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UIsuggestionsMusic
Suggestions for music interface
UI suggestions | Music The music interface as it is right now (revision 183) is quite workable for listening to single files or whole records. It doesn't yet have playlist functionality implemented. Here are a few of my suggestions for how it could look in the end: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24171369@N03/2294819566/ EDIT: A newer concept can be found here. http://ironlionsoftware.com/pub/Concept%20mockups.pdf Because if legal implications we cant follow that concept exactly. But the principle can still be used. Notice the two coloured "buttons" in the bottom. These aren't actuall buttons but rather symbols representing buttons on a remote. Could be replaced with a key symbol. The idea here is that there are two kinds of playlist. The first is the Now Playing list. This is where you add your music. It basically concists of a new or previously existed playlist that has been loaded ito "working memory" it should be saved on a regular basis without alerting the user. Every music screen should have a "Add to current playlist" option. On the album screen it will add the entire album, on the genre screen it will add the genre on a songlist it will add individual songs etc. If there is no playlist loaded at the time entertainer should ask you what playlist to load upon pressing the "Add to Current playlist" button. It should allso give the option of creating a new list. The other button saves and empties the current playlist and starts a new one with the selected song(s) The other type of playlist is the Saved playlist No further explanation needed. Likewise the playlist interface should contain similar buttonguides for deleting playlists as well as removing songs from playlists. (Most remotes have a red function button somewhere that would be ideal for this). The main music screens should include a textbox for fast song searching if you have a keyboard, and the visible selections should dynamically update to reflect whats being typed. I have an idea for an on screen keyboard to use for those who only have regular remotes that I will write about on a different page. This text box could be in the upper left corner somwhere or in the lower right. The CD playing screen should be included in the playlists, but songs should only be able to be added temporarily to playing lists. Any CD-songs should be taken out of the Current list when its being saved to avoind trouble later on. |
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I like the idea of those colored buttons. We can provide different action depending on the screen that is currently active. In music library those buttons can have different meaning than in Weather screen for example.
I thought about adding "Now playing" to main screen, but I have to reconsider this. My reasoning for this is following. "Now playing" is not just music spesific. You can also play video or live TV. "Now playing" would appear to mainscreen menu if playback is active. By selecting that menuitem Entertainer would display the media depending on it's type. If media is video we just show VideoOSD screen (screen that is used when watching videos). If it's audio we would display that screen with album art and track information.
My point is that "Now playing" is more like a global thing in Entertainer and not specific to any media type.
I agree that search is important feature. But I'm not sure do we need seprated search UI. I would like to intergrate search functionality to menu widget. My remote has letters on numbers (think mobile phone). It's easy to click letter and then menu would just scroll to that position. Let's say I want to listen Metallica. I'm over menu and click button 6 (M). Menu scrolls to that position and from there it's easy to find it. This works only if menu is ordered alphabetically, of course.
I really like your ideas and it's good that someone is thinking this. Let's dicuss further on IRC. I would like to hear what you think of my visions.