Considering a UI Redesign

[Kevin DeKorte]

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All,

I've been considering a UI redesign for awhile now. There are a lot of
issues that I am hoping to solve mainly due to window resizing and
other internal issues. And a more modern look and feel. The attached
image is a VERY simple mockup that I am playing around with. As a note
with GMTK, creating this mockup and getting it to play a fixed video
was only about 4 lines of code.

One of my ideas is to use a "tab" based interface. One tab would hold
the playlist and the other tab or potentially tab would hold media
files. I am leaning towards the idea of a single media tab as that
would simplify playlist processing, but multiple tabs is not out of
the picture yet.

By default there would only be 1 tab that had the media in it, but the
user would be able to see the playlist, which is on its own tab, by
clicking on the gear icon in the top left and selecting view playlist.
Perhaps I could limit it to one audio and one video tab.

On the media tab, for audio the look and feel would be pretty much the
same as is now with the media details being present and perhaps the
audio meter being visible by default. For video I'm thinking that the
media controls and progress should float over the media (kinda like it
does in fullscreen mode now). Menus would be context sensitive in that
they only show options that are relevant for the media file.

I also am considering switching to the "fosfor" name for the media
player if I make this switch.

Anyway, comments on this?

Kevin
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[eeha...@aol.com]

Hi kevin

I dont think tabbed interface is a good idea.
for once if i have to select some file in the list i have to switch tabs.
More over in playlists you donot need much horizontal space :)

How ever one thing that i would like is to increase in size of bottom bar.
Like you have in totem.
It Is much easier to use than going all the way down.
Also it allows you to have bigger buttons.

One more thing is the key board shortcuts.
If you find it good enogh can you set the uo/down arrow key for volume . i find it use full if we are skimming through video.

I have some more suggestions , though it may be biased towards gnome users, ignore it if you dont like

 first is making the app look like a gnome app, with no tilte bar when maximized.
 the second is in relation to the screen shot you have posted.
 In gnome 3 i had a black theme for gnome-mplayer.
 are you changing it as seen the screen shot.

any ways i love gnome-mplayer :) thanks for it

[Kevin DeKorte]

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On 02/02/2013 05:47 AM, eeha...@aol.com wrote:
> Hi kevin
>
> I dont think tabbed interface is a good idea. for once if i have to
> select some file in the list i have to switch tabs. More over in
> playlists you donot need much horizontal space :)

First thanks for the feedback, but let me explain this a little more...

If you are on the playlist tab, and I believe I am going to rework
that a lot and show a tree control with all the media in the database.
So there will be a lot more information in the playlist than you
typically have now. When you select an audio file, you will remain on
the playlist tab, but when you select a video file it will switch you
to that tab.

I'm still thinking this thru, however..

>
> How ever one thing that i would like is to increase in size of
> bottom bar. Like you have in totem. It Is much easier to use than
> going all the way down. Also it allows you to have bigger buttons.

Personally I have always found the totem bar to be way to big. Do you
know about the --large_buttons command line option? That makes the
buttons really big, more like something you want on a touch interface.
But like I said I think the controls will be floating over the media
and only be visible when the mouse moves over the video. The button
size generally comes from the theme. But remember the point of
gnome-mplayer is to have a really clean interface while still looking
like an application.

>
> One more thing is the key board shortcuts. If you find it good
> enogh can you set the uo/down arrow key for volume . i find it use
> full if we are skimming through video.

The keys follow the mplayer defaults

9/0 control the volume
up/down seek 1 minute
left/right seek 10 seconds
page up/page down seek 10 minutes

>
> I have some more suggestions , though it may be biased towards
> gnome users, ignore it if you dont like
>
> first is making the app look like a gnome app, with no tilte bar
> when maximized.

gnome-mplayer works like other apps. But personally I use cinnamon, so
I like to see a good experience in that ui as well.

> the second is in relation to the screen shot you have posted. In
> gnome 3 i had a black theme for gnome-mplayer. are you changing it
> as seen the screen shot.

