Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread Be 

On 05/28/2017 03:31 PM, S.Brandt wrote:

We have retired skins in the past, if they were unmaintained, outdated
and had a successor (e.g. Outline, Phoney, LatenightBlues…).
In acknowledgment of the good work of the current contributors, we
basically keep tradition.

I`m not happy with changing the default skin once again for the 2.1
release, but if we carefully carry the existing users over, it works
just like with previous migrations.


If we have an updated version of the old default skin, then upgrading 
old users will be seamless. Changing the default would only affect new 
users.



Requirement imo is that we make the parallel waveform display for the
new default skin easily discoverable or default.


I have made split waveforms the default in Deere 2.1 because it works 
better with the filter knob and EQ knob labels showing. I think it'd be 
sufficient if we made it clear in the release announcement and website 
that both modes are available. The skin settings menu is also more 
discoverable now that it is labeled. I don't think parallel waveforms by 
default should be a strict requirement.




* Slow loading of Tango/exDeere
Most SVGs are blown up because of Inkscapes metadata spamming. With
default settings, Inkscape tents to inject all kind of stuff.
I  found saving with the  ``Optimized svg`` settings helpful.
A pre-release batch run with https://github.com/svg/svgo  should
bring down sizes by a significant amount.
Also clean-up css, and have a look at the log for warnings at skin
(re-)load.
Then test again against Shade ( which would likely load slower as
well, if feature complete, truly resizable, and had proper qss
utilization). But OK, lets take it as benchmark.


Thanks for bringing that up. I had not thought about that. Shouldn't we 
keep the Inkscape metadata in the Git repository for easier editing? We 
could add an option to scons to optimize the SVGs and use that option on 
the build server.



* Yellow LateNight
Well, it became yellow because someone liked the color ;-) , and
took the time to update the skin for the 2.0 features.
 Any reason to add yellow to any of the current 2.1 feature skins?
Not a requirement for me.


Agreed, there is no reason to add a yellow look to other skins. On the 
other hand, it seems people would prefer the old 1.x Deere look with the 
dark look & feel but without the yellow.



  None of that stops us to decide the fate of the legacy skins now.

Wth Latenight and Shade gone, it is a good time to put the Deere moniker
to rest, sweep the floor and find a proper new name.
The current version  has
evolved much from the more than 7 years old original concept.


I'll think about a new name, but I do find the "Deere skin" pun amusing. 
:P Hmmm... maybe "Gnu skin"...


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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread Josep Maria Antolin 
Hi S.Brandt.

Now that you mention Outline... the whole Wiki instructions about skins
were written around Outline.
As I found out, it was made with the now deprecated  tag, fixed
positioning (not resizable), so the skin itself is not exactly a good
example anymore, but we should think about those pages, and the concept of
a tutorial skin.

​In fact, I wanted to test precisely how speedy is Mixxx launch with the
bare minimum. (Currently, just one ), and I found out that such
thing is written differently if we have a fixed size skin, or a dinamically
sized one. (Not something that I could find on the wiki, but by checking
current skins).
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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread S.Brandt 
We have retired skins in the past, if they were unmaintained, outdated and had 
a successor (e.g. Outline, Phoney, LatenightBlues…).
In acknowledgment of the good work of the current contributors, we basically 
keep tradition.
 
I`m not happy with changing the default skin once again for the 2.1 release, 
but if we carefully carry the existing users over, it works just like with 
previous migrations.
Requirement imo is that we make the parallel waveform display for the new 
default skin easily discoverable or default.

* Slow loading of Tango/exDeere
Most SVGs are blown up because of Inkscapes metadata spamming. With default 
settings, Inkscape tents to inject all kind of stuff.
I  found saving with the  ``Optimized svg`` settings helpful.
A pre-release batch run with https://github.com/svg/svgo 
  should bring down sizes by a significant amount.
Also clean-up css, and have a look at the log for warnings at skin 
(re-)load.
Then test again against Shade ( which would likely load slower as well, if 
feature complete, truly resizable, and had proper qss utilization). But OK, 
lets take it as benchmark.
* Yellow LateNight
Well, it became yellow because someone liked the color ;-) , and took the 
time to update the skin for the 2.0 features.
 Any reason to add yellow to any of the current 2.1 feature skins? Not a 
requirement for me.
* Cardwall/Radio skin
This comes up on occasion for years, but nothing really came out of it.
If there is demand, one can build a generic card wall with the existing 
features within Mixxx.
But lets be realistic: If done right, it won’t happen for 2.1
For a kicker cardwall -  master sync for sampler, playback modes 
 and loop recorders 
 are requirements imo.
  
  None of that stops us to decide the fate of the legacy skins now.

Wth Latenight and Shade gone, it is a good time to put the Deere moniker to 
rest, sweep the floor and find a proper new name.
The current version  has evolved 
much from the more than 7 years old original concept.


S.Brandt 
Mixxx - Free Digital DJ Mixing Software
www.mixxx.org  | Get Involved 
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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread Daniel Schürmann 
> It seems we have an emerging consensus to remove Shade and update
LateNight. Are we in agreement on this?

Not yet. Here are my Netbook Test results:

Mixxx load time:
* Shade 7 s
* Tango 59 s
* Deere 2.1 32 s

Deere 2.1 issues:
* To big for maximized, view. Window decoration and task bar at too big
(Linux Mint)
* Everything is looking quite oversized and foreign. Important infos like
waveform overview is quite small.
* Mixer region is squashed (overlapping knobs) if skin setting is open.
* The same happens in the looping region and header bar.
* Library cover art consumes too much space from the tree view.
* Title font is to big, always elided.
* No knob for adjusting key.
* No way to start broadcasting from the skin.
* Insufficient broadcast status.
* Star rating consumes space of the artist name.
* Four decks, no library.

Tango:
* Decks are scaling well, bottom bar looks oversized.
* Shut down time is also quite long, including the famous "app does not
react" message.
 * Crash with GL waveform, strange.

Conclusion:
Keep Shade.
Deere does not work good. Tango works by design, but 59 s start up time is
a no go. For now I will continue to use Shade on this device.

