Rhythmbox, No Toolbar? No Hide On Close?

[trymeout]

I have used Linux Mint Cinnamon and currently I am using Manjaro Cinnamon. The Rhythmbox app has two differences in Manjaro compared to Linux Mint.

1. There is no Toolbar along the top, no File, Edit, View dropdown buttons. I would like to have these since it allows me to easily create, manage and save playlists as files.

2. When I am playing music and I click the close button (The green X in the top right corner), on Linux Mint the music will still play even when Rhythmbox was closed. On Manjaro it will close Rhythmbox and not play music in the background.

Does anyone know how to make these two adjustments to Rhythmbox?

Any help will be most appreciated!

[leon.p]

1. There is no Toolbar along the top, no File, Edit, View dropdown buttons. I would like to have these since it allows me to easily create, manage and save playlists as files.

If I remember hearing something about Ubuntu and Mint using a plugin for Rhythmbox to modify its interface.

Basically no modern GTK application has these ancient toolbars at the top by default. However, in some applications pressing F10 will show it. If that works, then you can propably turn it on constantly either in "window" or "view".

2. When I am playing music and I click the close button (The green X in the top right corner), on Linux Mint the music will still play even when Rhythmbox was closed. On Manjaro it will close Rhythmbox and not play music in the background.

Have you looked for that in rhythmbox's settings? It should be an option there.

[trymeout]

I tried all the F keys including F10 and it did not show the toolbar, I also look in the setting which are called Preferences in Rhythmbox and I did not see an settings on exit close/hide.

[leon.p]

I tried all the F keys including F10 and it did not show the toolbar, I also look in the setting which are called Preferences in Rhythmbox and I did not see an settings on exit close/hide.

I just installed it to test for myself and indeed none of that is there anymore.

The developers likely just removed those things. Not surprising, since Rhythmbox is a Gnome application and neither typical toolbars nor background applications are something the Gnome devs want on their desktop. The old design was incredibly outdated compared to other GTK applications. The version you had on Mint was likely either older or patched.

Interestingly, most discussions on the ubuntu forums are about how to disable it staying active in the background, so removing it might have been a common demand.

However I did fid the plugin used by Ubuntu to alter Rhythmbox's user interface, if you are interested in that.

[Richard]

Rhythmbox in my Ubuntu 16.04 machine has a toolbar as described. To not have such a toolbar would be a problem. I have some programs in some of my virtual machines that have no toolbars. What an annoyance. I have to search everywhere to try and find ways to accomplish simple tasks that the toolbar provides. Sometimes I never do find a way.

Richard

[leon.p]

To not have such a toolbar would be a problem.

Not in a well designed application. The thing is, toolbars were always an ugly hack in the first place, used by developers who can not design good user interfaces. Simply placing hiding every available bit of functionality in an array of menus compiled into a list at the top of the window is not very practical compared to having the functionality obvious and visible in a place were it makes sense.

The problem is, that we are all still used to the typical windows 95/98 style of desktop and applications with all their toolbars and endless nested context menus, while in reality that is a truly horrible way to design user interfaces. There are many reasonable reasons to dislike Gnome and their vision of the perfect desktop, but their user interface design is not one of them: Unlike the rest of the major DEs, Gnome does not follow what one is used to but instead tries to find a better alternative, and endeavour I can only applaud.

[trymeout]

I think the latest update removes the toolbar but I have figure out how to manage my playlists using other buttons in Rhythmbox.

To make Rhythmbox quit on close, I needed to disable the Tray icon plugin. However on Ubuntu based distos I needed to install a close on hide plugin.

[leon.p]

[...] I have figure out how to manage my playlists using other buttons in Rhythmbox.

Bottom left there is a button with a plus sign on it. Pressing it will open a small menu where you can choose what kind of playlist you want to create. Playlist will all appear in the sidebar on the left. To add music to them, select "Music" and drag-n-drop the tracks you want onto the playlist in the sidebar. To rename a playlist, double-click its name in the sidebar. To delete one, select it and click on the button with the minus sign in the bottom left.

You can also hide the sidebar by disabling it in the quick-settings menu accessed by the button with the gear sign in the top right corner.