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Wiki > Main > MenuLayoutDiscussion

The Menu Layout Discussion Page


Introduction

This page is for discussion regarding the menu layout. Please contribute your thoughts in an organized fashion in the Discussion sections below, and don't forget to sign your comments.

The page was refreshed on January 31st, 2008 because the previous discussion was terribly out of date. I have added the current menu layout as it appears on the Sansa e200, please update the tree if there are entries on other devices with which I'm not familiar. I've intentionally left out menu levels which are indisputably linked to the upper level, such as the Replaygain options and Line Selector Colours. The plugins have been left out as well for obvious reasons. Hopefully some constructive discussion will take place here that will eventually lead to an improved menu organization. Throw your darts, folks.


Current Layout


Main Menu

  • Recent Bookmarks
  • Files
  • Database
  • Now Playing
  • Settings
  • Recording
  • FM Radio
  • Playlists
  • Plugins
  • System

Discussion

  • I'd strongly suggest making the "Main Menu" a selection in all the context menus (so you could get to the main menu from context menus). This would mean new users (and forgetful users like myself) would only need to learn one "menu" button (i.e. the context menu) and not two. It would also mean you'd have an intuitive path when looking for an option, USE CASE; Users wants "Recent bookmarks". Not knowing where it is, they press the context menu button, don't find it there, so they can select "Main menu" and find it there. Much more intuitive than exiting out of the context menu and trying to remember where the "other menu button" is. The main menu itself and the key to access it directly would remain unchanged (but I've added the discussion here because I didn't want to add this discussion to each and every context menu). Adding it to the end of the context menu would not require more key presses for existing functionality. -- PeterHalasz - 03 Jul 2008



Files Context Menu

  • Files
    • Playlist
      • Insert
      • Insert Next
      • Insert Last
      • Insert Shuffled
      • Queue
      • Queue Next
      • Queue Last
      • Queue Shuffled
      • Play Next
    • Playlist Catalog
      • View Catalog
      • Add to Playlist
      • Add to New Playlist
    • Rename
    • Cut
    • Copy
    • Delete Directory
    • Create Directory
    • Properties
    • Set As Recording Directory
    • Add to Shortcuts

Discussion



Database Context Menu

  • Database
    • Playlist
      • Same as Files, see above

Discussion



WPS Context Menu

  • Now Playing
    • Current Playlist
      • View Current Playlist
      • View Bookmarks (associated with this Playlist/Folder)
      • Search in Playlist
      • Save Current Playlist
      • Reshuffle
    • Playlist Catalog
      • View Catalog
      • Add to Playlist
      • Add to New Playlist
    • Sound Settings
    • Playback Settings
    • Set Song Rating
    • Create Bookmark (was "Bookmarks")
    • Open With...
    • Show Track Info
    • Delete
    • Pitch
    • Open containing folder (jump to File view with this file selected -- please?)

Discussion

  • Why not add Pitch to the main Sound Settings menu and remove it from this list? -- MarcGuay - 01 Feb 2008
    • I assume this is because it's not a setting (i.e. it's not persisted), although this might have changed recently -- SteveBavin - 02 Feb 2008
    • I agree with MarcGuay. From a user's perspective, pitch belongs with sound settings (and If it were moved there tomorrow that's where I'm sure even the oldest users would expect to find it). Its slightly different persistence could be noted in the interface when you go to change it (if that needs to be said to the user at all -- it will become apparent when they restart their rockbox device anyway). The benefit of having pitch in the context menu (i.e. that it gives a slight suggestion that pitch is not persisted) is completely overwhelmed by the confusion it brings by having "Pitch" by itself in this context menu and not with other sound settings. -- PeterHalasz - 03 Jul 2008
  • Having "Bookmarks" in here but "Recent bookmarks" in the main menu is very confusing. "Create bookmark" is relevant to the currently playing track, but "View bookmarks" is relevant to the current playlist/folder, and not the current track, so it should be put into the "Current playlist" menu to make the context clear. It would be good if there was a "View (All) Bookmarks" within the main menu's bookmarks menu too. -- PeterHalasz - 03 Jul 2008
  • The purpose of having "Playlist Catalog" in this context menu seems to be so you can add the current track to one or more playlists. The name "Playlist Catalog" does not suggest this. I'd suggest a name change (I dont know what) that makes it more clear why you'd want to see the playlist catalog from this context menu. -- PeterHalasz - 03 Jul 2008
  • Open containing folder is a bit of a feature request, but it's the menu for it. I won't add any more smile -- PeterHalasz - 03 Jul 2008



