Assuming humax99 has taken a taxi he is probably not here to read
further, but I have opinions on this topic.

I use the Material APK on an Android phone to control my players.
Inevitably the question should arise: what is the max number of buttons
that should be present in such an interface? It could be argued from the
perspective of human factors and interface design that there are already
too many buttons! I would not make that argument myself; I like it the
way it is, only suggesting that no more buttons should be added to the
basic design as it stands now.

The request to add a "power off" button next to the player name in the
basic design... my response to this: I think I could make a stronger
case for a button, using a heart-shaped icon, be added to the "Now
Playing" display so that the currently playing track could be quickly
tagged as a favorite. The only reason I never did so, (there is
precedence in streaming apps for this by the way) is because I thought
that doing this would contribute to cluttering "Now Playing." Features
vs clutter is a tricky balance.

To turn a player off, a new user has to learn about tapping on the
currently playing player in the upper-left corner of the display. To tag
what is playing as a favorite, the user will have to learn to do a long
touch on the "Playing" icon located at the bottom of the mobile/APK
display. Learning about these features will require some exploration and
possibly reading the user guide, (do I have to note that "real men"
claim they don't read user guides?)

All that said, I think an argument can be made that using color as the
primary means to convey status to the user is not a good idea. When
doing C++ Win32 GUI development in my past, I would catch hell from a
particular color-blind user whenever I forgot and did this: he would
beat me with a stupid-stick, and he was right to do so. 

In Material, when the list of known players is presented, the currently
selected player is highlighted by coloring it's icon and on/off button:)
The buttons look very nice: love them! I would suggest however doing
more, such as bolding the font for the current player's name in the
list, or something to catch the user's attention quickly. Currently I
myself have no less than 8 players that appear in this drop-down list.

Note: remember The Far Side cartoon, with the "Launch" and "Lunch"
buttons presented side-by-side to the wide-eyed operator in the missile
silo? He wanted lunch, but was terrified he might hit Launch!



*Living Room:* SB Touch + DIY PSU > CI Audio VDA.2 DAC + VAC.1 PSU >
VRX.1 cables > Emotiva XSP-1 Gen 2 preamp + XPA-DR2 amp > Blue Jeans
cables > B&W 804 speakers
*Laptop:* System76 Galago + Ubuntu 16.04 + Squeezelite +
Vivaldi/Material Skin > Emotiva Little Ego DAC > Grado PS500 headphones
*Bedroom:* RPi Zero W + Squeezelite > miniBOSS DAC HAT > Bose SoundLink
Revolve
*Phone:* Pixel 3a + SB Player + Material APK > Senn IE80 earbuds
*Server:* Puget Systems Serenity + Ubuntu 18.04 + LMS 8.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron F.'s Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5616
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=109624

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