I think it would be best to optimize Shade even more for small screens
using the well working Tango layout.

LateNight:
I am curious to hear Owens opinion.
For now I think we can drop Shade if we have a yellowish alternative.



Am 28.05.2017 7:08 nachm. schrieb "Be" :

> On 05/28/2017 12:04 PM, Be wrote:
>
>> On 05/28/2017 11:36 AM, Daniel Schürmann wrote:
>>
>>> @Stephan: thank you for stepping in here.
>>>
>>> Is a card wall only skin really sufficient for a radio station, or is it
>>> only one device, along with a dual CD player and such?
>>> Looking at dedicated broadcasting apps, the often feature a card wall
>>> with a common volume slider + two dedicated decks we with individual
>>> volume sliders.
>>> Should we consider this his ad well?
>>>
>>
>> Yes, the current sampler grids are just a quick hack to approximate a
>> more versatile sampler deck feature. With the Hercules P32 mapping I
>> have made these work more like decks by making the controller script
>> assign the samplers to the corresponding sides of the crossfader. It
>> would be great to group samplers into a virtual "deck" with all the
>> normal deck controls like volume faders and EQs. This would also make it
>> more practical to manage putting effects on samplers. We should look
>> into Traktor's sampler deck and remix deck features for inspiration. I
>> think we can come up with a single unified sampler/remix deck feature
>> that could work equally well for live remixing and radio DJs.
>>
>>
> I think a sampler/remix deck feature would be a good GSoC project for next
> year, unless a contributor steps up to implement it before then.
>
> 
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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread Be 

On 05/28/2017 12:04 PM, Be wrote:

On 05/28/2017 11:36 AM, Daniel Schürmann wrote:

@Stephan: thank you for stepping in here.

Is a card wall only skin really sufficient for a radio station, or is it
only one device, along with a dual CD player and such?
Looking at dedicated broadcasting apps, the often feature a card wall
with a common volume slider + two dedicated decks we with individual
volume sliders.
Should we consider this his ad well?


Yes, the current sampler grids are just a quick hack to approximate a
more versatile sampler deck feature. With the Hercules P32 mapping I
have made these work more like decks by making the controller script
assign the samplers to the corresponding sides of the crossfader. It
would be great to group samplers into a virtual "deck" with all the
normal deck controls like volume faders and EQs. This would also make it
more practical to manage putting effects on samplers. We should look
into Traktor's sampler deck and remix deck features for inspiration. I
think we can come up with a single unified sampler/remix deck feature
that could work equally well for live remixing and radio DJs.



I think a sampler/remix deck feature would be a good GSoC project for 
next year, unless a contributor steps up to implement it before then.


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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread Be 
It seems we have an emerging consensus to remove Shade and update 
LateNight. Are we in agreement on this?


On 05/26/2017 03:02 AM, Be wrote:

We have lots of changes to the UI for Mixxx 2.1, but significant work
has only been done on the Deere and Tango skins. We need to decide what
to do about LateNight and Shade.

LateNight and Shade are both still using raster graphics. Now that we
have support for scaling skins for high resolution screens, which are
becoming increasingly common on new laptops and monitors, they won't
scale well unless they're vectorized. Shade does not resize, so it only
makes good use of space on low resolution (netbook) displays. LateNight
wastes a lot of vertical space and feels cramped, especially with 4
decks, on 1366x768 screens, which is the most common laptop/desktop
screen resolution in use today. Combined with having to scale raster
graphics, LateNight only looks good on a narrow range of resolutions
(1920x1080). LateNight could be redesigned to make better use of space,
but that would be *a lot* of work that would take months to do well.
Deere and Tango both fit in netbook resolutions and use vector graphics,
so they scale from small resolutions to high resolutions. Deere now
supports both split and parallel waveform modes well, so we don't need
LateNight for those who prefer parallel waveforms.

So, we no longer have compelling needs to continue to maintain LateNight
and Shade. The only reason to keep them would be because people like the
aesthetics of them, but to keep them, they need a lot of maintenance
work done. I hope people step up. It would be a shame to drop skins
people like just because no one maintains them.

Here are changes that would need to be done at a minimum:
* Effects: 2 rows of 2 Effect Units with only one row showing by
default. Each Effect Unit shows 3 effects' metaknobs, enable button, and
effect selector, plus the chain dry/wet knob when
[EffectRack1_EffectUnitX], show_parameters is 0. When show_parameters is
set to 1, add the parameter knobs and buttons, plus metaknob linking and
inversion buttons. Both the parameters hidden and parameters showing
views need to support drawing a border around the focused effect and
showing the effect focus buttons. An expand/collapse icon needs to be
designed for toggling show_parameters (as well as for the samplers).
Effect unit routing buttons go in the decks, samplers, microphones, and
auxiliary input sections, not the effect units, except for the master
and headphone routing buttons.
* Looping and beatjumping: BeatSpinBoxes for beatloop_size and
beatjump_size, buttons for beatloop_activate, reloop_toggle, loop_in,
loop_out, beatjump_backward, and beatjump_forward. The beatloop_activate
and reloop_toggle buttons will require designing new icons.
* Samplers: show rows of 8 samplers, with the number of rows
configurable in the skin up to 8 rows. Each row can be individually
switched between a collapsed and expanded view.
* Use new recording length widget
* Fix an old bug from 2.0: all skins show show a split cue mode button

I think all of that could be accomplished in several weeks for one skin.
You can refer to the code of Deere and Tango for details on implementing
these changes.

Does anyone want to step up to maintain LateNight or Shade? If we decide
to remove a skin, we can post it on the forum to download for those who
wish to keep using it despite it being outdated and incompatible with
controller mappings.

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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread Be 

On 05/28/2017 11:36 AM, Daniel Schürmann wrote:

@Stephan: thank you for stepping in here.

Is a card wall only skin really sufficient for a radio station, or is it
only one device, along with a dual CD player and such?
Looking at dedicated broadcasting apps, the often feature a card wall
with a common volume slider + two dedicated decks we with individual
volume sliders.
Should we consider this his ad well?