Settings Menu

  • Settings
    • Sound Settings
      • Volume
      • Bass
      • Treble
      • Balance
      • Channel Configuration
      • Stereo Width
      • Crossfeed
        • Crossfeed
        • Direct Gain
        • Cross Gain
        • High-Frequency Attenuation
        • High-Frequency Cutoff
      • Equalizer
        • Enable EQ
        • Graphical EQ
        • Precut
        • Simple EQ Settings
        • Advanced EQ Settings
        • Save EQ Preset
        • Browse EQ Presets
      • Dithering
    • Playback Settings
      • Shuffle
      • Repeat
      • Play Selected First
      • Fast-Forward/Rewind
      • Fade on Stop/Pause
      • Party Mode
      • Crossfade
      • Replaygain
      • Beep Volume
      • Auto-Change Directory
      • Last.fm Log
      • Cuesheet Support
    • General Settings
      • Playlists
        • Recursively Insert Directories
        • Warn When Erasing Dynamic Playlist
      • File View
        • Sort Case Sensitive
        • Sort Directories
        • Sort Files
        • Show Files
        • Show Filename Extensions
        • Follow Playlist
        • Show Path
      • Database
        • Auto Update
        • Initialize Now
        • Update Now
        • Gather Runtime Data
        • Export Modifications
        • Import Modifications
      • Display
        • LCD Settings
          • Backlight
          • Backlight (While Plugged In)
          • Backlight on Hold
          • Caption Backlight
          • First Buttonpress Enables Backlight
          • Sleep (After Backlight Off)
          • Brightness
          • LCD Mode
          • Upside Down
        • Remote LCD Settings
          • Backlight
          • Backlight (While Plugged In)
          • Backlight on Hold
          • Caption Backlight
          • First Button Press Enables Backlight Only
          • Contrast (for colour displays)
          • Brightness (for mono displays)
          • LCD Mode (for mono displays)
          • Upside Down
          • Reduce Ticking
        • Scrolling
          • Scroll Speed
          • Scroll Start Delay
          • Scroll Step Size
          • Bidrectional Scroll Limit
          • Remote Scrolling Options
          • Screen Scrolls Out Of view
          • Screen Scroll Step Size
          • Paged Scrolling
          • List Acceleration Start Delay
          • List Acceleration Speed
        • Status-/Scrollbar
          • Scroll Bar
          • Status Bar
          • Volume Display
          • Battery Display
        • Peak Meter
          • Peak Release
          • Peak Hold Time
          • Clip Hold Time
          • Clip Counter
          • Scale
          • Minimum Of Range
          • Maximum Of Range
        • Default Codepage
      • System
        • Start Screen
        • Battery
          • Battery Capacity
          • Charge During USB Connection
        • Disk
          • Disk Spindown
          • Directory Cache
        • Time & Date
        • Idle Poweroff
        • Wake-Up Alarm
        • Alarm Wake up Screen
        • Limits
          • Max Entries in File Browser
          • Max Playlist Size
        • Car Adapter Mode
        • Wheel Light Timeout
        • Keyclick
      • Bookmarking
        • Bookmark on Stop
        • Load Last Bookmark
        • Maintain a List of Recent Bookmarks?
      • Language
      • Voice
        • Voice Menus
        • Voice Directories
        • Use Directory .talk Clips
        • Voice Filenames
        • Use File .talk Clips
        • Say File Type
        • Announce Battery Level
    • Theme Settings
      • Browse Themes
      • Browse Fonts
      • Browse .wps files
      • Show Icons
      • Clear Backdrop
      • Line Selector Type
      • Colours
        • Line Selector Colours
        • Background Colour
        • Foreground Colour
        • Reset Colours
    • Recording Settings
      • Format
      • Encoder Settings
      • Frequency
      • Source
      • Channels
      • File Split Options
      • Prerecord Time
      • Clear Recording Directory
      • Clipping Light
      • Trigger
      • Browse .cfg files
      • Save .cfg file
    • Manage Settings
      • Browse .cfg files
      • Reset Settings
      • Save .cfg file
      • Save Sound Settings
      • Save Theme Settings

