Um … clicking on stuff is fine if I’m happy exploring and downloading the music suggested on the Audials screen.
But how do I tell Audials to search for something I want that it does not already show me?
Such as an artist of my own choosing, of my own typing, where is there a “search” bar?
I can see no search bar.
Does it even have one?
Can I only click on existing things in order to explore?
So I figured I search for a search bar.
– I clicked the 3-dots [ ⠇ ] in the upper left because I remember seeing “help” there,
– and then I clicked on [ ? Help F1 ], and it brought me to a web page in my default browser.
– help is on the web, not in the computer,
– and the very first thing at the web site was:
– “… You can directly enter artists, songs, albums or radio stations in the search bar. The search is similar to a web browser. While you are entering a search term, Audials shows several results …”
– but that “help” offered on the web is only text,
– there was no picture of where this mysterious “search” bar is hiding,
– so I asked Audials,
– ( sign in at the web page and open a support request ),
– I asked “… Where is the search bar? Can you show us? …”
Within an hour and a half, they responded ( kudos, Audials ):
“… Where ‘Top charts’ is written, you should be able to click there and enter your desired artist for which you wish to search …”
Note, I had included a screen-grab of my Audials window to make it easy for them to see what I see, and from that screen-grab, they could then see what I see, so that the could even refer to ‘Top charts’, something they did not themselves do with their own web help page where the used only text, I do not know how they would have described it if I had not included a screen-grab, a picture, shown them, especially if I had already learned to change “Top charts” to anything else via the [ v ] down arrow to the right of “Top charts” such that any reference to “Top charts” would be be meaningless because, hey, I no longer had “Top charts” in view – lesson: show us, don’t tell us.
Really? Seriously?
– Audials has a “search” bar that is not empty,
– a “search” bar that does not say “search”,
– a “search” bar that is not wide enough to type much into,
– a “search” bar that has no “search” symbol?
See what I mean by my prior comment “… Audials is one of the weirdest, most awkward interfaces out there …”
So I typed the artist name I was curious to hear more from,
– hit [ Enter ] and waited,
– and got nothing in any list of results,
– then I re-typed the name because I had misspelled it,
– hit [ Enter ] and waited,
– and it searched and offered me a list of songs by that artist,
– I downloaded them all and will listen later.
Note: we can also right-click on any song, and a pop-up mini menu will offer “Browse to artist” which is the same as searching for that artist – again, kudos, Audials.
– – – – – – – – – –
Next problem, selecting “help” no longer takes me to that same web page, instead, I get an error:
“… oops
The page you were looking for doesn’t exist
You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved
Take me back to the home page …”
My guess is that Audials evolves their versions so weirdly, keeping older versions as giveaways, that their web pages, being hardcoded without forward-thinking to collectively address version 2019, or version 2020, or now version 2021, that they have no idea how to build a collective or all-purpose web site, so if you also get lost trying to find help, at the moment, 2021 seems active, here’s a link to tips and tricks at least ( remove spaces when you paste ):
[ https :// support. audials. com/hc/en-us/sections/360004261079-Music ]
That’s not good – let us and Audials know if “help” works, or not, for you, I have no idea at the moment.
– – – – – – – – – –
Problem #3, when I click the [ < ] arrow to the left of the new-found “search bar”, it goes back to previous searches, but when I get all the way back to the original [ Top charts ] the full Audials screen presentation no longer looks like the original [ Top charts ] presentation, and I can’t see what I was previously looking at …
– so I clicked the [ v ] down arrow on the right of the “search bar”
– and it popped open a menu with yet another [ Top charts ] choice,
– so I clicked on that,
– and that opened what I was originally looking at when I first opened the program
… FYI, the little icon to the left of the word “Top charts” now has 3 stars, yet originally the little icon was an avatar of a gray person, so be aware that the same words, such as “Top charts”, may present differently depending on the icon / avatar next to it. What? As I say:
“… Audials is one of the weirdest, most awkward interfaces out there …”
BUT, I also said:
“… but once I figured out 1, 2, maybe 3 things that I wanted, okay, maybe only 2, I love it, and I frequently use it to collect new music before a trip, and I almost always find something or someone new to me that I really appreciate and would not have found any other way …”
So, finding the “search bar” was my 3rd discovery in Audials.
See? Sometimes it’s worth hanging in there.
Who knows, someday I may find a 4th thingy somewhere in Audials, and then it will feel like a whole new program, and I’ll be excited about it all over again!
Let us know what’s happening for you all when you try to play with Audials, I’m curious what 4th thingies and more that we are discovering, tell us more, folks, this thread should go on for 4 pages at least, this is about free music during CoVoD-times lockdown stay-at-home, and what else are we all doing?
Say something, don’t make me give up on you ( SWIDT? ).
.