Yes, the current sampler grids are just a quick hack to approximate a 
more versatile sampler deck feature. With the Hercules P32 mapping I 
have made these work more like decks by making the controller script 
assign the samplers to the corresponding sides of the crossfader. It 
would be great to group samplers into a virtual "deck" with all the 
normal deck controls like volume faders and EQs. This would also make it 
more practical to manage putting effects on samplers. We should look 
into Traktor's sampler deck and remix deck features for inspiration. I 
think we can come up with a single unified sampler/remix deck feature 
that could work equally well for live remixing and radio DJs.




@be: why not add a dedicated "Deere Card Wall"? This can be re-use all
files from the Deere folder, just coming with its own skin.xml. For such
a radio use case, all additional configuration features are just
clutter. Instead we can focus on different config options, we discover
usefull for radio DJ as required when using it.


My hesitation is mostly because of the maintenance burden. I think we 
should try to do as much as we can with unified skins. If we end up 
deciding that different use cases have incompatible needs, then we could 
clone the skins and rearrange the skin.xml files right before the 
release. Otherwise we'll have to continually synchronize the skins each 
time a change is made.




The extra window card wall extending current​ Deere is also a good idea
an should not be hard to implement following RJs idea in the liked bug.

Of cause it is not that flexible as we now it from certain development
tools, but it exactly solves the use case to drive a disk screen setup.
I prefer that way, as a short term solution, instead of waiting ages for
a widged docking skin.


Okay, but let's leave this for after 2.1.




Am 28.05.2017 6:00 nachm. schrieb "Be" >:

I do not see anything different from a "cart wall player" and a grid
of samplers other than the name. Cart wall software displays more
information at a glance on the samplers like user defined color
coding. Those features do not yet exist in Mixxx. It would be nice
to add them and not just for radio users. I don't think this will
require separate skins for radio DJs.


On 05/27/2017 06:20 PM, Stéphane Lepin wrote:

Hi everyone,
I think a dedicated "carts-only" skin, with only samplers and
library
access, could be an interesting addition for radio people, as this
category of users would not be immediately interested by the
DJing decks
while looking for a cartwall software. I quickly tweaked
LateNight to
add more sampler decks, so I will try to make a draft
cartwall-only skin.


This is already possible with Deere by dragging the decks/library
splitter all the way to the top. We could add an option to the skin
settings menu to make it more obvious and add the same option to Tango.

Looking at Deere this way, I think the vertical order of the parts
of the skin might be a little odd for radio DJs: samplers, mic/aux
inputs, then library. Would it be better to put the mic/aux inputs
above the samplers? Maybe effects should go below both mics/aux and
samplers?



Idea: add a dedicated window for the cartwall/sampler decks.
This would
especially be useful for home radio studios, where radio DJs with
dual-monitor setups could use Mixxx's DJ decks (with or without
AutoDJ)
on one screen and put a large cartwall window on another screen.


It would be nice if we could have parts of the skin in a separate
window, but the skin system has no way to do this. It would be
pretty tricky to make this work well with the existing system. Refer
to the discussion on https://bugs.launchpad.net/mixxx/+bug/1152575



Kind regards,
Stéphane Lepin

2017-05-27 22:35 GMT+02:00 Daniel Schürmann 
>>:


Hi,

I have found a good reference for a card wall player I had
in mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JBaUZo51mg

>

I think it would be

Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread Daniel Schürmann 
@Stephan: thank you for stepping in here.

Is a card wall only skin really sufficient for a radio station, or is it
only one device, along with a dual CD player and such?
Looking at dedicated broadcasting apps, the often feature a card wall with
a common volume slider + two dedicated decks we with individual volume
sliders.
Should we consider this his ad well?

@be: why not add a dedicated "Deere Card Wall"? This can be re-use all
files from the Deere folder, just coming with its own skin.xml. For such a
radio use case, all additional configuration features are just clutter.
Instead we can focus on different config options, we discover usefull for
radio DJ as required when using it.

The extra window card wall extending current​ Deere is also a good idea an
should not be hard to implement following RJs idea in the liked bug.

Of cause it is not that flexible as we now it from certain development
tools, but it exactly solves the use case to drive a disk screen setup. I
prefer that way, as a short term solution, instead of waiting ages for a
widged docking skin.


Am 28.05.2017 6:00 nachm. schrieb "Be" :

I do not see anything different from a "cart wall player" and a grid of
samplers other than the name. Cart wall software displays more information
at a glance on the samplers like user defined color coding. Those features
do not yet exist in Mixxx. It would be nice to add them and not just for
radio users. I don't think this will require separate skins for radio DJs.


On 05/27/2017 06:20 PM, Stéphane Lepin wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> I think a dedicated "carts-only" skin, with only samplers and library
> access, could be an interesting addition for radio people, as this
> category of users would not be immediately interested by the DJing decks
> while looking for a cartwall software. I quickly tweaked LateNight to
> add more sampler decks, so I will try to make a draft cartwall-only skin.
>

This is already possible with Deere by dragging the decks/library splitter
all the way to the top. We could add an option to the skin settings menu to
make it more obvious and add the same option to Tango.

Looking at Deere this way, I think the vertical order of the parts of the
skin might be a little odd for radio DJs: samplers, mic/aux inputs, then
library. Would it be better to put the mic/aux inputs above the samplers?
Maybe effects should go below both mics/aux and samplers?



