V3 - New Web UI

[MJB]

Hi All

Just to let you know there is a new web UI to look at - it doesn't replace anything so don't panic - its in addition to the existing views.

There is a picture and instuctions on the latest software page

https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/latestSoftware

Please post any thoughts or problems in reply to this post so the web developers can see all the feedback in one place.

Thanks

Martin

[MRB]

Thank you Martin - very nice.  I'm having trouble with the volume slider on my iPad - it is difficult to get it to react to touch, nearly impossible...

Thanks,

Mark

-

[Roger Watson]

Martin

Just had a look at the new web ui, my instant feeling is yes I like it.

I am using safari on a Mac book Pro OS Mojave 10.14.6 The only things I have noticed is the top centre is just a box with a question mark I think kit should say Brennan  B2, the radio preset button has no effect nor does the artist button.

I know its early days but I sure it will be a success.

Roger

[Richard Townsend]

I like this new look, it has a lot of potential for development.

I noticed the appearance and behaviour of the progress and volume widgets is quite different on Waterfox and Chromium browsers.

On Waterfox, the widgets have a circular marker at the current setting. When I click on the marker I can use the mouse scroll wheel to adjust the position, which is nice.

On Chromium, the widget don't display a marker, but when I put the mouse pointer on the current position, it changes to a double-headed arrow and I can then click and drag to change the position.

Is this just due to the browser's widget set or do you have different coding for these?

Also, there is no numerical display of the current volume setting.

Note: my PC is running Linux Mint 19.2

[Dennis Lefebvre]

Using Chrome 78 on a Chromebook:

When I click Radio Presets in the left column, nothing happens.

When I click My Music > Playlists the album covers are replaced by colored squares, but the colors displayed do not match the default color names of the first playlists. Below each square is a matching color strip. What function?

[Nick Hickson]

Hmmm, I don't get a thing on my tablet when I type in that address.

[Nick Hickson]

"added a new web UI for you to look at - type 192.168.0.4/v3.html (using your IP address)." Does this mean I actually type this address or the one I originally as indicated on my B2's screen with /v3.html appended?

[Richard Townsend]

The latter.

...and of course update your B2 first ;-)

[Dennis Lefebvre]

First, you have to run Web Upgrade to install the new software.

Second, note the IP address used by your B2

Third, open browser on tablet and enter: http://YOUR.B2.IP.ADDRESS/v3.html

[Nick Hickson]

I updated my B2 last week which got back missing artwork! There's no update since, is there?

[Tim]

A radical new look Martin, will take some getting used to.  If you have album art, it is a really striking look.

Like Roger, I am using Safari and have the question mark where the logo should be at the top and also another question mark next to Album under search.  I would be sorry not to have the option of keeping the old look, but do like the striking new look.

Tim

[Tim]

Also, the album art for the currently playing album is pretty small

Tim

[Richard Townsend]

Yes, a new update was release today (11th).

See https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/latestSoftware

[Dennis Lefebvre]

On Friday, October 11, 2019 at 3:23:33 PM UTC-4, Nick Hickson wrote:

There's no update since, is there?

Yes. See here: https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/latestSoftware

If you updated last week you have the 1 October version. To try the new Web UI you need the 11 October version. 

[Leslie Brownlee]

Hi Martin, had a play around with the v3 Web UI on my Windows 10 laptop using Chrome.

Home tab - Looks very good with the artwork  - seems to select the 1st Album cover you have for the Artist if you have several by them. I noticed the Brennan logo and the Album icon/toggle didn't load up for me (see screenshot). While toggling to Albums and Tracks the UI locked up, and I had to leave a while for it to execute the change. Would eventually get there, sometimes with quite a long delay. Played some music and was able to click on the album name in the bottom of screen playing bar and the Artist and Album areas above populated with the Artists albums and the Album playing tracks. Tried next and previous buttons and they worked fine. Tried Random and it worked fine too. However, when disengaging it again and then clicking next track it didn't always play the next track from the playing album. Would jump to a random track. If next track was pressed again sometimes it would play the expected next track on the album, and other times a random track, as if the random play hadn't disengaged or the execution of the command hadn't caught up.

The layout does look good though. Very visual for those who like their artwork. Having said that it does expose deficiencies in artwork if the image you have is poor.

