will make everyone happy

[Back Button During Now Playing]

@maxmp 

5 hours ago, maxmp said:

I think this will be improved

Do you mean that an update is coming that will change the behaviour or do you mean that setting Start in Library fixes the problem? Because if you mean the latter, I disagree that it does. While Start in Library does prevent the app from closing when pressing the back button from Now Playing, it doesn't take you back to the previous window, it just takes you back to the Library root.

I disagree that it makes no sense. I think it's intuitive UX, which is why virtually all music apps work that way (or at least I'd imagine they do).

@andrewilley 

2 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I think the point was that intuitively the Back button should always go 'back', i.e. it should always return you to whatever screen you were viewing just before the one you are on now.

Thus if you are in the Player screen and you tap on the cover artwork (to bring you to the songs list for the current category) then the Back button should not act as an 'up' button as it does now, but instead simply go directly BACK to the player screen again.

That was actually not my point. 🤔I thought this would be obvious.

The way I think it should work is this: Back button from Now Playing returns you to whatever screen you were in previously. Back button from any other screen goes up one level, or exits if the top level has been reached. Some examples follow.

• Library -> Now Playing -> 🔙 -> Library -> 🔙 -> Exit to Launcher
• Library -> Genres -> Now Playing -> 🔙 > Genres -> 🔙 -> Library -> 🔙 -> Exit to Launcher
• Album Artists -> Artist1 -> AlbumA -> [play song] -> Now Playing -> 🔙 -> AlbumA -> 🔙 -> Artist1 -> 🔙 -> Album Artists -> Artist2 -> AlbumX -> Now Playing -> 🔙 -> AlbumX

As an experiment I'm going to go through the top music apps in the Play Store and examine their behaviour.

• Spotify – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• YouTube Music – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• Amazon Music – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• Free Music Player, Music Downloader, Offline MP3 – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• Audify Music Player –  back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• Google Play Music –  back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• Musicolet – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• Phonograph Music Player – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• Pulsar Music Player – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• Pi Music Player – No way to access Now Playing from anything below the top level, otherwise back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• N7 Player – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location if accessed  from the home scatter view, however if Now Playing is accessed from the hamburger menu while in Library it will return to Home
• MediaMonkey – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location
• foobar2000 – back button press from Now Playing takes to previous location

Almost every single app I tested behaved that way. The only two that didn't (N7 and Pi) still behaved "as expected" in certain circumstances.

Now I'm not going to say that Poweramp should work like every other app because every other app works that way. I think the reason Poweramp should work this way is that it would give more Power to the user.

From Now Playing, these are the options:

• Exit to launcher: Press Home ✅
• Go to current list: Tap/Drag Artwork ✅
• Go to Library root: Press/long press Library icon ✅ 
• Go to previous screen: Impossible ❌

As you can see, all the current back button behaviours are redundant. There already is a way to get to the launcher in one touch. There already is a way to get to the current list. There already is a way to go to the Library root. However, there is simply no way to return to the previous screen from Now Playing (which can be accessed from anywhere).

Thank you for taking your time if you read this far, I hope I have been able to convince you that this would be a valuable feature.

[Back Button During Now Playing]

I've also been using Poweramp for years (5 to be exact) and I've signed up to complain about this, that's how annoying this is. The back button does not work as one would expect a back button to work. The back button should take you back to wherever you were previously. iPods did this almost 20 years ago.

If I select a song by navigating through Artist -> Album -> Song and touch play, when I hit back from the player it should take me back to the album.

If I'm going through the library to figure out what song I want to play next, and suddenly I decide I want to open the player (to rewind a part I missed/to look at the lyrics/to add it to a playlist/etc) when I hit back it should take me back exactly to where I was before I opened the player, be it the album I played it from, a completely different album, a playlist I'm looking at or anything.

Every single music player I've ever used behaves this way. The stock music app on my LG behaves this way. The stock music app on my Sony behaved this way. I just don't understand why Poweramp is the only one with this nonsensical behaviour.