Major Interface/Skin Changes (pics inside)

[SilverEagle]

Dubious wrote:
> Those are photos of a horribly quick-n-dirty
> mockup. I could go ahead and make 1024x768 images
> and send them along but I don't have them
> completed even close to cleanly right now.

OK, forget it. I presumed you made a perfect mockup because I misread your first post and read you were "...decent in graphic design.", while in fact your wrote "...decent in graphic design programs." Which is not quite the same.

I will post the skin with some quick&dirty images then, either you or anyone else can then fiddle around with the graphical details. It's something which takes me too much time and I don't care much for my own results.

> Did you mean to ask me if I have the graphical abilities to
> tweak images?

More like if I give you an ugly "button_up.png" and an "design.xml" where it says what it's x/y position is, if you (or as stated above - someone else) can beautify the image and edit the xml to put it in its esthetically pleasing location.

> > 2) What should the search do? I was imagining just
> > a quick onscreen keyboard wich text search on
> > album tite and bandtitle.
>
> It should serve the exact same purpose as it does
> in the default Silverjuke skins - it should allow
> the user to search for any artist/album/track name
> that appears in the database. If the config has
> the virtual keyboard turned on then yes - it
> should display the virtual keyboard for input.

Don't forget the default search checks for tracknames as well. Your GUI does not give feedback on that, it just shows the album & artist.
So if you search "wonderwall" , and can only remember it as "wonder"-wotsit, and type in wonder, then the oasis album will show along with all stevie wonder's albums. There is no way in yur GUI the user sees the trackname "wonderwall" the program found, except by trying out every album until he tries the oasis one.

> It sounds like you almost know what you are doing.
> :)

I always pretend I know. Works wonders until people realize you don't...

> If I would only have to submit full-screen
> graphic mockups of the GUI in order to provide my
> contribution I would be happy to start working on
> that.

Leave it 'till I post the initial. I can do very ugly myself for that. It's the functionality that counts and what is the the fun for me. The one-click adding to the playlist for instance was a rather tough nut to crack, but that is working OK now. I always like letting programs do tricks they did not know they could

Regards,
SilverEagle

[Dubious]

SilverEagle wrote:
> More like if I give you an ugly
> "button_up.png" and an
> "design.xml" where it says what it's x/y
> position is, if you (or as stated above - someone
> else) can beautify the image and edit the xml to
> put it in its esthetically pleasing location.

I can do that. I can certainly make a pretty image and I'm sure I can figure out how to position it appropriately.

> Don't forget the default search checks for
> tracknames as well. Your GUI does not give
> feedback on that, it just shows the album &
> artist.
> So if you search "wonderwall" , and can
> only remember it as "wonder"-wotsit, and
> type in wonder, then the oasis album will show
> along with all stevie wonder's albums. There is no
> way in yur GUI the user sees the trackname
> "wonderwall" the program found, except
> by trying out every album until he tries the oasis
> one.

I see what you are saying, but remember how Silverjuke handles searches - even if you are in "Cover View" and perform a search, Silverjuke will search track names as well, then display only the albums on which that track name appears. Try this for yourself - start in Cover View, perform a search for a track name, then view the results. After that you can switch between Cover View, Album View, and List View with only the matched results displayed.

> > It sounds like you almost know what you are doing.
> > :)
>
> I always pretend I know. Works wonders until
> people realize you don't...

Busted! :)

I'll be the first to admit that I know what I want but have limited knowledge on what actually has to happen in order to achieve that goal. I can do the graphic design from scratch - but I know nothing about scripting, XML, or how much of Silverjuke's native functionality can be bypassed. I figured that a lot of it was hard-coded and might not be able to be changed. But then I read that YOU HAVE SINGLE-CLICK FUNCTIONALITY ENABLED??!?!?!!!?!?!? and I lost my shit momentarily. Is this true? So when I single-tap the screen on an album in Cover View it will take me to Album View? And when I single-tap a track in Album View it will enqueue? GTFO.

[SilverEagle]

Dubious wrote:
> I see what you are saying, but remember how
> Silverjuke handles searches
> (...)