Radio - search worked and played fine. Only checked a couple of stations though. BBC Radio 2 and 4, and Morow (Prog Rock station)

Radio Presets - no response

Youtube - History loaded ok. Played a selection. Played ok, but selecting another locked UI up for a while. A bit glitchy.

USB - didn't try.

CD Rip - didn't try

Playlists - my playlists are only genre lists of Artists, but they were there and played. The distance between the playlist items and the play button is considerable and you could select the wrong item by mistake because of this.

Overall has great potential and looks good. A few glitches to be ironed out and I'm sure there'll be plenty of feedback. Only tried things out I use. I'm sure others will check out CD ripping, USB port usage and the upload facility. 

Things need to load up quicker without freezing/locking up the UI, but promising.

[Leslie Brownlee]

Tim, if you click on the album name in the playing window the Artist and Album with tracks will open above it.

[Nick Hickson]

Ah, that would explain things then. Thanks.

[Dennis Lefebvre]

See attached screenshots which illustrate:

A) Text in the Search Brennan box is too small.

B) Insufficient contrast between the Search Brennan box background color and the text color.

C) The Search results unexpectedly include radio stations.

 D) The only ways I can see all three of the Search toggles is to set the browser to Full Screen mode -or- use <Ctrl -> to Zoom to 90% or smaller. 

[Jasper Warwick]

Hi,

I do realise this is work in progress and I may well not be typical in how I use the B2. 

My first reaction was "This looks great" however I very quickly found that the the new interface gives a lot less useful information than the old system and (for me) is not as usable, Artist and album playlists are how I access my music on the B2. On the old system I could browse an artist playlist of say "Jazz", clicking on an entry brought up the albums for that artist on the right of the screen, click on an album I can see the tracks, It is very easy to use and gives a massive amount of well orderd information on the screen. Being able able to lock the search pane to the current playlist is brilliant and makes the system really powerful to use. OK it does look at bit dated but it terms of effectivily managing my access to a library of 1200 CDs it really is first rate.

The new system is a real downgrad in terms of functionality to my mind, it looks prettier but is not as usable (unlike the new mobile UI which is a massive improvement on the old version both in terms of look and feel and functionality). The big album images means that I can only see 5 of my 500 of my artists at anyone time (the old system I could see 25 at a time). This makes just scrolling through the list much more difficult. The playists list hides the album and track lists so if you are looking at a list of artists or albums you cannot see the next level of hierachy. It seems to be much less efficient in how it used the screen space. There is a lot of space that basically does nothing.

Sorry not to be more positive.

Jasper.

[Rick H]

I did the web upgrade but I don't see any change in the  Web UI from what's been. Nothing new at all. I am using the Google Chrome browser which works fine with the UI I have been using since I got my B2. Did I do something wrong? Or is this UI only for mobile devices?

[Dennis Lefebvre]

On Friday, October 11, 2019 at 8:21:02 PM UTC-4, Rick H wrote:

....don't see any change in the  Web UI ....

You need to type the new URL in the browser:

[Rick H]

Which is exactly what I did. The IP address for my B2 is provided by a T-Link wireless amplifier (which acts as a mini router. I get one of two addresses on the B2: 10.0.0.162 which works currently, or 10.0.0.250. Perhaps the T-link is the reason. But, I need the T-Link as my ISP router is located too far away for the B2. I don't really care as long as I have a web UI that works. Which this one does. I was curious to see what the new interface looked like and could do. I also ran a scan disk from the menu after doing the software upgrade.

[Dennis Lefebvre]

When you look at the Web UI page in your browser, what is displayed in the address bar:

http://10.0.0.162/original.html#

-or-

http://10.0.0.162/v3.html

[Rick H]

Ahhh, ok. Now I get it. It's a new address. I changed the address to the "V3" one and now am seeing the new UI. Duh. Thanks, Dennis.

[Rick H]

Looks great. But not seeing any of my radio presets.. At least not on my copy of Google Chrome. Do I need to reload them all?

[Tim]

Thanks Leslie.  

Jasper's comments are interesting, and I know what he means.  In terms of reviewing your collection of albums and possibly doing any re-naming, or re-organising, I agree that the old UI is probably much better.  I have about 2,400 cds.  However, the new UI is certainly much "prettier."  It looks incredibly striking.  It takes a little getting used to and seems almost to have to warm up before it becomes responsive.