Discussion

  • I suggest that "General Settings" is removed, and everything under it to be moved up one level. -- SteveBavin - 01 Feb 2008
    • For those interested in what this would look like:
      • Sound Settings
      • Playback Settings
      • Playlist Settings
      • File View Settings
      • Database Settings
      • Display Settings
      • Theme Settings
      • System Settings
      • Bookmarking Settings
      • Recording Settings
      • Manage Settings

  • Avoid any particular wording being used in more than one place. e.g. we should change the "System" option to be "System Settings", or perhaps "Hardware". -- SteveBavin - 01 Feb 2008

  • Potentially contradicting my previous point, we should remove the word "Settings" except for at the top level. e.g. "Sound Settings" becomes just "Sound" (or perhaps "Audio"). -- SteveBavin - 01 Feb 2008
    • This is also potentially confusing or other things have to be renamed as well. For example the swedish translation did (or still does in general) leave out the "settings" part and so there were two menu items in the swcodec radio menu called "recording" - one lead to the recording settings and the other to the recording screen, recently fixed. Surely you can rename them to "recording" and "recording screen" or make an exception here, it's just a thing to keep an eye on and think about. -- MarianneArnold - 01 Feb 2008

  • Could the entire "Theme Settings" menu be disposed of, split into the "Manage Settings" and "Display" menus? -- SteveBavin - 01 Feb 2008

  • The entries under General -> System -> Limits, "Max Entries in File Browser" and "Max Playlist Size" should be moved to their respective menus, "File View Settings" and "Playlist Settings". -- MarcGuay - 02 Feb 2008

  • Manage Settings -> "Save Sound Settings" and "Save Theme Settings" should be moved to their respective menus, "Sound Settings" and "Theme Settings". -- MarcGuay - 02 Feb 2008

  • "Beep Volume" should be renamed to something more descriptive like "Track Skip Beep" or "Track Change Beep" so it doesn't require being looked up in the manual to use the first time. -- MarcGuay - 02 Feb 2008

  • Create a seperate entry for the Backlight settings under a System Settings -> Hardware menu, and leave the Brightness, LCD Mode, and Upside Down with the Display Settings. This makes less sense after some reflection... -- MarcGuay - 02 Feb 2008

  • I've added an illustration of a new Settings Menu proposal at the end of the page that incorporates these suggestions.

  • The major problem is that the above lacks the remote settings. The following option have separate settings for main and remote displays:
    • Backlight
    • Backlight (While Plugged In)
    • Backlight on Hold
    • Caption Backlight
    • First Button Press Enables Backlight Only
    • Contrast (for colour displays)
    • Brightness (for mono displays)
    • LCD Mode (for mono displays)
    • Upside Down
    • There's also a Reduce Ticking option, just for the remote - this isn't really a display option though, so it might be better under Hardware.
  • Using the manuals and the info you provided I tried to add this to the current menu layout above, could someone do a once over to make sure it's correct? I could only find the option for "Contrast" in the iriver H100 manual, by the way... Not sure if that's the only one or if it's an incomplete part of the manual...-- MarcGuay - 04 Feb 2008
  • The "Show Path" setting under the File View settings also applies to the Database and so is out of place. Perhaps a duplicate entry in the Database settings would be appropriate, or even better, have a separate setting for both views.



