Re: FYI: UsabilityGuidelines handbill - supplement: Usage Designdocument

[Henning Sprang <henning_sprang gmx de>]

Tim Janik wrote:
 > [...]
> 
> 
> we can start here, and/or you can start a wiki page on this, it's
> more or less up to you.

i'll start the UseCases wiki page, where i'll document the state of 
discussion and development of the Cases and usage design, while 
disussion could take place here.

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

OK, i thought you would at least know them a bit as i read you somewhare 
stating the goal for beast playing in the same league as reason...

Me neither, but i have some friends working with those. If you're 
interested I could arrange a meeting to have a look at those.
Not that i want just copy them, but to just give sou some impression of 
what i mean.

Plus, there's actually a good free software copy of rebirth, reasons 
predecessor, which isn't really easy to get as the lawyers got the guy 
down to stop distributing it - just using it should not be a problem, 
you can try googling after "reborn-i386-1_0.tar.gz".


> 
>>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.

I already used the sequencer pluging, I think, but I don't have it in my 
mind detailed enough to answer that point now - I#ll get on it tomorrow.

Do you know the two programs i mentioned above? at least hydrogen is 
woth having a look at, freebirth really has a lot of drawbacks but it 
can show what i mean in my description.

> 
>>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...

this, too, i must figure out in detail for myself before i can start 
explaining in detail how i mean it.

>  [...]
> 
>>
>>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 agree that format doesn't play a role for and already decided to use 
the wiki - it has versioning, too, right? Then we have all we need for now.

The biggest challenge will be more to get all use cases documented and 
explained clearly plus organize our collection of use cases well enough 
so developers can work after it while users can lookup existing ones, 
modify and enhance them as well as add new ones if what they need isn't 
already there.

> 
> 
>>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 ;).


A pattern editor like trackers have it is pretty similar to what i tried 
to describe - i never used trackers a lot but a program like e.g. 
SoundTracker (do you know it?) has already pretty much of what i need,
even if it could be improved in usage and some features, as better 
integrated wave editor.


If i didn't find beast, maybe i would be using Soundtracker now.

Henning