> Idea: add a dedicated window for the cartwall/sampler decks. This would
> especially be useful for home radio studios, where radio DJs with
> dual-monitor setups could use Mixxx's DJ decks (with or without AutoDJ)
> on one screen and put a large cartwall window on another screen.
>

It would be nice if we could have parts of the skin in a separate window,
but the skin system has no way to do this. It would be pretty tricky to
make this work well with the existing system. Refer to the discussion on
https://bugs.launchpad.net/mixxx/+bug/1152575


> Kind regards,
> Stéphane Lepin
>
> 2017-05-27 22:35 GMT+02:00 Daniel Schürmann  >:
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I have found a good reference for a card wall player I had in mind:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JBaUZo51mg
> 
>
> I think it would be far more straight forward to start from the
> scratch instead of putting this into Deere and Tango. On the other
> hand It will also work as a view setting for one of them: "Radio mode"
> Finally it is only the way to get to it. Switch skin vs. Switch view
> option. Remember that we had a lot more skins in Mixxx 1.1, one for
> every resolution.
>
>
> > I don't think "instantly usable by default" is necessary, as long as
> it is easy and obvious how to configure the skin settings for a radio DJ
> use case.
>
> Yes, that is the point. A new user should be instantly be aware that
> Mixxx has a radio mode, that's all.
>
> > I suggest trying Tango and the updated Deere skins on your netbook
> before deciding to put in the work to update Shade. If there are some
> modifications we can make to those skins to work better for netbooks, that
> would be a lot less work than updating Shade.
>
> Yes of cause, I will do this, this is already planed.
>
> >> How about to save the yellowish​ into Deere?
> >> This way we can argue, that we have merged Deere and LateNight?
>
> > Definitely not. The reason I started working on Deere was because I
> like its color scheme.
>
> Why not, you could keep the blue color schema and add a yellow one.
> The colour is just a matter of taste and it was considered as
> beautiful when it was introduced. Sometimes a color can also be an
> eye-catching and characteristic design, even it is out of fashion.
>
>
> >> Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not, and
> has to do with loading times. It is known that Deere takes nearly double
>

Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-28 Thread Be 
I do not see anything different from a "cart wall player" and a grid of 
samplers other than the name. Cart wall software displays more 
information at a glance on the samplers like user defined color coding. 
Those features do not yet exist in Mixxx. It would be nice to add them 
and not just for radio users. I don't think this will require separate 
skins for radio DJs.


On 05/27/2017 06:20 PM, Stéphane Lepin wrote:

Hi everyone,
I think a dedicated "carts-only" skin, with only samplers and library
access, could be an interesting addition for radio people, as this
category of users would not be immediately interested by the DJing decks
while looking for a cartwall software. I quickly tweaked LateNight to
add more sampler decks, so I will try to make a draft cartwall-only skin.


This is already possible with Deere by dragging the decks/library 
splitter all the way to the top. We could add an option to the skin 
settings menu to make it more obvious and add the same option to Tango.


Looking at Deere this way, I think the vertical order of the parts of 
the skin might be a little odd for radio DJs: samplers, mic/aux inputs, 
then library. Would it be better to put the mic/aux inputs above the 
samplers? Maybe effects should go below both mics/aux and samplers?




Idea: add a dedicated window for the cartwall/sampler decks. This would
especially be useful for home radio studios, where radio DJs with
dual-monitor setups could use Mixxx's DJ decks (with or without AutoDJ)
on one screen and put a large cartwall window on another screen.


It would be nice if we could have parts of the skin in a separate 
window, but the skin system has no way to do this. It would be pretty 
tricky to make this work well with the existing system. Refer to the 
discussion on https://bugs.launchpad.net/mixxx/+bug/1152575




Kind regards,
Stéphane Lepin

2017-05-27 22:35 GMT+02:00 Daniel Schürmann >:

Hi,

I have found a good reference for a card wall player I had in mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JBaUZo51mg


I think it would be far more straight forward to start from the
scratch instead of putting this into Deere and Tango. On the other
hand It will also work as a view setting for one of them: "Radio mode"
Finally it is only the way to get to it. Switch skin vs. Switch view
option. Remember that we had a lot more skins in Mixxx 1.1, one for
every resolution.


> I don't think "instantly usable by default" is necessary, as long as it 
is easy and obvious how to configure the skin settings for a radio DJ use case.

Yes, that is the point. A new user should be instantly be aware that
Mixxx has a radio mode, that's all.

> I suggest trying Tango and the updated Deere skins on your netbook before 
deciding to put in the work to update Shade. If there are some modifications we 
can make to those skins to work better for netbooks, that would be a lot less work 
than updating Shade.

Yes of cause, I will do this, this is already planed.

>> How about to save the yellowish​ into Deere?
>> This way we can argue, that we have merged Deere and LateNight?

> Definitely not. The reason I started working on Deere was because I like 
its color scheme.

Why not, you could keep the blue color schema and add a yellow one.
The colour is just a matter of taste and it was considered as
beautiful when it was introduced. Sometimes a color can also be an
eye-catching and characteristic design, even it is out of fashion.


>> Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not, and has to 
do with loading times. It is known that Deere takes nearly double the time than 
Latenight to load. On a fast machine this is just a minor thing (if you're not 
relaunching the application many times to test something), but on older machines 
speed can be a decision to choose one over another.
>> I don't know if it is fully consequence of using SVG vs PNG, or other 
reasons apply.

> That is an issue. I'm not sure why there is such a big difference in load 
times. If rendering SVGs is the issue, we could cache the rendered SVGs in the 
user settings folder the first time a skin is loaded for faster startup times 
after that. That way the vectors can be scaled appropriately for the screen 
resolution and have faster startups.

The SVG rendering is one mayor time eater. The other are the plenty
skin options, because all of them are instantiated in the device memory.

Pre rendering the SVGs will help, but it will bypass the graphic
card rendering and scaling in Mac OS. Keeping a low end skin is IMHO
more straight forward here and solves both issues.





Am 27.05.2017 um 18:29 schrieb Be:



On 05/27/2017 11:00 AM, Josep Maria Antolin wrote:
 > Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not,
and has

Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-27 Thread Stéphane Lepin 
Hi everyone,
I think a dedicated "carts-only" skin, with only samplers and library
access, could be an interesting addition for radio people, as this category
of users would not be immediately interested by the DJing decks while
looking for a cartwall software. I quickly tweaked LateNight to add more
sampler decks, so I will try to make a draft cartwall-only skin.

Idea: add a dedicated window for the cartwall/sampler decks. This would
especially be useful for home radio studios, where radio DJs with
dual-monitor setups could use Mixxx's DJ decks (with or without AutoDJ) on
one screen and put a large cartwall window on another screen.

