Thanks for your input these are good suggestions. A few comments: 4) ok,
there are also toolbar buttons for this. I often wonder if giving 3 ways to
do something is helpful or not
5) I used to have the sf2 plugin preload the default. In lmms's current
state, however, it means that loading a project with an sf2 will first cause
the default to load, then the actual saved sf2 will load. This makes it
slow. It will also make it slower to simply drop a sf2 in the project.
This could possibly be worked around by restructuring much of lmms's loading
code.
6) yeah, undo is totally lacking
Paul
On Mar 4, 2010 11:37 PM, "Kevin Fishburne" <[email protected]>
wrote:
Comments on LMMS 0.4.6 (Linux/x86_64, Qt 4.5.2, GCC 4.4.1):
These are some usability suggestions that could be expected of most apps on
any OS, based loosely on conventions established by a host of "everyday"
apps. While certainly some apps should have highly customized and/or unusual
GUIs, I think LMMS is aiming for a more conventional user. Many of its
current GUI nuances remind me of apps like Maya or SoftImage where
convention is shunned and efficiency is embraced. Until everyone and their
mother knows what LMMS is I think the opposite approach should be adopted.
Here are a few discrepancies from what I feel is "conventional":
(1) Mouse hover over left vertical toolbar shows nothing. User has no
tooltips, which forces him to left-click to see what the button is, which
causes a geometrical change in the toolbar and a reorientation of his
workspace ("his" used loosely).
(2) Right-click should bring up a context menu, not solely the track name or
anything else.
(3) Remove the "tool" icon from the left pane of a track in the Song Editor,
replacing it with a context menu shown by a right-click in the left pane of
the track.
(4) Allow the addition of a new track from a context menu by right-clicking
an empty area of the left pane of the Song Editor. Context menu entries
could include each of the different input methods available (B&BE, PR),
underneath which would include the samplers/synthesizers available for each.
(5) Default SoundFont should be loaded when SF2 plugin is assigned to a
track in the Song Editor (piano, of course). Other synths do this, why not
the SF2 one (include some crappy/small but complete sf2 file for the
plugin).
(6) Control-Z doesn't undo the last action. Redo seems to be missing as
well. Sequentially caching operations, even in a plain text temp file, could
allow undo/redo operations minus destructive actions. Even saving a copy of
the project after each user action could do this with minimum overhead for
most projects.
(7) Resizing an empty sequence in the Song Editor fails without error. Only
adding notes to a given sequence visually increases its size.
(8) Deleting a sequence from the Song Editor while it's open in the Piano
Roll results in a dead but unclosed, Piano Roll window ("Please open a
pattern by double-clicking on it!"). Keep Piano Roll window active,
recreating the Song Editor sequence when a note is entered, or immediately
close the Piano Roll window upon deletion of the sequence.
(9) Child windows should be not be constrained within the confines of the
parent window. Follow traditional GTK and QT conventions, treating them
superficially as separate windows. This will easily allow such operations as
Alt-dragging, Alt-Shift-dragging, Compiz Maximunize, and multi-head setups.
I don't want to create a Wikipedia article or anything, but implementing
these suggestions should make LMMS pretty f'ing awesome as far as interface
is concerned. If not, please whip me into shape and tell me why I don't know
what I'm talking about (or tell me to program that shit myself). Modifying
the source code and unilaterally making it so is always the biggest hurdle,
so also please let me know if there simply isn't the time to do so or if the
project doesn't have a benevolent dictator. Thanks all and keep up the good
work.
Kevin Fishburne
Eight Virtues
www:
e-mail:
phone: http://www.eightvirtues.com
[email protected]
(770) 853-6271
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