From: Mat Mirabella <mat_mirabella_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 19:37:34 +1100 (EST)

All.

I have to say I totally agree with this post. I have
no idea why there
would need to be a change to an already perfectly
useful and usable menu
structure. Apologies if I have missed something on
the list that explains
why the new menus have been chosen, but I cannot see
the point.

I understand the new menu idea seems more "logical"
from a programmatic
perspective - e.g. making everything fork from a
single point etc. But My
belief is that an interface should be design first and
foremost for
usability and usefulness to those who are going to use
it, rather than
strictly focussing on what seems to make logical sense
on an abstract level.

One problem with the new logic is that files and
folders are a set of
hierarchies that are in fact conceptually different
from settings and
options, and should therefore stay that way. Bunching
them all up together
in the same hierarchy can be confusing.

My thinking is that an mp3 player should have an
interface that is first and
foremost based on a way to navigate files (e.g. folder
or tag navigation),
and menus and options should be accessible via a key
press from that, rather
than menus and options sitting at the same level as
the files.

The current (new) rockbox just "feels" much more messy
to me.

For example:
The way rockbox used to be:
* I could navigate right to the file I wanted.
* I could press stop and keep pressing stop/left and I
would know that I
would always end up at the high level structure of
folders
* I could press menu to get into whatever option I
wanted after a bit of
navigation
* When I pressed stop to stop a track, the cursor
would be located at the
file which I played when I pressed play
The new rockbox:
* I have to select files first if I want to navigate
to folders.
* Pressing stop does not ultimately return me to the
top level of the
directories. Even if I set "files" as the start-up
screen, files is still
not at the root of the structure.
* if I press stop, the cursor goes back to the first
item in that directory,
not to the one I started play on. This is annoying,
because I like to get
put back to exactly where I was. Is this a bug or a
deliberate new feature?
* to get into options, there are several different
items I need to be aware
of in the root screen, settings is just one of them.

Also Recording settings is separated out from
recording, and placed into
settings. I wonder if this is the most usable way to
go.

This is all not to mention that the new voice files
don't seem to work for
me on my H340.

Mat.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: rockbox-bounces_at_cool.haxx.se
[mailto:rockbox-bounces_at_cool.haxx.se] On
Behalf Of Woody Anna Dresner
Sent: Monday, 5 March 2007 6:05 PM
To: rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se
Subject: RE: New menu structure questions

.From: "Grant Hardy"<grant_hardy_at_telus.net>
.
.As much as I still absolutely love Rockbox, I must
admit that I don't
.understand the rationale behind the new menu
structure. Theoretically,
this
.menu structure probably is more logical; but
realistically, it adds an
extra
.few keystrokes to practically any task. I am very
disappointed. As one
who
.cannot use the quick menus, I used to be able to
quickly pop into general
.settings to change my file view or shuffle options,
but it is no longer
that
.easy.

I wholeheartedly agree. And if I set my iPod to
resume on startup, hold
down Play for two seconds so I can check battery
charge or something, I have
to hunt around to resume the file I was just listening
to. And as I
mentioned yesterday, there no longer seems to be an
easy way to determine
the name of the currently playing track with speech.
Please let us know why
these changes have been made, and if the reasons
aren't too compelling, it
would be great to have the former functionality back.

Regards,
Anna












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Received on 2007-03-05