That was just a proof of concept, so it will be the right style when final

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>
>

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[eeha...@aol.com]

Thanks for the fast reply

Ok
About keys ,  i will wait till you introduce the custom key configurations (the problem was that there was no visual feed back on changing volume).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About big buttons, i i tried it now, though its not what i wanted , i acknowledge that its a UI decison and people have differnt perspectives.
Also i would like to point out that the timer slider is not aligned to the buttons.
It is not a majour issue, but for a proper ui they shouls be aligned.
Either move up the buttons a little bit or move down the slide a little bit.
You can get the space by moving the time and play/pause info to another line (though it may increase bottom bar size , it will be much better looking)
I have attached an image of the mis alignment
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now about playlist:
I think(that you mean) the play list tab will be kind of media library .
for a library a tab is okay,
I think what you can do is have a side pane similar to the one we have now as play list.
So that in both the tabs the side pane will remain same.
You can add files to play list(side bar ) from the library tab and then switch to video tab and every thing.
So that you can select the file to play from both tabs.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and one more suggestion : Clean context menu(

Ther is no need of a quit in context menu right.
You may accidently select that one . the close button is more than enough
Also the preferences in context menu is not usefull.
You set preferences once and you keep the setting for a while.
So its better in edit menu only.
Also the view setting for controls should be in view menu only

The context menu ideally should show only things that are relevent in context, ie related to video now playing.
Also since the context menu is always  the one that is accessed easily , we should try to put in options that are very frequently accessed and needed to be executed very fast
May be a mute option will be nice.
  

[Kevin DeKorte]

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On 02/02/2013 08:53 AM, eeha...@aol.com wrote:
> Thanks for the fast reply
>
> Ok About keys , i will wait till you introduce the custom key
> configurations (the problem was that there was no visual feed back
> on changing volume).

That would probably be a good idea, but it is like spinning the mouse
wheel when it controls the volume, as there is no feedback then.
Perhaps that is something that should be changed. If you set the
mplayer OSD to be minimal I believe you may see a change on the display.

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
About big buttons, i i tried it now, though its not what i wanted , i
> acknowledge that its a UI decison and people have differnt
> perspectives. Also i would like to point out that the timer slider
> is not aligned to the buttons. It is not a majour issue, but for a
> proper ui they shouls be aligned. Either move up the buttons a
> little bit or move down the slide a little bit. You can get the
> space by moving the time and play/pause info to another line
> (though it may increase bottom bar size , it will be much better
> looking) I have attached an image of the mis alignment

Actually, they are aligned "vertical center" the tracker with the
labels is a custom widget and everything in the bottom bar is set to
be vertically centered, but since the tracker is taller than the
buttons you see an alignment "issue" but I don't think it is. Other
alignments (top or bottom) look even worse to me so that is why I have
the alignment the way it is. Also the size of the tracker is
influenced by the GTK theme and font sizes, which means that I can
never make it perfect for all setups.

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
Now about playlist:
> I think(that you mean) the play list tab will be kind of media
> library . for a library a tab is okay, I think what you can do is
> have a side pane similar to the one we have now as play list. So
> that in both the tabs the side pane will remain same. You can add
> files to play list(side bar ) from the library tab and then switch
> to video tab and every thing. So that you can select the file to
> play from both tabs.

This is actually what I am trying to avoid. Due to complications of
the GTK widget library the code to make the playlist appear to the
right is very complicated and messy. Even totem doesn't always do this
right. So I want to isolate the video to a video area and move the
playlist to its own area.

> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
and one more suggestion : Clean context menu(
>
> Ther is no need of a quit in context menu right. You may accidently
> select that one . the close button is more than enough Also the
> preferences in context menu is not usefull. You set preferences
> once and you keep the setting for a while. So its better in edit
> menu only. Also the view setting for controls should be in view
> menu only
>
> The context menu ideally should show only things that are relevent
> in context, ie related to video now playing. Also since the context
> menu is always the one that is accessed easily , we should try to
> put in options that are very frequently accessed and needed to be
> executed very fast May be a mute option will be nice.

Some of these are due to the integration with gecko-mediaplayer. I
could probably only make some of those appear when under control of
the firefox plugin.


Thanks again for the feedback,

Kevin

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[eeha...@aol.com]

yes , i think thats all that i have in mind right now.
If i get some thing else i will try to make a mock up and inform you.

Thanks

[Brandon Snider]

I'd just like to see g-m get more in line with Gnome-Shell's designs, and core Gnome apps in general. I don't know that these ideas do that to the extent I'd like. The name change is interesting -- removing the "Gnome" part -- as if to reject Gnome itself.

[Kevin DeKorte]

Brandon,

So what do you have in mind? Can you do a mock up or simple drawing of what you are thinking?

Kevin

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