Re: FYI: UsabilityGuidelines handbill - supplement: Usage Designdocument

[Tim Janik <timj gtk org>]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004, Henning Sprang wrote:

>
> Tim Janik wrote:
>  > [...]
> >
> > heh, beast is subject to OO-design or modern user-interface-design.
> > so the term "use case" is more than appropriate here.
> > the problem with that is that i'm like completely overloaded already,
> > so you're pretty unlikely to see me produce usage cases inthe near
> > furutere. i'd however much apprechiate if someone else started out on
> > creating some, and i'd certainly comment on them / discuss them.
>
> I'm on it. Should we start here or should we start a new Wiki Page
> "UseCases"? I'd like to have a central public place to store the results
> of these discussions while the discussions can take place here.

we can start here, and/or you can start a wiki page on this, it's
more or less up to you.

> > if in succession of that user interface improvements are being developed,
> > i can also provide technical guidance to get those implemented in beast.
>
> I don't know if we talked about it, i cannot code C for now, but have
> some years of experience in Java and wanna learn C since some time, just
> didn't have some interesting project to get started.

that's not really a problem. often cooking up ideas for user interfaces
is harder than actually implementing them, and the latter i'm quite good at ;)

> > well, make a suggestion to improve beasts GUI, what should change for it
> > to provide easy access in the way you outlined?
>
> I think this special case is less only the GUI, but the way and/or
> possibilities to connect some beast elements together. I mean I'd like
> to see something like rebirth, reason's predecessor, or if you know them

i'm not very familliar with closed source/windows based products,
as i have none of that sopftware around here.

> the free tools "freebirth" and "hydrogen" - you have 16 quarter beats
> where you can place a marker that some drum sample should be activated
> there, either by having a knob or buttons to chose which track you're

to some extend, this might be achivable by improving the GUI of
the "Sequencer" plugin. also, i'm working on a rackview widget,
where you can select individual properties of modules from a
synthesis network and arrange them free-form in a GUI window.
that'll allow more advance users to cook up their own GUIs, and
to produce something like you outlined graphically.

> actually working with (rebirth, freebirth) or you have all available
> tracks in an overview just like beasts note editor, with the difference
> that you don't have different notes of the same instrument for each line
> in the edit view, but just a hit of another drum sample for each line in
> the edit view - that would already be it.

i'm having a hard time imagining how this would integrate with the
rest of beast. so to implement this at some point, we'd need to
discuss what new notebookpage/editorwidget goes where and what exactly
it'll display, etc...

> as I said, i can even imagine,
> that one could create a custom synthesizer that would do something like
> that - translating different notes into actions that trigger wave
> oscillators with different drum samples. but even if one could do that,
> it would take a good while, even if one already knows beast a bit in
> terms of having done first steps and got first sounds out of it, and
> then it would not be pretty easy usable, adding filters and effects to a
> drum or chosing another sample, adding a new sample would be a lot of
> clicks.
>
> > [...]
> > nope, you're right. it just takes someone to step up and start working
> > on use cases, story boards and general interface design planning ;)
> >
>
> I get started right here and now, when we've decieded where
> documentation will take place,

you're copletely free to put that document anywhere you want.
i'm fine with e.g. developing it on the mailing list and putting it
into CVS (and thus up on the website) as texi source, or building up
a wiki page for it or combinations thereof...

the format isn't so important as that something is actually being worked on
and people contribute. one person can change a whole documents format
in a few hours time if we want to migrate stuff later on.

> I'll be taking my AudioComposer UseCases
> translated to english and ask the people on the list in a public call to
> send me their own ideas of how they want to use beast, ask my friends
> who make music (using mainly reason and some other things), document all
> that and work it out. You will be required to tell if and how all that
> can be solved in the application development area. And, of course, we
> will allow you to add your own use cases, too - you might have had some
> idea of what you need and want when you started doing beast?! :)

sure, i was looking for a usable modular synthesis project and found none.
none having a GUI at least and decent reltime capabilities. that, and
my background with tracker programs under dos lead to the earliest
incarnations of beast. nowadays, we only have a piano roll editor, but
i'm working on bringing a pattern editor back to life (that is, to
solve one of my own use cases ;).

>
> Henning
>

---
ciaoTJ