Velocity User Interface: Input Required

[Sama]

Another 5:40AM finish for me today, I've been busy creating a skeleton interface, which I would like to get opinions on, so that I can code all the required functions etc.

Thanks to Scouse and Dracos so far for their input through chat.

Presentation is of no importance at the moment, what matters most is functionality. So try to think of things you'd like to be able to do when driving / parked.

I've attached a Flash movie of this interface. To run it, either use a the flash standalone player if you have it in the Velocity bin folder, or just drag and drop the file into ie/firefox (more suceess with firefox it seems).

The attached movie has very little actual function. It just opens and hides a panel, and shows a load of buttons, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Note that a lot of buttons are combo buttons. If you click on the button, it'll perform the default/last selected action. Or you can select a more specialised action from the drop down list. This is very much like the photoshop style buttons. And if a combo-button name has "..." affixed to it, that means it doesn't have a default function, and if it were coded properly it would just open the combo box when clicked.

It's also worth noting that Velocity will (optionally) keep its own statistics and meta information to speed up searches, and allow convinience queries like "what songs have I never heard?" or "which songs do I always skip?"

Things I'd love to hear opinion on are:

• intuitiveness of this combo button approach
  
• the level of information / cluter / grouping
  
• any usefuless functions
  
• any missing / desired features
  
• queries which you think would be useful
  
• anything I haven't thought of, that you think I should have asked you, and ofcourse the answer to it!

Cheers...



The VUI

[Scouse Monkey]

logging in :D

[nigelf]

Impressed!

could the drop down buttons be actioned if press and held, the reason i ask is for my own use, i will be on a motorbike without a pointy thing to action the dropdown side so a press and hold function would be handy.

I hope this is the type of suggestion your after

Nigel

[nigelf]

Oh and could you add "folder" to the mode button

;)

[2Fast]

snazzy

[Sama]

Originally Posted by nigelf

Impressed!

could the drop down buttons be actioned if press and held, the reason i ask is for my own use, i will be on a motorbike without a pointy thing to action the dropdown side so a press and hold function would be handy.

I hope this is the type of suggestion your after

Nigel

that's a good idea about, and this is exactly the type of suggestion I'm after :)

regarding the folder button, I'm don't think it can work, 'cos if you select the folder, you'd have to get it to the playlist somehow. but then, for you to mention it, it must be an intuitive thing to do. can you think of way it could work?

[~Rob]

Is there a Repeat Playlist + Shuffle? Or am I missing the button?

BTW, on a screen press and hold would be the equivalent of a right-click. Can you use r-clicks in flash?

[Sama]

R + S noted.

not sure about right clicks, but I can listen to presses, and then wait a certain amount for a release. if it doesn't happen in a set time, that's a press and hold.

[~Rob]

But I think that the touch screen would relay a press and hold as a right click so the software would not be aware that a press and hold has occured. It might be worth experimenting to find out, becasue you can drag windows around with a touch screen, so maybe it's only stationary press and holds that are counted as right clicks?

[Sama]

yep, that's true. tho saying that, I've always hated that right click from TS drivers. because if you want to press and hold on FF or RWD, or on going down/up in a list, it'll stop every 0.5 seconds (or so)

[Scouse Monkey]

can you not disable the right click on the driver when in the frontend. then when in windows use that little mouse overlay in the bottom right to select right click?

[Sama]

yeah, that's probably the way to go. disable driver when in front end, and manage right clicks. then in windows, re-enable it.

[Sama]

udpated the interface with some minor changes, and some annotation, check it: http://www.imprint-aa.com/Velocity/velocity.swf

[Dracos]

looks spot on. but as discussed last night, when swapping between the window and the dir/pl list, rather than have just a flick on/of, have a smooth slide between them.

otherwise, wicked :)

[Baj]

Looking good. Aesthetically could do with a once over but functionality looks good