Tim

[Nick Hickson]

Yes, at the moment, yuk. Very pretty but sluggish and tedious to trawl through several hundred CDs. Standard tablet/laptop UI serves the purpose much better. In my usage I just want to select an 'album' or classical CD and press 'Play' and if accessing from my tablet then just close the book lid and listen.

[Jasper Warwick]

Following on from my last comments; the new interface works well if you know what you want to play. finding an artist or album is simple and the results page generated by the search is quite usable.

The problem for me is with 500 artists and 1200 CDs most of the time I don't know what I want to play. What I do currently is bring up a playlist of artists by genre then scan down the list until I find something that inspires me, I then click on the artist and immediately see a list of albums and tracks in the right of the screen. If I then change my mind I just continue scrolling until another artist jumps out at me. The process is quick, and does not involve jumping around screens. It is way better than the interfaces of other music systems I have (Denon Ceol, iTunes, Black Player). The new system does not allow me to do this and unless something radically changed in how it works I would find it very difficult to browse my collection with the new desktop UI.

Jasper.

[Nick Hickson]

All my classical composers are under Artist list and all load slowly in a rather confined screen space on laptop and then seemingly an endless list of Internet radio stations follow as well! Why is this? Maybe I need to turn off something?

[bryterjames]

This is the main ‘problem’ for myself also. Whilst the playlists function now is easily accessible, a good improvement, this new version has made a few of my playlists redundant. Like you I have several playlists made up from a ‘genre’. I have a ‘Classical’ playlist, for example, containing classical artists by name. If I were to click on a name, said artists music in my collection would appear on the right hand side columns of the browser. With this ‘beta’ browser it is no longer possible to see the extra tiers within in a playlist. Fine if a playlist is only individual tracks, but not if it is genre or artist albums based.

The playlist layout feature on the current, non beta, browser has been a God send due to the lack of a third tier within the Artist/Album/Tracklist, set up.


Seeing as the software does not allow for an extra tier, i.e a subsection of an artist’s catalogue I have had to create several different ‘Artists’ entries as a work around.

I’ll use The Beatles as an example. There are many issues and reissues in The Beatles catalogue. This is where an extra tier would be useful, and, in my opinion a necessity for the CD collector, especially with classical music as well.

As things stand, if I were to just have every Beatles CD in my collection filed under ‘The Beatles’ the album column would be an never ending mess, with same album names and bonus discs.

With an extra tier I could organise things as such - The Beatles / (Extra Subsection, i.e Mono Box set, Stereo box set, original CD issues, Giles Martin Remixes, and so on / Album / Tracklist.

[Margaret Hall]

Please can I second Jasper Warwick's comments? I have 647 artists represented on just under 1500 albums & use playlists to select in exactly the same manner. I also retain my CD collection accessibly so I can consult sleeve notes (to see eg. who is soloing on a particular piece) & don't store artwork. Maybe retain the existing UI as an option for those who prefer utility to pretty on the B2?

[John Lang Wilson]

The new UI is very promising. I used it all day yesterday without problems.

Only one point so far : I have been unable to find the graphic equaliser using it. 

[David Billingham]

Hi

I think is really excellent.

Attached is a screenshot from my PC using Chrome at 1920 * 1080 resolution.

Obviously a couple of images missing and the image for the playing track is being squeezed off the bottom bar.

Thought: although I know there is a vertical scroll bar for the albumns along the top, I was expecting that to scroll horizontally. I wonder whether that would work better than vertically?

David

[VRB]

Hi all

 i love the look of the new ui but the scrolling of the album art looked a bit out of sync to me having to scroll up then down to centre the art seemed clunky i know its in development but i love the original alphabetic scrolling of the artist list  

regards 

           vince 

[Leslie Brownlee]

Hi David, my image of the new v3 Web UI is slightly different to yours. Having said that, I'm using a 15" laptop with Windows 10. Screen resolution is 1366 x 768. My browser is Chrome with zoom set to 80%. Just tried it at 90% and 100% and worked fine, but have to do more scrolling to see info. Above 80% the search window and Artist, Album and Track toggles are slightly out of the frame and you have to scroll to see them completely. 80% they are all visible. My playing window is complete and also shows the time played/time left bar, which is missing in your screenshot. Try playing around with the Chrome zoom settings to see if it changes things. I find the new UI works, but is unstable and easily locks up for periods for me. I like it but the main UI works well for me at present. Will keeping checking on improvements to the v3 though, because it has great potential.