I know, but remember your own GUI as well: the main screen only every shows 8 albums. People use left/right button to select the a prev/next set of 8. No listview, no album view, just a clean 8-cover view.

A single click on a cover brings you to the track view for the album. On the left the album cover, on the right the top 8 (or so) tracks. Up/down buttons let the user browse the tracks, and if I feel generous I might code a scrollbar in between them (just clickable, not draggable).

And when tapping a track it is either added to the queue or replacing the "pending song", as previously explained.

So when searching "wonder" the oasis cover shows along with five stevie wonder covers. The user cannot see the tracktitle "wonderwall" on the oasis album to jog his memory, he has to try and click on every album until he sees the track he recognizes.
I think this is good enough for most (usually seeing the cover/bandname/albumtitle will jog your memory), but from a GUI point it is not correct, there is no logical connection between the result displayed and your query.

> I figured that a lot of it was hard-coded and
> might not be able to be changed.

Yes it is, but thinking outside the box sometimes helps

> But then I read
> that YOU HAVE SINGLE-CLICK FUNCTIONALITY
> ENABLED??!?!?!!!?!?!? and I lost my shit
> momentarily. Is this true?

Yes.

> So when I single-tap the screen on an album
> in Cover View it will take me to Album View?

Yes.

> And when I single-tap a track in Album View it will enqueue?

Yes.

> GTFO.

Yes.

If not I would not post the skin, a touchscreen with doubleclick is a human-interface-sin. If you need to doubletap on a touchscreen I prefer a numpad instead, otherwise you will have to put instructions on the screen and still people will complain "it does not work".
Apple made the logical choice way back with a one-button-single-click-only mouse. Everything else needs to be explained to a user.

'Night for now,
SilverEagle

[Dubious]

SilverEagle wrote:
> So when searching "wonder" the oasis
> cover shows along with five stevie wonder covers.
> The user cannot see the tracktitle
> "wonderwall" on the oasis album to jog
> his memory, he has to try and click on every album
> until he sees the track he recognizes.
> I think this is good enough for most (usually
> seeing the cover/bandname/albumtitle will jog your
> memory), but from a GUI point it is not correct,
> there is no logical connection between the result
> displayed and your query.

The above description is exactly how the default Silverjuke already functions. I had no idea if it was possible to workaround this functionality. I think that in 95% of cases, seeing the resulting albums will jog the user's memory. I they can't find it from there then they don't deserve to listen to the song. :)

The other option is to force Album View as the results of the search. That way the user sees the track listing for the albums no matter if the result exists in the Artist, Album, or Track name. Granted - in the case of this particular skin design - only the first album result will be displayed, but I guess the user can scroll through the rest of the results as well.

I can totally design the flow of this GUI exactly as I think it should be. My problem is that I don't know how much of it is actually possible without access to the backend core code. You have obviously found ways around certain perceived limitations. I can't wait to see what else can be changed.

[Guest]

Hello guys !
First: may be the A-Z bar could be the same as a keypad, you can press P and L and U for "Blunt"
Second: Why not a Button to choose for "title" or "Artist" as in many databases ?
and third: Yes ! for a "One-click" touch, as this skin could be a good one for SJ "slaves monitors".

[SilverEagle]

Guest wrote:
> First: may be the A-Z bar could be the same as a
> keypad,

I'll keep that in mind. Small disadvantage: for the casusal user an alphabet means "search index" and a querty layout means "text entry". So not ideal from GUI perspective.

> You can press P and L and U for
> "Blunt"

I suppose you meant B, L, U ?:-)

> Second: Why not a Button to choose for
> "title" or "Artist" as in many
> databases ?

Sorry, not clear what you mean. What should they do?

> and third: Yes ! for a "One-click"
> touch, as this skin could be a good one for SJ
> "slaves monitors".

Sorry again, no idea what you mean by "slaves monitors"

Regards,
SilverEagle

[SilverEagle]

Hi All,

As I'm rather happy with my initial version I created a new thread for it, see 'EagleTouch: A single click kiosk skin (version 0.1)' (sorry, I have no idea how to link to a forumthread )

SilverEagle