On 28 August 2011 23:22, Paul Louden <[email protected]> wrote: >> Equally, why are the settings given such high priority in the main >> menu? Sure they are useful, but after the initial player setup how >> many settings does one need access to? and given how poor the setting >> layout is it is likely regularly used configs are saved in .cfg anyway >> (and put on the quickscreen). > > I don't really think your speculation on what the most likely way > users use the settings is means much. The honest truth is, we don't > know. People have asked for a quickscreen that can hold more settings, > meaning that there's at least 5 settings they want to change > regularly. There are many people who didn't even know you could save > custom .cfg files. We have no real way of knowing how the typical user > experiences Rockbox. Even a poll would give a decidedly skewed result. > We should be making our decisions based on something else. Perhaps > "what will help a new user most easily find what they need." I'm not > saying that explicitly, but rather, forward-looking ideas rather than > "I think this is how users already use our software" guesses. >
That is all a failure of the manual then, that's not to say the menus aren't to blame also (we agree the settings menus suck), but not understanding config files is a pretty fundamental failure of the manual. > >> I think it makes sense to group items based on what they give the >> user. Files and Database are "Find music to play" and should be >> grouped. WPS, radio, recording are "listen to music" and should be >> grouped. System and Plugins are "misc" and should be grouped. Playlist >> catalog and bookmarks are "find previously saved playlists" and should >> be grouped. > > I don't see how grouping is beneficial. Is the idea that they need to > be in groups to make it easier for users to spot them? Are users even > going to recognize that "playlist catalog" and "bookmarks" are the > same group? I certainly don't see bookmarks as a playlisting function, > at least. "Recording" isn't related to listening to music at all, and > is arguably the exact opposite. The groups seem a little arbitrary in > the first place, but I don't see a reason "grouping" is the approach > we should take with this list. > Well of course the list is entirely arbitrary. My suggestion was to try to add some logic to it. I can't be the only one to have an opinion on this, so why dont people respond with their ideas? > To me, rather, two things should be taken into account. What's visible > on the screen on our smallest screen targets with the default theme, > and what individual items are most likely to be sought. The screen > visibility seems important because when a user first turns on our > player, especially during the period they're unfamiliar, they're going > to want to glance at the screen and see useful options. Not remember > whether they need to go up or down to get to the ones they want. I > think it's convenient for the most used options to be the least > presses away, but "visibility on boot" is a little more important. > Indeed that should be a consideration but not *the* major one. > That being said, the below list isn't bad. On the Clip+ though, the > menu is six items I believe. This means "Recording, FM and System" are > visible on boot where Bookmarks and Playlist Catalogue are not. I'd > actually recommend moving FM below WPS, and squeezing those two > between FM and Recording. I don't mean to belittle the value of > recording, as such, but many of these devices don't even have the > feature, and even those that do are mostly sold as music players. > Features like Bookmarks and Playlists should be made more > visible/accessible. Someone who's bought a unit primarily for > recording purposes probably checked that Rockbox can still record > before installing it, and will scroll down to look for it.. > Bookmarks is hidden by default. Now the real question is, why are we so bone-headedly against customisable (main)menu layouts? I personally never use the database, recording or fm so why must they have priority in my list? I know for sure others use the database primarily and see the files as being arrogantly in the wrong place. Additionally, why are we so against changing the quickscreen to be a list for those that want it like that? That said, a patch to even just allow simple reordering of the main menu isnt going to be trivial so we should figure out a better layout, or admit we have no clue and leave it as it - which still leaves us with the question of system/settings merging. >> >> The order I'd like to see is then: >> Files >> Database >> WPS >> Recording >> FM >> System >> Plugins >> Playlist Catalogue >> Bookmarks >> >