Kind regards,
Stéphane Lepin

2017-05-27 22:35 GMT+02:00 Daniel Schürmann :

> Hi,
>
> I have found a good reference for a card wall player I had in mind:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JBaUZo51mg
>
> I think it would be far more straight forward to start from the scratch
> instead of putting this into Deere and Tango. On the other hand It will
> also work as a view setting for one of them: "Radio mode"
> Finally it is only the way to get to it. Switch skin vs. Switch view
> option. Remember that we had a lot more skins in Mixxx 1.1, one for every
> resolution.
>
>
> > I don't think "instantly usable by default" is necessary, as long as it
> is easy and obvious how to configure the skin settings for a radio DJ use
> case.
>
> Yes, that is the point. A new user should be instantly be aware that Mixxx
> has a radio mode, that's all.
>
> > I suggest trying Tango and the updated Deere skins on your netbook
> before deciding to put in the work to update Shade. If there are some
> modifications we can make to those skins to work better for netbooks, that
> would be a lot less work than updating Shade.
>
> Yes of cause, I will do this, this is already planed.
>
> >> How about to save the yellowish​ into Deere?
> >> This way we can argue, that we have merged Deere and LateNight?
>
> > Definitely not. The reason I started working on Deere was because I like
> its color scheme.
>
> Why not, you could keep the blue color schema and add a yellow one.
> The colour is just a matter of taste and it was considered as beautiful
> when it was introduced. Sometimes a color can also be an eye-catching and
> characteristic design, even it is out of fashion.
>
>
> >> Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not, and has to
> do with loading times. It is known that Deere takes nearly double the time
> than Latenight to load. On a fast machine this is just a minor thing (if
> you're not relaunching the application many times to test something), but
> on older machines speed can be a decision to choose one over another.
> >> I don't know if it is fully consequence of using SVG vs PNG, or other
> reasons apply.
>
> > That is an issue. I'm not sure why there is such a big difference in
> load times. If rendering SVGs is the issue, we could cache the rendered
> SVGs in the user settings folder the first time a skin is loaded for faster
> startup times after that. That way the vectors can be scaled appropriately
> for the screen resolution and have faster startups.
>
> The SVG rendering is one mayor time eater. The other are the plenty skin
> options, because all of them are instantiated in the device memory.
>
> Pre rendering the SVGs will help, but it will bypass the graphic card
> rendering and scaling in Mac OS. Keeping a low end skin is IMHO more
> straight forward here and solves both issues.
>
>
>
>
>
> Am 27.05.2017 um 18:29 schrieb Be:
>
>>
>>
>> On 05/27/2017 11:00 AM, Josep Maria Antolin wrote:
>>  > Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not, and has to
>>  > do with loading times. It is known that Deere takes nearly double the
>>  > time than Latenight to load. On a fast machine this is just a minor
>>  > thing (if you're not relaunching the application many times to test
>>  > something), but on older machines speed can be a decision to choose one
>>  > over another.
>>  > I don't know if it is fully consequence of using SVG vs PNG, or other
>>  > reasons apply.
>>
>> That is an issue. I'm not sure why there is such a big difference in load
>> times. If rendering SVGs is the issue, we could cache the rendered SVGs in
>> the user settings folder the first time a skin is loaded for faster startup
>> times after that. That way the vectors can be scaled appropriately for the
>> screen resolution and have faster startups.
>>
>> On 05/27/2017 11:00 AM, Josep Maria Antolin wrote:
>>
>> I am not too good at graphics, and haven't looked much about making
>>> skins, so I'm not be best candidate to maintain the skin, althought
>>> seeing that the other option is removing the skin, I guess I will have
>>> to take some time and work the todo list that you mentioned above.
>>> I guess we could remove some of the yellow parts too, or at least make
>>> them color schemes.
>>>
>>>
>> I'm not too good at graphics either, but most of what you need is

Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-27 Thread Daniel Schürmann 

Hi,

I have found a good reference for a card wall player I had in mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JBaUZo51mg

I think it would be far more straight forward to start from the scratch 
instead of putting this into Deere and Tango. On the other hand It will 
also work as a view setting for one of them: "Radio mode"
Finally it is only the way to get to it. Switch skin vs. Switch view 
option. Remember that we had a lot more skins in Mixxx 1.1, one for 
every resolution.



> I don't think "instantly usable by default" is necessary, as long as 
it is easy and obvious how to configure the skin settings for a radio DJ 
use case.


Yes, that is the point. A new user should be instantly be aware that 
Mixxx has a radio mode, that's all.


> I suggest trying Tango and the updated Deere skins on your netbook 
before deciding to put in the work to update Shade. If there are some 
modifications we can make to those skins to work better for netbooks, 
that would be a lot less work than updating Shade.


Yes of cause, I will do this, this is already planed.

>> How about to save the yellowish​ into Deere?
>> This way we can argue, that we have merged Deere and LateNight?

> Definitely not. The reason I started working on Deere was because I 
like its color scheme.


Why not, you could keep the blue color schema and add a yellow one.
The colour is just a matter of taste and it was considered as beautiful 
when it was introduced. Sometimes a color can also be an eye-catching 
and characteristic design, even it is out of fashion.



>> Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not, and has 
to do with loading times. It is known that Deere takes nearly double the 
time than Latenight to load. On a fast machine this is just a minor 
thing (if you're not relaunching the application many times to test 
something), but on older machines speed can be a decision to choose one 
over another.
>> I don't know if it is fully consequence of using SVG vs PNG, or 
other reasons apply.


> That is an issue. I'm not sure why there is such a big difference in 
load times. If rendering SVGs is the issue, we could cache the rendered 
SVGs in the user settings folder the first time a skin is loaded for 
faster startup times after that. That way the vectors can be scaled 
appropriately for the screen resolution and have faster startups.


The SVG rendering is one mayor time eater. The other are the plenty skin 
options, because all of them are instantiated in the device memory.


Pre rendering the SVGs will help, but it will bypass the graphic card 
rendering and scaling in Mac OS. Keeping a low end skin is IMHO more 
straight forward here and solves both issues.





