>I think that the current behavior is pretty intuitive, the 2x, 4x >behavior was easy to accidentally trigger and didn't offer the user >much in the way of improved seeking through music files. > >What is missing, I think, is audio feedback while scanning with the >button held down. If we had that, I think we'd be pretty close to >optimal. > The thing is that it's difficult to make a binary button do a non-linear action. Holding a button down to scan means that acceleration occurs at some uncontrollable time. It would need some accelaration rules; such as double in speed every 5 secs, which could never be the desired action all of the time. If the button was released, accelerated playback would immediately stop, and would need to be ramped up again. This may happen accidentally, IR interference, finger gets numb, etc. Single presses to increase the scan rate puts total control in the hands of the user.
I could see it working okay on a transporter using the knob with acceleration. In the previous versions of the song scanner, this hasn't been accelerated, and it took some 15 whole revolutions to get from the start to the end of a track. I found that 6 presses of FWD to change the multiplier up to 64x and then pressing play at the right time with visual and audio feedback much easier and less likely to cause RSI! I don't have any trouble with accidentally triggering fast-forward; I don't think I've ever pressed and held the FWD button and then pressed it again without intending to! I think there are loads of other things that are more likely to be accidentally triggered, such as pressing power off. Incidentally, for the new scan positioning mechanism, we seem to have lost the current position indicator whilst adjusting the new position, and the timeout before accepting the new position I think is too quick. Phil _______________________________________________ beta mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/beta
