Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] New mockup, new thread

[Douglas McMorris <virage83 mail utexas edu>]

On Fri, 2003-05-09 at 18:37, MArk Finlay wrote:
> Ok, that thread started to get mental so I'm starting a new one.
> 
> I'm starting to agree that we need the search on the toolbar,
> and it's not too bad having the some buttons underneath the
> source browser. I think most programs should follow convention,
> but media players get to look cool :)
> 
> I've taken Luca's most iTunesy mockup - cus if were gonna be like
> them we might as well be really like then and look cool doing it,
> and that beveled player area is damn sexy.
> 
> Changes I've made are:
> * Play button area: Removed volume icon as it added visual noise
> and I don't think it's to hard to work out what the volume slider
> does. Also changed spacing to bring buttons and volume slider 
> closer together. I think it looks nicer now
> * Search - just moved the text lable under the box like in iTunes,
> made the text bigger, and removed the :
> * Added back in the browser because we mostly agree that it needs
> to be there by default. Those column titles wouldn't be there in the
> real thing though.
> * Removed excessive spacing between the toolbar area and the rest of
> the window
> * Fixed up some general spacing, still not perfect, search is too far
> to the right.
> 
> I think that this address a lot of issues brought up,
> and it offers power and flexability with a pretty clean
> fun UI, go Luca!
> 
> Comments...

Looks nice... a few things though.

I'm not sure that the bevel is such a good idea.  I dont' think I've
seen a single gnome app that uses such a thing.  The only app that has
anything remotely similar is the gnome cd player and I think we can all
agree that what it does is crack.  If it was a common thing to the gnome
desktop I think it would be great, but it seems to me that it makes
rhythmbox less consistent with the rest of my desktop.  We also need to
avoid things that will not work well with all themes.

As far as buttons on the bottom... again I would say look to other gnome
apps.  I can't think of any that have a toolbar area and still put
buttons on the bottom.  The other thing I see is that the special
functionality button isn't given enough prominance.  In itunes its on
the top right and has a pretty commanding presence in the interface.

One thing we're not doing that I think we should is use more icons. 
Icons can save screen real estate if they are simple and acurate
enough.  IMHO a magifying glass icon would suffice for the search entry
widget.  And a small volume icon beside the volume slider (like there is
currently) would be better than nothing.

personally i think that this shot:
http://xsu.sourceforge.net/search6.png
is the best one i've seen in all the weeks of discussion(minus the check
boxes).  move the special button to the furthest right for more empesis
on its functionality and put a search icon beside the search entry
widget.  center aligning the song title and artist info above the slider
would look nice too i think.

something I haven't seen any discussion of that i think would look nice
is having album covers somewhere... not necesarily a useful thing, but
would look nice. this could be pulled from a website based on artist and
album info.  if none is found just don't show anything.  (music match
and winamp have these features as well as itunes 4)

my personal opinion... this by no means necesarily reflects the
majority... is that an interface like the one based on the screenshot i
meantioned would be usable, visually pleasing and would still be
consistent with the rest of the gnome desktop.

Just my thoughts... my vote is for the mockup i meantioned with the
changes i meantioned... and any others people can think of... i think
its getting close to time that we decide on something and get the code
monkeys caffinated and at a keyboard.

On another note.  I'm interested in working on rhythmbox as a coder, but
I dont' have any bonobo or gnome experience.  I finish finals tomorrow
and after that i plan on checking out the net-rb and monkey-media from
cvs.  once we agree on a UI i thinks its important to have a merging of
the two forks (monkey-media and rb/net-rb).   I've hesitated to get
involved code wise b/c of school, but the biggest reason is the lack of
certaintity of where the project is headed.  why code for something if
my code is just gonna be chunked b/c people change their minds a few
days later.

Laying out a strick road map and feature set and sticking to it through
a full development cycle is something that must be done.  there are
probably more people like me that would be involved, but aren't b/c of
this.

well enough of my ramblings... theres my thoughts on the project and the
new UI let me know what you think

-- 
Douglas McMorris <virage83@mail.utexas.edu>