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FS#8731 - Using the Select button to advance to the next track

Attached to Project: Rockbox
Opened by Phoenix Gabriel (q00u) - Friday, 14 March 2008, 17:00 GMT+2
Last edited by Dominik Riebeling (bluebrother) - Thursday, 20 March 2008, 23:59 GMT+2
Task Type Feature Requests
Category User Interface
Status Closed
Assigned To No-one
Player Type Sansa e200
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version Daily build (which?)
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Private No

Details

Executive Summary:
The action I take most often is switching to the next track; I'd like to use the large button for that.

Full Description:
The e200 series has just wee buttons on the sides. They're not terribly hard to use when you're not doing anything else, but when I'm in the car, I tend to fumble around with the player.

Since there is already a car-mode, would it be possible to swap the right (next) button with the large middle (select) button when in said mode? Or even separately from the car-mode. I'd just like to be able to easily and consistently advance to the next track without taking my eyes off the road.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Björn Stenberg (zagor)
Thursday, 20 March 2008, 23:59 GMT+2
Reason for closing:  Rejected
Additional comments about closing:  Closing all feature requests.
Comment by Dave Chapman (linuxstb) - Friday, 14 March 2008, 19:48 GMT+2
I think it's extremely unlikely this feature will be implemented - it's a feature that not everyone will want, and most of the developers involved with Rockbox are strongly against the idea of user-configurable buttons on the grounds that it adds unnecessary complication (to the code and to supporting people using it).

However, remember that Rockbox is open source, which means that with a little learning, you can make such trivial changes to the code yourself and create your own personalised version of Rockbox.

There is a lot of documentation in the Rockbox wiki on how to compile your own version of Rockbox, and if you wanted to (for example) swap the behaviour of the select and right buttons within the While Playing Screen (WPS), you would just need to change the lines related to the WPS in the file apps/keymaps/keymap-e200.c in the Rockbox source code.
Comment by Phoenix Gabriel (q00u) - Saturday, 15 March 2008, 03:11 GMT+2
I didn't mean for this to sound like user-configurable buttons. I meant this as a modification of the car mode, specifically on the e200 series, specifically because the Next button is so tiny. It's not for RockBox in general, it's not for the e200 all the time, just car mode.

Currently, the Select and Right buttons are functionally identical _except_ when playing. When playing a song, they diverge. It is my opinion that, from a usability standpoint (strictly because of the size of the buttons [have I mentioned the side buttons are TINY?]) their functionality should be reversed.

But I do understand that it's less intuitive to press the center Select button to go next, and the Right side button for a menu. Which is why I suggested this for car mode only, because that's when it becomes most important. When you're driving, you're not going to be bringing up menus very often (or possibly ever). However, you will be skipping to the next track _often_. As it currently stands, it's hard to hit the next button, but EASY to accidentally hit the menu button, at which point you *have to* take your eyes off the road to navigate back to the While Playing screen.

I understand why it is set the way it is. But I wish someone would take the e200 itself into account, because right now, it's not very usable. Or at least, not very safe to use while driving.

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