Recording Settings Menu

  • Recording
    • Format
    • Encoder Settings
    • Frequency
    • Source
    • Channels
    • File Split Options
    • Prerecord Time
    • Clear Recording Directory
    • Clipping Light
    • Trigger
    • Browse .cfg files
    • Save .cfg file

Discussion

  • If it's possible I think that the Encoder Settings option should only be a sub-menu of Formats which support variation, such as MP3. -- MarcGuay - 31 Jan 2008



FM Radio Menu

  • FM Radio
    • Presets (Archos OndioFM Only)
    • Add Preset
    • Load Preset List
    • Save Preset List
    • Clear Preset List
    • Force Mono
    • Mode (Archos OndioFM Only)
    • Region
    • Sound Settings
    • Recording (Not on Archos OndioFM, FM-Recorder/Recorder V2)
    • Recording Settings
    • Auto-Scan Presets

Discussion

  • Can "Sound Settings" be the first option in the FM Radio Menu Settings instead of Add Preset, so 1st setting Sound Settings Then Add Preset -- NikkhilNarang - 01 Feb 2008
    • Why? -- MarcGuay - 01 Feb 2008
    • So that one can easily mess around with a few sound settings very fast, like bass, treble, EQ -- NikkhilNarang - 02 Feb 2008
    • Also it would be more consistent with other menus. -- SteveBavin - 02 Feb 2008



Playlists Menu

  • Playlists
    • Create Playlist
    • View Current Playlist
    • Save Current Playlist
    • View Catalog

Discussion



Plugins Menu

  • Plugins
    • Games
    • Applications
    • Demos

Discussion



System Menu

  • System
    • Rockbox Info
    • Version
    • Running Time
    • Sleep Timer
    • Debug (Keep Out!)

Discussion

  • Move the Sleep Timer to the System Settings menu next to the Wake-Up Alarm. -- MarcGuay - 01 Feb 2008
    • This entry was moved here intentionally, because it is not a setting (in the sense that settings are set by the user to their optimal value and then not changed that often; sleep timer is a function that should be easy to find without going down the settings hierachy). I don't have a player with Wake-Up Alarm but I think this should be moved here, too. -- SimonMenzel - 11 Mar 2008
  • Sleep Timer does not belong here. Perhaps we could make a new "organizer" menu with the sleep timer and the wake-up alarm and maybe a stopwatch and countdown timer (it'd also be the place for a calendar and to-do list too). I never knew I had a Sleep Timer until I saw this here, and I'd never think to look under System for it. "System" is for checking details of the system, and that's what all the other options are about. Also having it just after "Running time" is positively confusing -- as it makes the user think they have a similar purpose (e.g. checking the amount of time the device or CPU has been asleep). -- PeterHalasz - 03 Jul 2008
  • "Version" should be re-titled "Credits" as that's what it mainly is. The version number is more easily accessed by both sighted and blind users (it's voiced) through the Rockbox Info menu.



General Discussion

  • I think that having about 7-9 entries in major menu levels would be a good goal (you know the saying, a person can keep 7 things in his/her head at once). The settings tree should be as flat as possible, to have short navigation paths. -- SimonMenzel - 11 Mar 2008
  • this came up in IRC again.... http://www.rockbox.org/irc/log-20080429#10:00:10 (discussion about the sound, playback and playlist submenus and their relationship)
  • Maybe this is more or less unrelated to this page's main goal, but I think it is very confusing to have the context menus full screen;
    in the ZVM's OF you'll see these appearing as another "window" on the right which takes about 3/4 space up vertically and 1/3 horizontally.
    I believe (since viewports are now "supported") this could help a lot to usability and overview in the menus.
    What do others think? (Or should this be moved to another wiki page?) -- MaurusCuelenaere - 29 Apr 2008



Layout Proposals


Settings Menu Proposal

Top Menu

  • Listening Settings
  • Recording Settings
  • Display Settings
  • System Settings

Expanded (only submenus with changes are shown)

  • Listening Settings
    • Sound
      • Volume
      • Bass
      • Treble
      • Balance
      • Channel Configuration
      • Stereo Width
      • Crossfeed
      • Equalizer
      • Replaygain
      • Dithering
      • Save Sound Settings
    • Playback
      • Shuffle
      • Repeat
      • Play Selected First
      • Fast-Forward/Rewind
      • Fade on Stop/Pause
      • Party Mode
      • Auto-Change Directory
      • Last.fm Log
      • Cuesheet Support
      • Crossfade
    • Playlists
      • Recursively Insert Directories
      • Warn When Erasing Dynamic Playlist
      • Max Playlist Size
    • Bookmarking