[Rick H]

I like the look of V3. But, presets don't work. I know it's new and still under development. But, perhaps that could be fixed at some point? I use preset radio a lot. Works pretty well on the old UI so I'll keep using that and check on the new one from time to time as well as keep posted on new developments with it.

[Bill Garlin]

I like the overall look on my desktop monitor.  More modern but less information at a glance. Harder to scan the available albums or playlists. Maybe smaller graphic squares to show more?

[Keith Houghton]

I like the more modern look,but the album art inthe bottom left hand corner is partially hidden,my list of presets has dissapeared.I like the idea of the albums appearing as a visual list,could there be a typed list also for faster access.Still finding my way round at the moment

[Nick Hickson]

I don't get this, to be honest. On my laptop running W10 and a 15" screen, it takes ages to load all the artwork for my relatively meagre 300 CDs and then notice on my computers download meter that several hunre MBs have been downloaded in the process. 

Whilst the artwork is slowly appearing if I click on one of them to play the tracks contained therein, it takes ages for the album appearing elsewhere (bottom right quadrant?) 

The other Web UI is instantaneous and lean in operation and that is only surely what one needs to operate the B2 other than a load of knob twiddling on the unit itself.

[David Tellett]

Had a play with the v3 on my laptop. A few comments. I like that it makes more of some of the album art but I find that window irritatingly small and tricky to scroll.

The ‘now playing” bar at the bottom is, for me, much too small and hidden. It gets lost at the bottom of my screen and my preference is to see the album art of the thing I’m playing much bigger and more obvious. I guess I’m old school in that it reminds me of gazing at the vinyl cover while listening in the olden days! 😂

The search bar and options are too low and hidden compared to the rest of the menu items above.

In short, happy to have another UI option as long as versions 1 and (in particular) 2 (mobile) remain active. I love switching between the UIs actually and have all three as shortcuts on my devices 👍
It means I can choose one for mood, functionality, display or whatever. It would be nice to have yet more options!

[Chrissy7090]

Hi all

Just a question. What device(s) is this new Ui aimed at? I can use four different devices with v1 &v2. With v3 the only device functioning with any degree of success is a PC. My android phone is totally a non starter ( expected) . My IPad several essential features do not work at all - RADIO PRESETS & VOLUME SLIDER for example. Amazon Fire tablet surprisingly works best of all but again no RADIO PRESETS. Now I realise Rome wasn’t built in a day and I know Martin in the past has sorted virtually every problem thrown at him on this forum but I for one feel as good looking as v3 is its not for me until some essentials are sorted out.

Best regards

Chris

[David Tellett]

Couple of things I forgot...

1. Love the little drop shadow on the “now playing” text. Very nice!

2. Thinking about the order of the main options, and what intuitively hits the eye. Personally, I’d have all the “play” options prioritised over things like USB, upload etc.

So home, playlists, radio, presets, search (especially search,), YTube, Now Playing etc should all be more “obvious” than the more “back office functions”. Perhaps these could be hidden in a fold-out menu?

David

[David Tellett]

Oh, another request, but for the Mobile UI (which is my Go To)...

Looking at V3, the progress bar is lovely and small and neat. Could this be added to the Mobile UI on the playing screen? It’s the thing I miss most while on the Mobile UI!

Time for a coffee....🍺😊

[Brian R]

As others have said it looks pretty but I'm not sure I like it.

A number of forum contributors seem to need visual images of the music and this should appeal to them.

I prefer the original UI layout, it's far more logical and less messy so I hope that it will continue to be supported.

Brian

[Leslie Brownlee]

Playing around on the v3 UI again today. 

Very glitchy on my Windows 10 laptop, and easily locks up when navigating different selections or commands.

Did manage to rip a CD and retrieve artwork and CD info ie. Artist, Album and track listings. However, when I tried to find the album using the search feature the UI locked up. Had to close it and open the original UI and use it's search to check if it ripped ok, which it did. My WiFi signal at best is only -63 to -67 dBm (even with the long antenna), but at that, the original Web UI is pretty stable and rarely gives problems. I find the mobile UI slow to populate the album artwork on my android phone, and the v3 on my laptop is the same. Takes too long to load up and at present is also too easily confused. Have managed to get it to play random tracks with the Random play off, and play consecutive tracks on an album with it on. Other times it plays Random play correctly.

