From: Mats Lidell <matsl_at_contactor.se>
Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 02:30:04 +0200

>>>>> Magnus wrote:

Magnus> Here's another WPS patch, adding a display mode primarily
Magnus> intended for players.

Nice! It works fine!

Let me take the opportunity to discuss a bit around the wps screen
based on this patch and my own personal experiments.

Magnus> The first line displays the following information, ...

In the recorder there are a few lines to use but in the player we are
stuck with two lines so what to do? ...

Magnus> ... The second line alters every five seconds between two
Magnus> displays, "<mm:ss><s><p><nnnn>" and "<-mm:ss><kbps><*>". The
Magnus> fields are as follows: play time, shuffle flag, playlist flag,
Magnus> playlist index; remaining play time, bitrate, vbr flag.

Time -- We can use time to alter what is showed either by scrolling
the information or by showing it for a limited time just as in Magnus
patch. The later works better IMHO for showing time as numbers.

In the wps I guess most listeners would like to see information
related to what song they are hearing. More detailed and technical
information isn't that interesting here.

So I have tried to change the info based on whether the song is played
or not. While playing I display the play time and track number. While
paused I show the other technical information, total play time,
bit rate, etc, as a scroll with the most interesting info first.

An additional benefit of using time or another mode to change the
display is that you don't need any buttons for that. With a more
advanced unit, more lines and more buttons, you could use a button to
get to a certain info that on the simpler unit will pop up itself as a
side effect of something or just because time passes.

Magnus> The patch also makes the time display update 5 times per
Magnus> second rather than 2, which looks better.

Agreed. Your patch looks much better.

Magnus> * tracknum isn't displayed at the moment. Seems like it isn't
Magnus> set properly if a ID3V2 file is playing (haven't tried ID3V1
Magnus> only).

I have the same problem but I'm not sure about how to use the track
number when I eventually will get it. The more important information
IMHO is the order of the song in the current play list. So I would
rather see that in the WPS and display the track number later as a
more technical thing. It would be nice if the total number of songs in
the play list was easy to get to as well. I rate that higher than the
track number.

Other things I have tried for the player is to have the Volume control
on the + and - buttons in WPS just as for the Recorder. This is more
natural IMHO. This removes the possibility to change song so I have
activated this while the song i paused or stopped. This means two
buttons to press to change song. Press pause (or stop) and then press
+.

I also think that the next song feature isn't that useful (for me and
thus explains why I like the Volume control feature better.). I would
rather have a more powerful play list-scroll instead so that I can
find the song in the play list I'm looking for. (This is also more
natural when the play list is paused or stopped IMHO.) This could
possibly be as simple as showing the track number or the filename from
the play list. The full id3-info is likely to time-consuming to get
for a fast play list scroll. Ideal would be to scroll around in the
full id3-info but I doubt that it will be possible unless we cache the
id3-info in a file.

Yours

-- 
%% Mats

Received on 2002-08-04