Am 27.05.2017 um 18:29 schrieb Be:



On 05/27/2017 11:00 AM, Josep Maria Antolin wrote:
 > Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not, and has to
 > do with loading times. It is known that Deere takes nearly double the
 > time than Latenight to load. On a fast machine this is just a minor
 > thing (if you're not relaunching the application many times to test
 > something), but on older machines speed can be a decision to choose one
 > over another.
 > I don't know if it is fully consequence of using SVG vs PNG, or other
 > reasons apply.

That is an issue. I'm not sure why there is such a big difference in 
load times. If rendering SVGs is the issue, we could cache the rendered 
SVGs in the user settings folder the first time a skin is loaded for 
faster startup times after that. That way the vectors can be scaled 
appropriately for the screen resolution and have faster startups.


On 05/27/2017 11:00 AM, Josep Maria Antolin wrote:


I am not too good at graphics, and haven't looked much about making
skins, so I'm not be best candidate to maintain the skin, althought
seeing that the other option is removing the skin, I guess I will have
to take some time and work the todo list that you mentioned above.
I guess we could remove some of the yellow parts too, or at least make
them color schemes.



I'm not too good at graphics either, but most of what you need is 
already there. It's mostly a matter of rearranging the UI with the skin 
XML. There are a few new icons that will need to be made. Even if you 
aren't great at graphics you can make a first draft for those icons 
while working on the skin XML. Then someone who has more graphic design 
skill can tweak the icons.


Speaking of which, if anyone wants to improve the new beatloop and 
reloop icons in Deere 2.1, please contribute.


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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-27 Thread Be 



On 05/27/2017 11:00 AM, Josep Maria Antolin wrote:
> Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not, and has to
> do with loading times. It is known that Deere takes nearly double the
> time than Latenight to load. On a fast machine this is just a minor
> thing (if you're not relaunching the application many times to test
> something), but on older machines speed can be a decision to choose one
> over another.
> I don't know if it is fully consequence of using SVG vs PNG, or other
> reasons apply.

That is an issue. I'm not sure why there is such a big difference in 
load times. If rendering SVGs is the issue, we could cache the rendered 
SVGs in the user settings folder the first time a skin is loaded for 
faster startup times after that. That way the vectors can be scaled 
appropriately for the screen resolution and have faster startups.


On 05/27/2017 11:00 AM, Josep Maria Antolin wrote:


I am not too good at graphics, and haven't looked much about making
skins, so I'm not be best candidate to maintain the skin, althought
seeing that the other option is removing the skin, I guess I will have
to take some time and work the todo list that you mentioned above.
I guess we could remove some of the yellow parts too, or at least make
them color schemes.



I'm not too good at graphics either, but most of what you need is 
already there. It's mostly a matter of rearranging the UI with the skin 
XML. There are a few new icons that will need to be made. Even if you 
aren't great at graphics you can make a first draft for those icons 
while working on the skin XML. Then someone who has more graphic design 
skill can tweak the icons.


Speaking of which, if anyone wants to improve the new beatloop and 
reloop icons in Deere 2.1, please contribute.


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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-27 Thread Josep Maria Antolin 
I see we have oppinions for each and every side.
I thought that Shade was the only really useless skin, as a leftover from
older versions and now I read one of the main developers is actually using
it, either partially or fully.

When moving from 1.11 (only a few months) to 1.12/2.0 I also felt Deere as
an "alien", being quite different to what it used to be. Said that, i I had
to doublecheck Deere 1.1 to realize that what I want from Latenight is that
it kept the Deere look.

Also, there's another debate that is ignored but should not, and has to do
with loading times. It is known that Deere takes nearly double the time
than Latenight to load. On a fast machine this is just a minor thing (if
you're not relaunching the application many times to test something), but
on older machines speed can be a decision to choose one over another.
I don't know if it is fully consequence of using SVG vs PNG, or other
reasons apply.


I am not too good at graphics, and haven't looked much about making skins,
so I'm not be best candidate to maintain the skin, althought seeing that
the other option is removing the skin, I guess I will have to take some
time and work the todo list that you mentioned above.
I guess we could remove some of the yellow parts too, or at least make them
color schemes.
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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-27 Thread Be 

On 05/27/2017 10:01 AM, Daniel Schürmann wrote:

By the way: in terms of beauty, I am still sad about dropping 1.1 Deere.
This was quite polished am unique.


I looked back at the 1.11 release announcement and found a screenshot of 
this skin:

http://mixxxblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/mixxx-1110-is-here.html

I agree, that looks good. I feel that LateNight could be a much better 
looking skin if it traded the yellow colors for the gray used by the old 
1.11 Deere. But there is still the issue of updating the skin for 2.1. 
Do we have any volunteers?


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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-27 Thread Be 

On 05/27/2017 10:01 AM, Daniel Schürmann wrote:

If we want to desig n for radio DJs, we should do usability tests
with radio DJs. Watching real people interact with the design is
much more useful than asking people on the Internet for feedback.
Usability tests are quite easy to do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTW1yYUqBm8



I fully agree. I hope Stéphane, finds time during his GSoC to do some
usability tests with his colleagues (real radio DJs).


That would be great.




What's a Card Wall Player?


Maybe one else in this list can explain it. AFAIK, it is a button grid
with buttons to start samples. The buttons have different colours and
blink schemas to indicate the state and type. In a GUI these infos can
be plain text as well.



It's not clear to me how the new sampler GUIs in Tango and Deere 
wouldn't satisfy this. Maybe there could be some small modifications to 
those designs to accommodate radio DJs more, but we need to hear from 
radio DJs about that.



If there are improvements that would help radio users, I'd rather

modify Tango and Deere than fork them or make a new skin.

I welcome a Card Wall Player in Tango and Deere. But this does not
replace a dedicated radio skin which is instantly usable by default.



I don't think "instantly usable by default" is necessary, as long as it 
is easy and obvious how to configure the skin settings for a radio DJ 
use case.





A good skin maintainer for a radio skin, is most likely not a good
maintainer for a DJ skin. But a good skin with a consistent
design is
maintained the best by a single developer/design artist.


