Semi Hold mode?

[bobdotexe]

I dislike hold mode because if you want to hear what some one has to say;
and not miss the "good part" of a song you have to un-hold it and back out of any sub menu you happen to be in at the time, and then pause;

and when not in hold mode I find myself trying to pause (or skip a song) when the player is in my pocket, and it wont pause;  so I take the player out of my pocket to find I'm in some playback mode menu changing settings 

I propose a Semi-Hold mode where the player stays in the WPS;
and only alows you to change pause or change track (if button is held)
to prevent roaming, through menus; and  to help me keep my sanity.

[Llorean]

Why not put it back in the WPS before putting it on hold, so that "un-hold it and back out of any sub menu you happen to be in at the time" simplifies to simply "un-hold it"?

Also, as a tip - if you're in menus, the "resume playback" button takes you back to the WPS. This is also on most players also the pause button, so if one press of "pause" doesn't pause playback, usually the second one will.

[Kugelcooker]

10/10 idea, something i've always wanted - BUT re your proposition of semi-hold allowing track skips - idk about you but when i ever put my player into hold the main reason is to prevent track skipping. Pause would be... brilliant, though. as far as i know no other firmware allows for that.
P.S. my player's a Iriver H10, with bulging track skip buttons... ppl with different players could have different prefernces - It'd be interesting to hear what others have to say

[AlexP]

Hold is hold and should function as hold.

[Yotto]

I turn on "Pause On Headphone Unplug" and use it all the time to pause. On my iPod, it's far easier than actually finding pause when its in my armband. I don't even use hold all that often, but it'd work fine for that too.

And I agree with AlexP. I put hold on when I don't want any controls to do anything. If it allowed anything at all, it wouldn't be functioning correctly.

[Kugelcooker]

A) where on earth is the "turn of on headphone unplug" option? or is that only an option available for ipods? i'd love to have it on my Iriver H10.

B) - Alexp -what did you mean? isn't rockbox about being able to customise the experience? doesn't the existence of this thread say that there are those that don't view hold as an absolute...?

Personally enabling pause even while hold was on would be right up there on my player dreamlist and would definitely influence what firmware i'd use. No offense, but that's how it is

[Yotto]

A) I have no idea if it's only on iPods. On my iPod it's in Menu->Settings->Playback, about halfway down the menu. I suppose you need a player that can detect if the headphones are plugged in.

I won't answer B) but I don't think anybody would take offense to you not using Rockbox. And I also don't mean that to be taken as offensive.

[[Saint]]

Kugelcooker,

To me, "Hold" means:

"Stop me from being able to make accidental button presses"

Enabling even one button to work whilst hold is on still leaves the element of an accidental button press, what if you have it on "Hold" and *accidentally* press pause?
You wouldn't find that annoying?

I would...


Hold is Hold...to me, with no exceptions.


[St.]

[Chronon]

A) where on earth is the "turn of on headphone unplug" option? or is that only an option available for ipods? i'd love to have it on my Iriver H10.

B) - Alexp -what did you mean? isn't rockbox about being able to customise the experience? doesn't the existence of this thread say that there are those that don't view hold as an absolute...?

Personally enabling pause even while hold was on would be right up there on my player dreamlist and would definitely influence what firmware i'd use. No offense, but that's how it is

A) This option ("Pause on Headphone Unplug") is supported on all players on which the hardware is capable of detecting the headphones being unplugged.  Gigabeats have this option.  The MR-100 has it too.

B) Rockbox runs in embedded environments and seeks to maintain a small footprint while providing maximum functionality.  Realistically, not every possible feature can be added to the core firmware binary.  Each feature needs to be carefully considered and its potential benefits weighed against increase in size. 

You are free to use whichever firmware you like on your devices.  This is a personal decision and this isn't likely to make very much impact on the decisions made by developers.

As for this particular feature, I also think that Hold should function according to well-defined expected behavior. 

[JdGordon]

Kugelcooker,

To me, "Hold" means:

"Stop me from being able to make accidental button presses"

Enabling even one button to work whilst hold is on still leaves the element of an accidental button press, what if you have it on "Hold" and *accidentally* press pause?
You wouldn't find that annoying?

I would...


Hold is Hold...to me, with no exceptions.


[St.]

That really only makes sense on targets where pocket presses are easy on all buttons (i.e ipods). I really like the D2 OF which lets you change what the +M- buttons do with hold on, you can set it to do nothing, next/prev track, or volume. It works well there because most functions use the touchsceen and those actual buttons are rather hard to accidentally press

[nwimpney]

I kind of like this idea, but not so much a semi-hold, as a "WPS lock"

It's probably quite different with larger or touch-screen players with more of a tendency to bump around in your pocket, but I've always sticked to small simple players that can be easily operated without looking at the screen.  (while skating/cycling, etc.)

My clip+ has fairly stiff buttons, so I generally don't have to worry about locking it, and I like having the track skip and volume buttons handy, but occasionally I'll press the wrong button, and end up in some menu, where I have to look at the screen to navigate back to the WPS.

A mode with only volume controls, play/pause, and track forward/back would be great. 

Not really useful for the fancy touchscreen crowd, but awesome for minimalist players that can be used no-look.

-Nick

[Strife89]

I kind of like this idea, but not so much a semi-hold, as a "WPS lock"

• ccasionally I'll press the wrong button, and end up in some menu, where I have to look at the screen to navigate back to the WPS.

* Strife89 seconds this.

I usually keep my iPod in my pocket once I have my playlist loaded, and just fiddle with the controls by pressing/sliding the controls from the outside.

Thing is, if at any time I (or something else) press Menu or Select, or hold Menu, then I've placed the iPod into a menu without realizing it. This forces me to pull my iPod out of my pocket and navigate back to the WPS (which cannot be done by simply pressing Play if I'm in the Quickscreen; but if I assume this and press select and it turns out I'm in the File Browser, there goes my playlist!).

On targets with relatively few buttons (such as the iPods), even if a "WPS Lock" could be/is implemented, button mappings would be difficult to decide on. My solution: design/intend for WPS Lock to be toggled by Hold-switch-flipping (that is, flipping Hold from off, to on, and back to off in quick succession) while in the WPS. If the user somehow manages to glitch the setting, powering off or a hard reset might be the only way out.

So anyway, what do y'all think? Does nwimpney's idea hold up?

[JdGordon]

Having a mode which doeesnt let you exit the current screen is an interesting idea.... toggleing it would presumably be hold+select or something.
as usual it is up to someone to actually code it before we can decide for sure if it would work

[nwimpney]

Having a mode which doeesnt let you exit the current screen is an interesting idea.... toggleing it would presumably be hold+select or something.
as usual it is up to someone to actually code it before we can decide for sure if it would work

Yeah.  This is what I'm thinking.  It wouldn't be replacement for the standard hold mode, by any means.  sometimes you want it to be totally mash-proof, which is why hold is there.

So all you "HOLD is HOLD" guys can relax.    We don't want that changed.  Just another mode where you can operate it blind without getting lost in the menus.

[Chronon]

So all you "HOLD is HOLD" guys can relax.    We don't want that changed.  Just another mode where you can operate it blind without getting lost in the menus.

* Chronon relaxes.