Don't know if the presets don't work, or have yet to be activated as Martin did say it is still being developed. Don't think any feedback so far has mentioned them working.

The main block of Artists with an album image reminds me of flicking through vinyl albums covers or CDs in a record shop (remember those). For those with a huge music collection, it would be nice if the RH scroll bar acted like the contacts feature on my phone. As you start scrolling, the alphabet comes up and you can hit a letter and it jumps to the contacts starting with that letter. In this case, it would be the artists.

As others have said, it is very visual, but has a way to go before it reaches the easy functionality of the original UI. Look forward to seeing how things progress.

Actually, while playing around with it I find it grows on you. Too unstable for me at the moment though, so back to the original UI.

 

[Jonathan Marsh]

Hi, also like the new look, these are my first thoughts, can we still have both views ? For now ? So that's 3 with the mobile.

I'm using an android tablet with a 10 inch display and can scroll through the top window for artist, album or track - could the scroll bar on the right be slightly wider, also only lists about half of artists before finding the rest and then resetting scroll bar.

I find it easier to find an artist by looking at the album pictures instead of a list of names, it feels your going through you albums and thinking I haven't played that one for a while, oh, that one! , I'm playing that one next.

Also i like when you select an artist you get another list as you scroll down the screen of the albums and tracks, also works when you select the album or track. The buttons as highlighted in green are more clearer.

As for improvements - could the play bar at the bottom be minimised as an option - button on bar, at the start of each track pops up and then minimises, the same for the main options on the left, so you can have a full screen to scroll through.

[Rik]

It's not too good for me as I don’t always know what I want to listen to and I need to look at my albums. I can do that nicely on the original UI, scrolling through the alphabetical list, but not on the v3 which shows only two or three album covers or tiles and a glimpse of a couple more, depending on the font size and orientation of the tablet.  I don’t have a great deal of album art and the coloured tiles are rather large, though much nicer than the nasty crossed-out camera icon on the mobile UI.

It’s also laggy, being sometimes very slow to change to the album I’ve chosen.  Some don’t want to appear at all or take too long. Oddly at the moment when I choose an album performed by Alfred Brendel that album doesn’t appear at all underneath but just a list of his albums under the title 'Artist Alfred Brendel'.

 I find this list of other works the artist is performing unhelpful anyway. It takes up too much room in the middle of the page and is distracting. I don’t base my listening on searching for an artist. 

On my laptop In landscape orientation things are even worse. The coloured icon for an album which doesn’t have cover art and which I have chosen often is out of place and covers information underneath.   The grey banner at the bottom with the controls covers the search options.  I can write in the 'Search' area but 'Album', 'Artists' and 'Tracks' are hidden. 

I do like the look of the playlists.  

So, at the moment I’m very happy with the original classic view 

[Nick Hickson]

Rik. I agree with almost all of that. I made sure that I had all album art for my classical collection only 300 CDs and in some cases had to photograph CD covers where the originals were no longer available from the various databases.

[Dick Cooper]

I see the comments on v3 have died down, so after reading them, may I say --

It's odd that the album art in the Now Playing banner across the bottom (i.e. the song I'm interested in because I'm playing it right now) is only a third of the size of the cover art in the Home screen (the first few artists in my collection) - well actually, I see the cover art for the first album for the artist (with no album count or any other indication of multiple albums). It would be nice to be able to scale the art in the main screen since all mine is 200x200 pix and doesn't look too good on even a small laptop.

And if we're getting a random artist in the bottom of the main screen (above the now playing bar), why not a random selection of artists in the top of the screen (the bit under the unnecessarily large logo)? Or at least the album art for the Now Playing album shown first?

Also, I don't know what's wrong with my playlists setup, but when I select Playlists in the left hand panel, the playlists display in the right hand panel with a coloured block instead of album art (all the albums in the playlists have a folder.jpg and all the songs have embedded cover art). Most peculiar.

Oh well, I suppose unasked-for improvements are better than nothing, although I'd still really like a Settings menu that provided the functions available from the front panel. It's not like I'm still asking for tag info to be displayed or anything difficult...

Anyway, to everyome at Brennan HQ, sincere thanks and season's greetings (i.e. Happy Winter in the northern hemisphere)

from Grumpy (I'd speak for Sleepy but, you know).