I disagree. A good skin is best designed by a team collaborating and
reviewing each others' work.


This is true for usability, but not for design. From my experience a
good design is usually a monolith. The team can select between Design A
and B, but a mix between both looks usually odd.
I have also the odd experience, that a good design sells better than a
good usability.


Usability is design and design is usability :)


Finally we need here a conclusion what should happen with Shade and Late
night. I a willing to put some love to Shade, since I actually use it
successfully on my Netbook.


I suggest trying Tango and the updated Deere skins on your netbook 
before deciding to put in the work to update Shade. If there are some 
modifications we can make to those skins to work better for netbooks, 
that would be a lot less work than updating Shade.



How about to save the yellowish​ into Deere?
This way we can argue, that we have merged Deere and LateNight?


Definitely not. The reason I started working on Deere was because I like 
its color scheme.




By the way: in terms of beauty, I am still sad about dropping 1.1 Deere.
This was quite polished am unique.


It would be nice if we kept an archive of screenshots of each skin in 
each version of Mixxx for easy reference. A wiki page would be a good 
place for that.


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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-27 Thread Daniel Schürmann 
Deere and Tango both support all 4 mic & aux inputs supported by Mixxx.
Fader start is not a skin issue. I think a big wall clock would probably be
better served by an actual wall clock rather than a computer screen. Deere
and Tango both have on-air indicators, but they could be more prominent if
that's desired.


It is good to have two full featured skins that features two design tastes.
By default, they schould be instantly usable for the main Mixxx use case:
live DJing
and the school allow access to almost all features. Allow to configure them
for other use-cases is also a good idea, as long there is no drawback for
the main use-case. So we are on the right track here.

With add additional skins, we do not need to focus on full featured live
DJing. We have the chance to "promote" alternative use-cases without all
considerations required for a default skin. This is IMHO true for "Radio",
"Jukebox", "Touch", "Legacy Netbook" and "Design". Loading such skins from
online is a two big thesshold for evaluating users.


If we want to desig n for radio DJs, we should do usability tests with
radio DJs. Watching real people interact with the design is much more
useful than asking people on the Internet for feedback. Usability tests are
quite easy to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTW1yYUqBm8


I fully agree. I hope Stéphane, finds time during his GSoC to do some
usability tests with his colleagues (real radio DJs).


What's a Card Wall Player?


Maybe one else in this list can explain it. AFAIK, it is a button grid with
buttons to start samples. The buttons have different colours and blink
schemas to indicate the state and type. In a GUI these infos can be plain
text as well.

> If there are improvements that would help radio users, I'd rather modify
Tango and Deere than fork them or make a new skin.

I welcome a Card Wall Player in Tango and Deere. But this does not replace
a dedicated radio skin which is instantly usable by default.


>
> A good skin maintainer for a radio skin, is most likely not a good
> maintainer for a DJ skin. But a good skin with a consistent design is
> maintained the best by a single developer/design artist.
>
>
I disagree. A good skin is best designed by a team collaborating and
reviewing each others' work.


This is true for usability, but not for design. From my experience a good
design is usually a monolith. The team can select between Design A and B,
but a mix between both looks usually odd.
I have also the odd experience, that a good design sells better than a good
usability.


>

All skins should support all features, otherwise some users will have to
choose between features and their preferred aesthetics. Users should not be
tied to a skin because their controller mapping doesn't work well with
other skins.


I disagree. If we have a let's say radio skin with an outstanding design.
It is just a pity for the average user he cannot choose that.

I think Deere and Tango both demonstrate that if a GUI is well designed it
can satisfy many use cases without the maintenance burden of a skin for
each use case.


Good work so far! But not a reason to reject other already working skins.

We need peer review, input from people using Mixxx in different ways, and
empirical observations from usability tests to create good designs.


I agree if you mean usability, an not design in terms of beauty.

Like good code, good designs generally don't come from just one person
pursuing their idea.


Finally we need here a conclusion what should happen with Shade and Late
night. I a willing to put some love to Shade, since I actually use it
successfully on my Netbook.

LateNight can be IMHO dropped, since it does not provide a special use
case. How about to save the yellowish​ into Deere?
This way we can argue, that we have merged Deere and LateNight?

By the way: in terms of beauty, I am still sad about dropping 1.1 Deere.
This was quite polished am unique.
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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-26 Thread Be 

On 05/26/2017 06:22 PM, Daniel Schürmann wrote:


Why do we need a special radio skin? What would be useful on a radio
specific skin that isn't already available in Tango or Deere?


The layout and features for a radio skin are quite different. We can
indeed support all required features in Tango or Deere, but a typical
radio DJ will never feel hat home. If we try to support both use-cases
(DJ + radio) in a single so skin we probably do a bad job for both.

When I think on a radio skin, I think on a card wall player, fader
start, a big wall clock, a big "on air" lamp. First class multi mic and
Aux integration.


Deere and Tango both support all 4 mic & aux inputs supported by Mixxx. 
Fader start is not a skin issue. I think a big wall clock would probably 
be better served by an actual wall clock rather than a computer screen. 
Deere and Tango both have on-air indicators, but they could be more 
prominent if that's desired.


If we want to design for radio DJs, we should do usability tests with 
radio DJs. Watching real people interact with the design is much more 
useful than asking people on the Internet for feedback. Usability tests 
are quite easy to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTW1yYUqBm8




I think the new sampler designs will be welcomed by radio DJs.


Yes. That is a good start, but it is still not a real card wall player.


What is a card wall player?



 If there are improvements that would help radio users, I'd rather
modify Tango and Deere than fork them or make a new skin.


A good skin maintainer for a radio skin, is most likely not a good
maintainer for a DJ skin. But a good skin with a consistent design is
maintained the best by a single developer/design artist.



I disagree. A good skin is best designed by a team collaborating and 
reviewing each others' work.