  • Recording Settings
    • Format
      • PCM Wave
      • AIFF
      • WavPack
      • MPEG Layer 3
        • Encoder Settings
    • Frequency
    • Source
    • Channels
    • File Split Options
    • Prerecord Time
    • Clear Recording Directory
    • Clipping Light
    • Trigger
    • Browse .cfg files
    • Save Recording Settings (instead of Save .cfg file)

  • Display Settings
    • LCD Settings
      • Brightness
      • LCD Mode
      • Upside Down
    • Theme Settings
      • Browse Themes
      • Browse Fonts
      • Show Icons
      • Browse .wps files
      • Peak Meter
      • Line Selector Type
      • Colours
      • Clear Backdrop
      • Save Theme Settings
    • Scrolling
    • Status-/Scrollbar

  • System Settings
    • File View
      • Sort Case Sensitive
      • Sort Directories
      • Sort Files
      • Show Files
      • Show Filename Extensions
      • Follow Playlist
      • Show Path
      • Max Entries in File Browser
    • Database
    • Language
    • Default Codepage
    • Voice
      • Voice File Type (instead of Say File Type, to be more consistent with the other entries in this menu)
    • Hardware
      • Disk
      • Car Adapter Mode
      • Wheel Light Timeout
      • Idle Poweroff
      • Backlight Settings
        • Backlight
        • Backlight (While Plugged In)
        • Backlight on Hold
        • Caption Backlight
        • First Buttonpress Enables Backlight
        • Sleep (After Backlight Off)
      • Wake-Up Alarm
        • Wake-Up Alarm
        • Wake-Up Screen (instead of Alarm Wake up Screen)
      • Sleep Timer
    • Start Screen
    • Time & Date
    • Keyclick
    • Track Skip Beep (instead of Beep Volume)
    • Manage Settings
      • Browse .cfg Files
      • Reset Settings
      • Save Settings (instead of Save .cfg File)

Discussion

  • Let me know what you think, add your comments to the menu, change the menu, whatever. -- MarcGuay - 02 Feb 2008
  • Note: Remote LCD settings missing. They would be put parallel to the main LCD settings. -- MarcGuay - 04 Feb 2008

  • -- JonathanGordon - 04 Feb 2008
    • I'm not sure I like playback and playlists under listening...
    • "max playlist size" and "max entries in file browser" should go under system
    • language how you have it is unfortunatly impossible... the language list just jumps to the file browser.
    • alarm, sleep and time should maybe put into a new menu?
    • file view under system?
    • the 3 or 4 "save blaa settings" should all go under manage settings, and same for the "browse .cfg files"
    • theme settings under display?
      • Maybe it would help to have explained the basic logic behind the layout. I broke the options up into broad categories based on the senses, so you end up with Audio Out, Audio In, Eye, and... System/Other? I figure most people going into the settings start out looking for something related to one of these categories, and organized it as such. So that's how the Theme settings ended up under Display/Eye and File View Settings ended up under System. -- MarcGuay - 04 Feb 2008

  • I generally like this approach, but would prefer to have less depth and longer lists (if that makes sense); only having 4 options in the root Settings menu feels wrong somehow. -- SteveBavin - 21 Feb 2008


WPS Context Menu Proposal

  • Now Playing
    • Playlist
      • View Current Playlist
      • Search In Playlist
      • Save Current Playlist
      • Reshuffle
      • Playlist Catalog
        • View Catalog
        • Add to Playlist
        • Add to New Playlist
    • Sound Settings
    • Playback Settings
    • Set Song Rating
    • Bookmarks
    • Show Track Info
    • Delete
    • Pitch

Discussion

  • Let me know what you think, add your comments to the menu, change the menu, whatever.-- SteveBavin - 20 May 2008


r63 - 02 Apr 2021 - 20:46:07 - UnknownUser

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