Hi, I've thought about this for a while, and I have come to the conclusion that slimserver is one of the most complicated pieces of leisure time software on my computer. In short from a UI perspective I think it is really bad. Let me list some more or less randomly chosen examples of what I mean:
Player settings. Display -Scroll pause/scroll rate configurable for one/two lines. -Scroll pixels. (Can this not just be a performance setting?) Under functions -One can configure the "Various Artists" label. (Make it a translatable string) -Timeout for entering text. (Does you mobile offer this?) -New random playlist on repeat. (Useful exactly how/when???) Under formatting -Guess tags format. (SD could just decide on e.g. /Artist/Album/ -Short/long data format. (Just make it those two to choose from.Format by locale) Interface -Number of elements pr side. -Browser refresh timing. Network -TCP parameters. Performance -Build items pr pass. -Prefs write interval -Server/server priority (All mostly performance which could be collapsed) Modules -CLI/RS232/XML/XPC (Why am I given this choice at all?) You can always argue that for "some", feature x solves this problem, or say that "you don't need to set ALL options". But that's not the point, the option is there and it can be confusing or there might be better solutions to the problem. I just listed some keywords/arguments above. To me the obvious answer to as to wether to have the options is yes, but if one really thinks about each and every one for a while, I at least find that many times there are no convincing arguments for having the option. Or the option could be simplified or changed. One idea could be to collapse many of the performance related options into a single setting for running on normal or low performance hardware. Other times it might be a matter of improving the slimserver so that things does not need a setting to work. Other times SD should just decide. E.g. the "Various Artists" setting should be a translatable string. The thing about all these options is that when users are asked wether they would like to be able to do this or that, of course they'll say yes, because why not? There are in fact good not arguments, they just aren't as obvious as the yes ones. I'm not gonna ditch my SB if this does not change, but I surely would be even happier with it if it did. Any chance of that? Bjørn PS! As I've repeatedly said, these things require thinking, and as I did not really think the list through I might be dead wrong on some of them. -- bhaagensen ------------------------------------------------------------------------ bhaagensen's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7418 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35906
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