As for Mixxx being known for the aesthetics in LateNight, Mixxx has
been criticized for this:
"While the current skins have been tweaked and improved there still
needs to be work done to make the default ‘LateNight’ skin a bit
more contrasting. It suffers from a similar issue to what I
experienced on the Xone:43C: too much red/orange on black."
https://djworx.com/quick-look-mixxx-2-0/

Personally, I agree with that sentiment. I don't like the colors in
LateNight. Perhaps a good designer could adjust the colors a bit to
improve the situation without having to do a major redesign, but
picking good colors is tricky. On the other hand, many people I have
shown Deere have quickly been impressed with the look of it. I think
Tango is looking really good too, but it could still be improved
with some adjustments to the waveform background colors.


If there is a common sense that the yellowish LateNight does not look
good, we can drop it. @ywwg: what do you think, what are the reasons for
or keeping it?

It seems that Jorge does not have time to fix the outstanding issues
in DarkMetal, but if someone else volunteers to implement the
changes outlined above changes and those mentioned in the pull
request ( https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/pull/1179
 ), we could include it
in 2.1. That would take quite a lot of work.


It looks like, we look at Mixxx skins from. different view. For me skins
can be used to allow different use cases (Skin A optimized for use case
A) and different visual and taste preferences. It is not required to
support all in all single skins.

So as long we have a good default settings skin that looks good and
works, for the most common on use cases, there is no need for or
additional​ Skin doing the same. From this so poin of view we there is
no need to copy all Deere features into Shade an DarkMetal.


All skins should support all features, otherwise some users will have to 
choose between features and their preferred aesthetics. Users should not 
be tied to a skin because their controller mapping doesn't work well 
with other skins. I think Deere and Tango both demonstrate that if a GUI 
is well designed it can satisfy many use cases without the maintenance 
burden of a skin for each use case. We need peer review, input from 
people using Mixxx in different ways, and empirical observations from 
usability tests to create good designs. Like good code, good designs 
generally don't come from just one person pursuing their idea.


Please remember to use Reply All to send replies to the mailing list.

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Re: [Mixxx-devel] LateNight and Shade skins in Mixxx 2.1

2017-05-26 Thread Be 
Why do we need a special radio skin? What would be useful on a radio 
specific skin that isn't already available in Tango or Deere? I think 
the new sampler designs will be welcomed by radio DJs. If there are 
improvements that would help radio users, I'd rather modify Tango and 
Deere than fork them or make a new skin.


As for Mixxx being known for the aesthetics in LateNight, Mixxx has been 
criticized for this:
"While the current skins have been tweaked and improved there still 
needs to be work done to make the default ‘LateNight’ skin a bit more 
contrasting. It suffers from a similar issue to what I experienced on 
the Xone:43C: too much red/orange on black."

https://djworx.com/quick-look-mixxx-2-0/
Personally, I agree with that sentiment. I don't like the colors in 
LateNight. Perhaps a good designer could adjust the colors a bit to 
improve the situation without having to do a major redesign, but picking 
good colors is tricky. On the other hand, many people I have shown Deere 
have quickly been impressed with the look of it. I think Tango is 
looking really good too, but it could still be improved with some 
adjustments to the waveform background colors.


It seems that Jorge does not have time to fix the outstanding issues in 
DarkMetal, but if someone else volunteers to implement the changes 
outlined above changes and those mentioned in the pull request ( 
https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/pull/1179 ), we could include it in 
2.1. That would take quite a lot of work.



On 05/26/2017 09:34 AM, Daniel Schürmann wrote:

I have original planed to keep Shade skin, because of its has PNG
graphics and works well​ on my Netbook. Otoh, the Tango skin has
potential to replace it for this use case. I will test it and report the
results here.

Actually, Mixxx is leaking a good Radio skin. We may consider to turn
Shade or any other into one. ...

My hope is also to make DarkMetal mature for 2.1. It would be a great
addition because of its fancy and realistic design. Even in the current
state it is already real cool. Does anyone on the list has fun to put
some love into DarkMetal.

It would be Ok for me to drop LateNight, because it does not feature a
unique use-case. The only issue is that this is the current default and
the yellowish has been now established for Mixxx.
Can we add a Yellow default color scheme to Deere?



Am 26.05.2017 10:03 vorm. schrieb "Be" >:

We have lots of changes to the UI for Mixxx 2.1, but significant
work has only been done on the Deere and Tango skins. We need to
decide what to do about LateNight and Shade.

LateNight and Shade are both still using raster graphics. Now that
we have support for scaling skins for high resolution screens, which
are becoming increasingly common on new laptops and monitors, they
won't scale well unless they're vectorized. Shade does not resize,
so it only makes good use of space on low resolution (netbook)
displays. LateNight wastes a lot of vertical space and feels
cramped, especially with 4 decks, on 1366x768 screens, which is the
most common laptop/desktop screen resolution in use today. Combined
with having to scale raster graphics, LateNight only looks good on a
narrow range of resolutions (1920x1080). LateNight could be
redesigned to make better use of space, but that would be *a lot* of
work that would take months to do well. Deere and Tango both fit in
netbook resolutions and use vector graphics, so they scale from
small resolutions to high resolutions. Deere now supports both split
and parallel waveform modes well, so we don't need LateNight for
those who prefer parallel waveforms.

So, we no longer have compelling needs to continue to maintain
LateNight and Shade. The only reason to keep them would be because
people like the aesthetics of them, but to keep them, they need a
lot of maintenance work done. I hope people step up. It would be a
shame to drop skins people like just because no one maintains them.

Here are changes that would need to be done at a minimum:
* Effects: 2 rows of 2 Effect Units with only one row showing by
default. Each Effect Unit shows 3 effects' metaknobs, enable button,
and effect selector, plus the chain dry/wet knob when
[EffectRack1_EffectUnitX], show_parameters is 0. When
show_parameters is set to 1, add the parameter knobs and buttons,
plus metaknob linking and inversion buttons. Both the parameters
hidden and parameters showing views need to support drawing a border
around the focused effect and showing the effect focus buttons. An
expand/collapse icon needs to be designed for toggling
show_parameters (as well as for the samplers). Effect unit routing
buttons go in the decks, samplers, microphones, and auxiliary input
sections, not the effect units, except for the master and headphone
routing buttons.
* Looping and