Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] yet another new mockup (meta)

[James Kahn <james liet net>]

On Mon, 2003-05-12 at 07:19, Jorn Baayen wrote:
> Yet another new mockup:
> 
> http://nl.linux.org/~jorn/d.png
> 
> New:
> - no more action button (which even was outside of the source area,
> which just occured to me was a pretty bad thing - burn to cd - burn what
> to cd? the currently playing song? (thats what it was next to))

I think it's important that the UI is consistent.  The action button
should *always* be there, even if doing that action would be
ludicrious.  If the user has only 10 songs in their library and wants to
burn them all to CD, why should you stop them?  The "burn to cd" should
burn whatever is in the bottom list to CD - and of course, ask the user
if that's what they want to do first, so they can explore without being
punished.

> - instead there is a 'show browser' checkbox, purpose immediately clear
> in the source area (probably useful for playlists too, especially
> 'vplaylists')

Is this really necessary?  I thought that would make more sense as a
menu item.

> - since we might want to be able to burn albums to cd too, a burn to cd
> button only in playlist sources wouldnt make sense

It makes sense to me that the action button is in all views.

> - 'status'bar at the bottom
> - smaller search entry
> - shuffle button with label to make it clearer

IMHO these are nice.

> - no repeat button (not necessary I think..)

I was thinking about this - isn't it important that the user knows what
playing state rhythmbox is in?  They should really be able to glance at
the UI to know it isn't playing the same song or list over and over.

I really don't like the check boxes.  They look out of place in the UI
of a music player and really belong in places like preferences dialogs. 
People are used to real world toggle buttons and action buttons right
next to each other (think a hi-fi unit), so why would they have trouble
with those in rb's UI?

I think Jorn's have been iteratively the best so far.  If you take the
UI at http://people.nl.linux.org/~jorn/d.png:
- replace the shuffle button with a square action button (no text, the
image would suffice I think).
- Remove the show browser check box
- Put the toggle buttons "Shuffle" and "Repeat" in the same spot that
the show browser check box is, with text, but with smaller images so
they fit nicely in that area
- Repeat shoudl probably toggle between "Repeat None", "Repeat Track"
and "Repeat List".

I think that would make a very nice UI indeed.  I could have a go at
this if you sent me your glade for that image (Jorn?), but I won't be
able to have a go at it until tonight when I get home from work and
uni.  It's 9am now, btw.

Sorry if I've sounded a bit autocratic - UI is something I'm passionate
about.

Cheers,
James.

-- 
James Kahn <james@liet.net>
http://liet.net